Ten Principles For The Study of Proporti

25
Ten Principles for the Study of

Proportional Systems in the
History of Architecture
Matthew A. Cohen
In his keynote address to the 2011 Leiden conference, “Proportional Systems in the
History of Architecture,” Howard Burns posited that the current study of proportional
systems lacks “ground rules.”1 Indeed, without an agreed-upon set of conceptual and
methodological assumptions on which a cohesive body of scholarship can be based,
at least as a point of departure for new inquiry and debate, scholars of architectural
proportion run the risk of unproductively “talk[ing] through each other,” as Thomas
Kuhn describes what happens when scientists disagree—or even agree—without
understanding why, thus potentially contributing to a fragmentation of collective
effort.2 The following ten principles are proposed as a set of ground rules to help
scholars talk to—rather than through—each other, and to clarify points of agreement
as well as disagreement.
Principle 1: The word “proportion” signifies two unrelated

and incongruent meanings
As noted in the introduction to this volume, the subject of architectural proportion today
is defined by ambiguity because the very word “proportion” simultaneously signifies
two conceptually unrelated meanings. Proportion technically denotes a mathematical
ratio, or a relationship between ratios, and as such may be called “proportion-as-
ratio” (or mathematical proportion).3 In common usage, however, it often connotes
a broader meaning that in 1723 Ephraim Chambers described as “a Suitableness of
parts, founded on the good Taste of the Architect,” or, an aesthetic assessment that
we may call “proportion-as-beauty.”4 Since the first meaning is quantitative and the
second qualitative, no causal relationship between them can ever be established
predictably and repeatedly, as the scientific method would require. When historians
use the word “proportion” without qualification, therefore, they perhaps inadvertently
invite their audiences to understand it as a fusion of the concepts of ratio and beauty,
and thus as an implicit assumption that certain proportional ratios contribute beauty
to architecture. Consequently, in the introduction to this volume the word proportion
is broken down into its incongruent component meanings, proportion-as-ratio (or
mathematical proportion) and proportion-as-beauty, and it is proposed that one of
these meanings hereafter be specified whenever scholars use this word, either through
the use of the preceding terms or in the context of the discussion.
525
Reprint from “Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture” – ISBN 9789087282776 - © Leiden University Press, 2018
Matthew A. Cohen
This distinction is particularly germane in Sigrid de Jong’s analysis (Chapter 4) of

the 18th-century reception of the notably stocky proportions of the Greek Doric columns
of the temples at Paestum compared to the slimmer, normative Doric proportions such
as those of the Parthenon (see Chapter 10). One of de Jong’s observers from the period,
the architect Claude-Mathieu Delagardette, calls the Paestum proportions “primitive.”5
De Jong thus analyzes a particular documented aesthetic response to architectural
qualities such as column proportions that can be described in terms of proportions-as-
ratio, but are not most usefully understood as such. De Jong’s 18th-century observers
were not, after all, responding to abstract, width-to-height column slenderness ratios
per se, but to a constellation of visual stimuli, remembered appearances of other
buildings, and cultural preconceptions that all contributed (and continue to contribute
today) to a collective perception of otherness with regard to the Paestum proportions.
A primary factor in the above-noted cultural preconceptions may have been (and
may still be) anthropomorphism, or, a human tendency to imagine the body and its states
empathetically within architectural and other forms—a tendency first described in the
18th century.6 Thus the above descriptor “stocky” operates through implied analogy
between the Paestum columns and a person of stocky build.7 Indeed, Caroline van
Eck (Chapter 3) argues that this powerful human tendency toward anthropomorphic
(and thus empathetic) projection is one of “…the two major hermeneutic strategies…”
by which human beings have tried to understand buildings, the other being the
“…assumption of a proportional system….”8 These two strategies thus lay claim to
opposing sides of the “proportion” divide, the former (anthropomorphic projection,
or, empathy) providing an intuitive explanation for seemingly shared perceptions of
proportion-as-beauty, and the latter (imagining the presence of a proportional system)
offering the quantitative conceit of imagined aesthetic properties of proportion-as-
ratio.
Principle 2: Proportional systems must be described with

verifiable measurements
In any study of proportional correspondences in existing buildings or architectural
drawings, architectural dimensions must be described accurately, as they really are,
in terms of measurements recorded directly from the object, unless the focus of study
is on dimensional annotations to (or interpolations from) historical drawings, such as
the studies of Dutch 17th-century drawings by Konrad Ottenheym (Chapter 13) and
Jeroen Goudeau (Chapter 14). Measurements recorded by the historian must be
described in sufficient detail to enable the reader to go to the object and measure
between the same points in order to verify them. When computer-enabled, point
cloud laser scans are cited, the method by which the data were acquired needs to
be made sufficiently transparent to enable the reader to understand the limitations of
the survey and identify potential errors. When possible, the digital model and related
images need to be made accessible to the reader in order to allow verification of all
measurements extracted from them.9 This responsibility of verifiability falls equally on
authors to provide the needed data, and readers to insist on them and to learn how to
evaluate them rigorously.
526
Ten Principles for the Study of Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture
Architectural surveys, whether manual or digital, constitute basic archaeological

data that must be recorded as precisely as possible, even though in many cases the
precision of the modern survey may exceed the levels of constructive precision that
the builders or draftsmen whose work is being measured were capable of achieving.
Indeed, such surveys can quantify these historical capabilities, providing a first line
of discovery to result from measuring. Thus Andrew Tallon (Chapter 16) sensibly
concludes that laser scanning, which can be accurate within millimeters or less,
cannot answer the question “…how close is close enough?” when evaluating the
correspondence between a proposed proportional scheme and a built work (such as,
in his case study, a proposed equilateral triangle superimposed over the cross-section
of Bourges Cathedral), “…but it can tell you where you stand,” and thus help “…combat
imprecision and its correlate, the numerological wizardry sanctioned thereby.”10
Other authors in this volume present an array of other new insights and questions
pertaining to architectural metrology. While Tallon, Stephen Murray (Chapter 6), and
Gerd Graßhoff and Christian Berndt (Chapter 17) explore the potential of laser-
cloud scanning technology to facilitate proportional studies at scales ranging from
individual column shafts to large cathedrals, with Murray exploring possible collusions
between the laser and the tape measure, Robert Bork (Chapter 15) shows how digital
reproductions of medieval architectural drawings combined with geometrical overlays
created in AutoCAD software can facilitate proportional studies based on precise, non-
numerical metrical analysis.
Elizabeth den Hartog’s study of medieval number symbolism (Chapter 8)
raises the question of whether counting bays and columns might be considered a
rudimentary form of measuring and, if so, that as a possible exception to the above,
verification might indeed be accomplished in such cases without direct observation
of the object. Mark Wilson Jones’s study of the Parthenon proportions (Chapter 10),
which relies on a combination of surveys recorded before and during the current,
decades-long series of conservation and restoration interventions, raises questions
about measurement in light of anastylosis. When the configuration of the parts of a
building has been repeatedly altered beginning long before the first archaeological
surveys of that building, whose reconstruction can be considered most trustworthy?
Indeed, the Parthenon may be one of the few substantially reconstructed buildings that
can still be subjected to reliable proportional analysis due to the precise stereotomy of
its parts, the thinness or absence of mortar joints, and the scholarly rigor guiding the
current reconstruction.
Principle 3: Proportional systems are never executed exactly

as intended
Irregularity is the normal condition of architecture. Therefore, apparent dimensional
discrepancies between the proportions the architect intended and those of the built
object will be found in any serious proportional analysis of an existing building. Human
caprice, unresolvable design contingencies, construction error, post-construction
modifications, structural degradation, and an historian’s measurement errors are just a
few potential facets of this complex reality of architecture that constitutes a recurring
theme in the present volume. Mark Wilson Jones (Chapter 10) encounters it frequently,
527
Matthew A. Cohen
such as where ancient Greek architects apparently grappled with the impossibility
of assigning whole-number modular values to both the stylobate width and the
intercolumnar, axial width of the peristyle in a single temple, and opted to stretch
some of the intercolumniations slightly beyond the targeted whole number dimension
in order to make it all work out closely enough to express their modular intentions.
Stephen Murray (Chapter 6) attributes apparent irregularities in medieval
architecture to a combination of “error and artifice,” and notes that medieval builders
might have taken solace in Vitruvius’s occasional sanctioning of the architect’s creative
liberty (or, “flashes of genius”) over the requirements of regularity.11 Franco Barbieri
(Chapter 11) notes that in the works of both Andrea Palladio and Vincenzo Scamozzi
a “gap” exists between the “proportions deduced from theory” and those depicted
in their published illustrations. If Palladio preferred to hide these discrepancies,
however, much to the discouragement of his admirer and historian Ottavo Bertotti
Scamozzi (1719-1790), Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548-1616) openly indicated in his L’idea
dell’architettura universale certain asymmetries and other anomalies in his own
works, even presenting what Barbieri terms the “absolutely heretical situation” of an
asymmetrically located entrance in an otherwise symmetrical façade of Palazzo Trissino
in Vicenza, in response to preexisting conditions.12
Roberto Pane concludes from Bertotti Scamozzi’s and Rudolf Wittkower’s
observations of Palladio’s work that the exception is not irregularity, “… but the exact
equivalence between the abstract rule and its physical realization.”13 Mario Curti
(Chapter 2) reaches a similar conclusion from his broader historical survey of this
dichotomy, noting the two poles between which “…the mind of the artist always seems
to oscillate: on one side, reality as represented by nature in all its aspects, and on the
other, the dream of absolute perfection.”14 Marvin Trachtenberg (Chapter 7) provides
a postmodern interpretation of a facet of this problem, quoting George Steiner’s
assertion that “form is not perfected act but process and incessant revision.”15 Part of
the architectural historian’s job, therefore, is to expect proportional discrepancies and
estimate their normal extents building by building, based on archaeological evidence
and other sources.
The basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence provides a useful case study highlighting
some typical kinds of proportional discrepancies that might be encountered in studies
of proportional systems in extant works of architecture, and some strategies for
interpreting them. A recent survey reveals that the six columns in the western three
bays of the nave (first phase of nave construction) differ in height by no more than
1.5 centimeters from one to the next (Fig. 1 shows a typical nave arcade bay).16 If the
masons could achieve this remarkable level of precision in duplicating the heights of
monumental stone columns, we may assume that they were also capable of executing
the various width-to-height proportions they intended between these columns with
equal precision. In these nave arcades, therefore, any proportional discrepancy larger
than 1.5 centimeters may be considered abnormally large, meaning that either the
architect did not intend the proportion in question, or that he intended it but some
historical circumstance led to the discrepancy.
In the San Lorenzo nave arcade bays, several proportional relationships
correspond to the building measurements within this 1.5 cm threshold and together
form a remarkable proportional system combining geometrical, numerical and
arithmetical relationships.17 This proportional system exudes intention due to its vir-
528
tuosic engagement with the ancient problem of the incommensurability of the length
of the side of a square relative to its diagonal; the appearances of a Boethian number
sequence; repeated, common fractional values expressed in Florentine braccia
(consistent with braccio subdivisions of the period); and the thorough consistency
of this proportional system with late medieval learning, as indicated by documentary
evidence (see Principle 4, below).18 There is a problem, however: the column shafts are
11 to 12 centimeters taller than this proportional system calls for, and the entablature
blocks are correspondingly shorter (Fig. 1).19
Fig. 1. Summary of the San

Lorenzo nave arcade bay
proportional system (spread
between two drawings for
clarity, but each bay contains
all proportions and dimensions
shown). At left is a geometrical
overlay consisting of a square
and a root-2 rectangle; at
right is a geometrical overlay
consisting of a rectangle called
a dual diagon; and in both
are associated dimensions in
braccia. Author.
Since the preponderance of evidence in favor of the proportional system

described above outweighs these dimensional discrepancies, construction error
seems the most likely explanation. Indeed, historical analysis suggests that the errors
originated during construction of the entablature inside the chapel of Cosmas and
Damiano adjacent to the Old Sacristy. Once committed to stone, these flawed
dimensions, though limited to a small area, could not be corrected and had to be
projected horizontally into the nave in later decades, when the nave arcades were
built. Supporting this conclusion are the proportions of Brunelleschi’s second basilica,
that of Santo Spirito, which includes an arcade bay proportional system clearly derived
from this one. In it, the column shafts align perfectly with the root-2 rectangle, and the
entablature blocks measure exactly 21⁄3 br, as they were evidently intended to do at San
Lorenzo (Fig. 1, annotated dimensions at left).20 Proportional discrepancies such as
those in the San Lorenzo nave arcades illuminate the nitty-gritty practice of architecture
as it really was in historical times, with all its imperfections, and should be cause for
neither censure nor despair. Rather, they challenge architectural historians to expect
imperfection in proportion, and to provide an extra level of historical justification for
their proportional theories.21
529
Matthew A. Cohen
Principle 4: Proportional systems are executed in terms of

local units of measure
Proportional systems designed prior to the introduction of modern standardized

systems of measure express key ratios and individual dimensions in terms of local units
of measure. Such units could be local to the municipality in which the construction
took place, or to an individual construction site.22 It may very well be the case that
every historic structure (and perhaps many pre-historic ones) that has ever resulted
from substantial expenditures of labor, resources, and capital was built in accordance
with such a unit, regulated by the supervising authority at the time and place of
construction. Available evidence indicates that measurements expressed in such units
and their subdivisions often added layers of numerical iconography to proportional
systems.
Elizabeth den Hartog (Chapter 8) and Stephen Murray (Chapter 6) note the
Gothic period’s numerological fascination with the dimensions of biblical structures
such as Noah’s Ark and the walls of the Celestial City expressed in cubits, the Old
and New Testaments being particularly authoritative precedents—to the medieval
mind—for units of measure carrying apparent numerical messaging. Mark Wilson
Jones (Chapter 10) observes in ancient Greek architecture instances of “simultaneity”
of dimensions corresponding variously to the Egyptian Royal Cubit, the Doric foot,
the “common” foot, and the Attic foot, to a great enough extent “…as to suggest the
possibility of deliberate orchestration to this end.”23 This hypothesis is supported by
the existence of Greek metrological reliefs showing concordances between these
measures (Chapter 10, Figs. 12 and 13 therein). Other key relationships in the same
buildings, he notes, are best appreciated when thinking in terms of modules, thus
adding even more metrical simultaneity.
The basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence provides a similar example of
proportional-metrical simultaneity, this time involving a single unit of measure. The
overall framework of the San Lorenzo nave arcade bay proportional system consists
of an overlapping square, root-2 rectangle, and dual diagon (Fig. 1), the latter two
of which embody mathematically irrational ratios that can be expressed in modern
notation as 1:√2 and 1:2√2-1, respectively. Converting the building measurements
from the centimeters of a recent survey to Florentine braccia (1 br = 58.36 cm) reveals
the 15th-century understanding of these troubling ratios. Irrational ratios presented
a fundamental challenge to the medieval worldview of unity among all aspects of
creation, including geometry and number: if God created a unified and consistent
world, how could there be basic geometrical figures the dimensions of which could
not be expressed in terms of number?24
The architect of the San Lorenzo proportional system (probably Matteo Dolfini,
followed by Brunelleschi who adapted it for use in his redesign of the basilica)
resolved this problem with characteristic medieval pragmatism, enabled by the
medieval willingness to overlook imperfection.25 He made the root-2 rectangle, which
is inscribed between the column plinths, 92⁄3 br wide by 132⁄3 br high, thus providing an
extremely accurate numerical approximation (equivalent to 29:41) of the ratio 1:√2.26
Likewise, he made the dual diagon 92⁄3 wide by 172⁄3 high (equivalent to 29:53). When
the other dimensions ending in 2⁄3 br are grouped with these numbers (Fig. 1), the
530
Boethian number progression 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, which any educated person of the 15th
century would have recognized as such, is implied. Thus the architect used a local unit
of measure as the medium for expressing a unity of geometry and numbers, in this case
deliberately involving difficult side/diagonal ratios (Fig. 1).27 Had it been possible to
transport this building to another municipality that used a unit of measure of different
length, these numerical layers of meaning would have evaporated.
Stephen Murray (Chapter 6) notes an example of the integration of local units
of measure into proportional systems that may have had more dire consequences.
According to Murray, the two tallest Gothic cathedrals, those of Amiens and Beauvais,
both express the number 144, a New Testament dimension of the Celestial City, in their
internal heights of the nave vaults above the floor in terms of their respective municipal
units of measure. In aspiring to this heavenly number symbolism, however, the Amiens
builders faced a slightly lesser structural challenge than their Beauvais brethren, for
the local Roman foot used in Amiens was slightly shorter than the royal foot used at
Beauvais, and the physical vault height necessary to reach 144 local units of measure
was consequently lower by nearly six meters. The Amiens masons completed their
vaults without incident, but the higher-reaching vaults of Beauvais collapsed in 1284.28
Units of measure exerted powerful control over buildings and their architects
and, as Lex Bosman surmises (Chapter 9), they may have even driven the development
of the module in ancient times by regulating the dimensions of building materials
ab initio. With the rise of publishing during the Renaissance, architectural theoreticians
had new incentive to supersede local measurements in order to reach general audiences
by communicating proportional systems in universal languages such as geometry or,
more commonly, modules.29 According to Bosman, however, the main driver of the
increasing emphasis on the module over local units of measure in publications of
Renaissance architectural theory, beginning with Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola’s Regola
delli cinque ordini d’architettura (1562), was a desire by architects for enhanced control
over the dimensioning of buildings and building materials. This theme is carried into
the 20th century by Jean-Louis Cohen (Chapter 21), who suggests that Le Corbusier’s
invention of his own unit and system of measure, the Modulor, helped him maintain a
high level of control over his atelier’s ever-expanding body of built work around the
world (see also Principle 10).
Principle 5: Belief-based proportional systems communicate

through simultaneity 30
The portico of Brunelleschi’s Ospedale degli Innocenti contains ten columns spaced
ten braccia on center (Fig. 2).31 Ten (10) columns, 10 braccia. You can see the columns
and count them. You cannot see the braccia. You can only understand their quantities
conceptually. This confluence of visible and invisible presences of the number 10 is
consistent with simultaneity in medieval thought, perhaps a manifestation of the period’s
mystical conception of the visible world as but a reflection of a larger macrocosmic
order.32 Examples of similar visible/invisible numerical simultaneity abound in the
history of architecture. The first courtyard (Chiostro degli Uomini) of the Ospedale
degli Innocenti contains 6 columns per side, spaced 6 braccia on center.33 The nave of
Brunelleschi’s basilica of Santo Spirito has a nave 9 bays long, with columns spaced 9
531
Matthew A. Cohen
braccia plinth to plinth (Fig. 3).34 The Cathedral of Milan floor plan is 16 bays long, and
was designed on a grid spaced 16 braccia milanesi on center (Fig. 4).35
Proportional simultaneity can be augmented by number symbolism, such
as, for example, when the number 12 appears in a proportional system for various
geometrical or arithmetical reasons, but also serves as a symbol of the 12 apostles.36
Such symbolic simultaneity as a mental habit is communicated by Johannes Scotus
Erigena, a 9th-century theologian and Neo-Platonist philosopher who writes that
whenever he thinks of 8, thoughts of Easter, the Resurrection, regeneration, spring, and
new life simultaneously “vibrate” within him.37 For such observers potential number
symbolism could be found almost everywhere, and one of the primary challenges for
the architectural historian is to distinguish the proportions intended by the original
designer, including number symbolism, from potential coincidental interpretations.
Indeed, another challenge is to attempt to distinguish the proportions and associated
symbolism that early observers might have perceived in the design of a building,
whether the architect intended such readings or not.
Some early observers of Brunelleschi’s basilica of Santo Spirito, for example,
could have interpreted the eight columns in each nave arcade (Fig. 3) in the manner
of Erigena’s aforementioned iconographical vibrations of eight, but without evidence
in addition to the mere possibility, such a proposal would remain speculative. Internal
evidence in the basilica itself supports another symbolic interpretation, however,
this one communicated in multiple forms simultaneously: the 9 bays of the nave,
understood as 3 x 3 = 9, represent the Holy Trinity, of which the eponymous Holy
Spirit, or Spirito Santo, is the third entity. Indeed, this basilica is replete not only with
nines, but threes: in addition to the 9-bay nave and 9 br plinth to plinth dimensions
throughout, it has 3 transept and apse-like wings, each 3 bays long; and a flock of
carved doves representing the Spirito Santo (Figs. 3 and 5) all of which reinforce the
Trinitarian theme.38 Thus we see, from this discussion and that of Principle 4, above,
that simultaneity is of interest not only philosophically and iconographically, to help
us interpret proportional systems; but also methodologically, to help us distinguish
intentional proportional relationships from coincidental ones, since the intentional
ones are likely to resonate simultaneously in multiple forms.
Fig. 2. Ospedale
degli Innocenti, Florence.
Author.
532
Fig. 3. Basilica of Santo Spirito,

Florence, floor plan.
Author.
Fig. 4. Cathedral of Milan floor

plan. From Gaetano Franchetti,
Storia e descrizione del
duomo di Milano (Milan: G.G.
Destefanis, 1821), n.p. Public
domain.
Principle 6: Proportional systems constitute historical evidence

Proportional systems can provide evidence
of broadly-shared patterns of thinking during
particular periods in history, as when simul-
taneous layers of proportional correspon-
dences contribute to iconographical pro-
grams commemorating concepts such as
the Trinity, or of a larger macrocosmic world
order, as discussed above (Principle 5). Sim-
ilarly, proportional systems can illuminate
the question of Platonism among early mod-
ern architects, as demonstrated by Antho-
ny Gerbino (Chapter 5); or they can provide
evidence of a more individualized nature,
pertaining to the idiosyncratic thinking of
particular practitioners and theorists such
as Philibert de L’Orme, Vincenzo Scamozzi,
Claude Perrault, Le Corbusier, and Hans van
der Laan, as explored by Sara Galletti (Chap-
ter 19), Franco Barbieri (Chapter 11), Maarten Delbeke (Chapter 20), Jean-Louis Fig. 5. Basilica of Santo Spirito,
Cohen (Chapter 21), and Caroline Voet (Chapter 22), respectively. Occasionally these Florence, dove capital.
two types of evidence overlap, as in Jeroen Goudeau’s analysis (Chapter 14) of the Author.
533
Matthew A. Cohen
Fig. 6. Proposed diagrammatic

derivation of the San Lorenzo
overall basilica proportional
system derivation, based
on survey measurements.
Root-2 rectangle overlay at
far right indicates that a 65 x
92 braccia rectangle is a very
accurate approximation of
the mathematically irrational
proportions of a root-2
rectangle. Author.
possible roots of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand’s grid-based architectural proportional

theory in the works of Nicolaus Goldmann, considering the broad influence of Du-
rand’s theory on the architecture of the 19th century and beyond.
Proportional systems can also constitute historical evidence of a procedural
kind, opening productive new paths of inquiry that can even lead away from proportion
per se as the main subject of investigation. Sara Galletti (Chapter 19) thus reveals the
paradox that Philibert de L’Orme’s interest in “divine proportions,” which is based on
biblical numbers, tells us little about de L’Orme’s practice of architecture but much
about his intellectual development over time. From a handful of internal, textual
contradictions pertaining to proportional theory gleaned from his Premier tome de
l’architecture of 1567, Galletti transforms our understanding of this treatise from “…an
534
intellectual monolith…unaltered, from its conception to its publication, by the process

of its own making” that previous scholars have assumed it to be, to a dynamic record of
the author’s intellectual journey from practitioner to practitioner-theoretician.39
Similarly, Maarten Delbeke isolates particular points of difference between
Vitruvius’s De architectura and Claude Perrault’s annotated translation thereof to
illuminate how Perrault developed certain Vitruvian concepts pertaining to proportion
in order to embed “…the question of proportion in a larger reflection on how buildings
are judged and valued.” Thus, for example, where Vitruvius identifies six characteristics
(or “terms”) of architecture, ordinatio, dispositio, eurythmia, symmetria, decor and
distribution, Delbeke notes that Perrault rather precociously reduces them to five by
eliding eurythmia and symmetria.40 Perrault thereby redefines the relationship between
proportion-as-ratio and subjective judgments of architectural appearances, and thus
in turn opens the door to the development of a broader aesthetic theory with political
ramifications decisively more consequential than debating the nuances and minutiae
of proportional theory.
The basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence provides another opportunity to use
proportional systems as a procedural kind of historical evidence. Here, an overall basilica
proportional system based on subdivision of a two-square rectangle, along with other
interrelated proportional correspondences, suggests that the original design included
deep, approximately square nave chapels (Fig. 6), unlike the present chapels that are
approximately half as deep (Fig. 7), but consistent with those shown in a floor plan
drawn by Giuliano da Sangallo, a follower of Brunelleschi (Fig. 8).41 This interpretation
of proportional evidence inspires a search for precedents for this deep nave chapel
scheme that in turn leads to the late Gothic basilica of Santa Maria del Carmine in
Pavia (Fig. 9). A visit to this Lombard basilica reveals that in addition to its floor plan
Fig. 7. Basilica of San Lorenzo floor plan with root-2 Fig. 8. Giuliano da Sangallo, Basilica of San Lorenzo Fig. 9. Basilica of
rectangle overlay, based on actual pilaster plinth to pilaster floor plan sketch, “Taccuino senese” (c. 1480). Photo: Santa Maria del Carmine,
plinth measurements, suggesting a possible original Biblioteca Comunale, Siena. Pavia, floor plan. Author.
intention of approximately square nave chapels. Author.
535
Matthew A. Cohen
Fig. 10. Basilica of Santa Maria del Carmine, Pavia, begun c. 1373, aisle view. Author.
536
Fig. 11. Basilica of Santo Spirito, Florence, begun c. 1434, aisle view. Author.
537
Matthew A. Cohen
similarities with San Lorenzo (Figs. 8 and 9), it bears striking above-ground similarities
with Brunelleschi’s basilica of Santo Spirito (Figs. 10 and 11). These observations lead
to the conclusion that Brunelleschi very likely visited Santa Maria del Carmine in Pavia
and drew inspiration from it—a conclusion supported by enough additional evidence
that it can stand independently of the original, proportion-inspired deep nave chapel
hypothesis that led to it in the first place.42
Principle 7: Belief-based proportional systems serve no practical

purposes
Belief-based proportional systems may be understood as having served six
intended purposes in the history of architecture, encompassing structural, aesthetic,
iconographical and philosophical categories.43 Of these six, only structural stability
can be considered practical, and belief-based proportional systems have never
consistently conferred it.44 The other purposes entail the provision of subjective
qualities that cannot be said to have ever existed in any work of architecture unless
someone believed they did.
Modularization, which might seem to be the most logical of any practical purpose
that a proportional system could have served, does not appear to have ever been used
during the pre-engineering period to a great enough extent to have saved substantial
time or money in construction. The Roman practice of manufacturing column shafts to
standard lengths of Roman feet was insufficiently complex to be considered as either
modularization or a proportional system, though it highlights the distinction between
a system of measure and a proportional system. The former may be considered a tool
for achieving a result, and the latter, a mode of expression of architectural desire—
such as the desire that a building be orderly, beautiful, and resonant with religious or
other macrocosmic themes (see Principle 10).
What constitutes a practical purpose is perhaps negotiable depending on one’s
point of view. For example, since the profile of a Roman column shaft has no relevance
to structural stability, and since Roman columns are greatly overbuilt for their structural
purposes relative to the physical properties of stone, the sinuous shaft profile may
be considered a matter of pure aesthetics and thus entirely impractical. However, an
architect or mason commissioned to produce a column shaft with such a profile, within
a particular timeframe, budget, and standard of quality, suddenly found himself with
the practical problem of doing so. The same can be said of an architect commissioned
to produce a design for a building in a particular style, such as Gothic, and who found
proportional systems to be useful tools for helping to achieve that result.45 Thus when
Gerd Graßhoff and Christian Berndt (Chapter 17) explore the “practical realization” of
a Roman column shaft profile through the use of a geometrical proportional system,
or when Anthony Gerbino (Chapter 5) describes Filarete’s palette of rectangular
proportions based on the square as “practical and instrumental,” they highlight the
need for a qualification of this principle: that proportional systems can serve the
practical purpose of helping to realize desired but inherently impractical architectural
forms.46
538
Principle 8: Proportional systems constitute design methods

Belief-based proportional systems from the pre-engineering period could facilitate an
architect’s creative process by generating forms and dimensional combinations from
which he could make selections. These selections could then be considered within the
indistinct mix of external design influences and internal intuitions that fed the process.
In the end these selections might equally likely have been incorporated into the final
design, or discarded along the creative path leading to it; in either case they can be
considered contributory to the design process.
One need not agree with every line in the patterns of “unfolding geometry” that
Robert Bork (Chapter 15) proposes Gothic architects used selectively and intermittently
in the designs of their complex works, for example, to be convinced that high Gothic
architecture would not have been high Gothic but for the use of such a method. Of
course, the use of complex geometrical overlays need not necessarily have led to a
Gothic result, as seen in the at least superficially similar method that Jacob Lois claimed
to have used in the design for the façade of his classical Schielandshuis in Rotterdam,
built in 1662, as discussed by Konrad Ottenheym (Chapter 13, Fig. 5 therein).47 Indeed,
as systems of geometrical guidelines, the dynamically unfolding networks explored
by Bork, the somewhat less complex overlay of Lois, the generative grid underlays of
Goldmann and Durand illuminated by Ottenheym (Chapter 13) and Goudeau (Chapter
14), Leonardo da Vinci’s floor plan diagrams discussed by Di Teodoro (Chapter 18), and
the practice of cord stretching discussed by Murray (Chapter 6), may all be considered
of-a-kind in a typology of proportional design methods.
Patterns of numerical groupings, furthermore, such as Boethian number
progressions (for example, 1, 5, 9, 13, 17 as found in San Lorenzo) or sets of symbolic
numbers (for example, 3, 6, and 9 to represent the Trinity as found in Santo Spirito),
can, in combination with units of measure (see Principles 4 and 5), be considered
another manifestation of the use of proportional systems as a design method—at
least insofar as they provided compositional or dimensional options for the architect
to choose from. Ultimately, as noted by Howard Burns, proportional systems had the
effect of “slowing down the design process,” and thus helping the architect ensure that
a design was exactly as he intended it to be.48
Another way proportional systems could slow down the design process was
through the activity of measuring existing buildings, as a form of precedent research,
to attempt to discover their proportional systems. This activity has been associated
with important design developments in the history of architecture. For example,
Brunelleschi’s late 15th-century biographer, Antonio di Tuccio Manetti, claims that in
their youth Brunelleschi and Donatello went to Rome to measure ancient monuments
in order to understand le loro proporzioni musicali (“their musical proportions”).
Thus, even if Manetti is here projecting later, Alberti-influenced attitudes of his own
generation back to Brunelleschi’s, he indicates that at least at some time during the
Renaissance studying the proportions of ancient buildings was considered important.49
Similarly, the sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt betrays an effort by a medieval
master mason to discover the principles of then-existing or planned French Gothic
churches through proportional diagrams involving grids.50
539
Matthew A. Cohen
Principle 9: Proportional systems contribute no aesthetic

value to architecture
The question of whether proportional systems contribute universally recognized

aesthetic value to architecture is discussed in detail in the introduction to this volume
(Chapter 1). It is proposed here as a principle because the causes of aesthetic
judgment are subjective and thus cannot be established based on scholarly or scientific
evidence.51
Principle 10: Belief-based proportional systems communicate

non-visual narrative content
We have seen that belief-based proportional systems have served no practical purposes
in the history of architecture, except perhaps when they have helped in the practical
realization of desired but impractical forms (Principle 7); and we have considered
the possibility that proportional systems have made no contributions to the aesthetic
value of architecture, except perhaps when they have helped in the realization of
certain formal conventions, such as architectural styles, that some have considered
beautiful based on cultural or personal preferences (Principle 9). Rather, the most
important purpose proportional systems have served in the history of architecture is
the communication of meaning. In this capacity proportional systems have conferred
a critical characteristic of architecture that distinguishes it from mere building.52 The
meaning thus communicated can be considered a form of narrative.
Unlike visible symbolic numbers that are immediately comprehensible to
educated observers, such as the 12 columns in Abbot Suger’s Saint-Denis symbolizing
the 12 apostles (among the many similar examples discussed by Elizabeth den Hartog
in Chapter 8), systems of proportion, which contain multiple layers of proportional
relationships (see Principle 5), reveal themselves progressively over time. Since in
this study a proportional system is defined as “a set of geometrical, numerical and/
or arithmetical correspondences,” it would seem to be a cognitive impossibility for
anyone to comprehend all the layers of meaning within a proportional system in a
single instant.53
Considering the simultaneity of tens in the Ospedale degli Innocenti portico
discussed above, for example (see Principle 5), the observer is most likely to discover
first that there are 10 columns, and subsequently that the columns are spaced 10
braccia on center (either by measuring the portico or being told). Only then could
the observer realize that the two numbers are the same, but that one can be visually
perceived and the other cannot. The observer could also make these discoveries in
the reverse order. Either way, one discovery constitutes prerequisite knowledge for
the other if an appreciation of the simultaneity of tens is to result. More complex
proportional systems, such as that of San Lorenzo, unfold more slowly. Even after the
initial discoveries of such simultaneities, however, the individual layers of meaning
must be contemplated one at a time.54
In light of this temporal, unfolding quality, proportional systems can be
understood as narratives and perhaps plots, not only in the general senses of these
540
terms as communicators of meaning, but in their specific literary senses as well. A

narrative, according to Steven Cohan and Linda M. Shires, “...recounts a story, [or] a
series of events in a temporal sequence” that leads to an “outcome,” or, “closure.”55 This
definition can be refined, these authors note, by referring to the novelist E. M. Forster’s
distinctions between the terms story, or “...a narrative that orders events temporally...,”
and a plot, or “...a narrative that orders events causally as well as temporally.”56 Thus in
a story, events take place in a particular order for numerous possible reasons, while in a
plot they do so because earlier events influence later events. The British architect John
Soane (1753–1837) recognized the fertile analogy between a similar notion of plot and
architectural experience by comparing the latter to a theatrical performance. According
to Caroline van Eck, Soane understood that “looking at a building and watching a play
are similar experiences...because both [engage] temporal arts.” The experiences of
both theater and architecture, she notes, “...unfold in the course of time,” and in both,
“...composition is built on the assumption that the viewer is able to follow the plot,
or grasp the connections on which dramatic or architectural composition is based.”57
Soane, she notes, imagines an individual moving through a building room by room,
observing a succession of images that communicate a plot like the changing scenes or
character appearances in a play.
Proportional systems can provide similar temporal experiences, though rather
than being based on the acts of physical movement through space and successive
visual observation of stimuli as in Soane’s description, they are based primarily on the
act of successive mental contemplation of invisible layers of geometrical, numerical,
and/or arithmetical relationships expressed in a building’s measurements.58 These
invisible layers could be just as laden with cultural associations as the physical objects
such as portraits, sarcophagi, and sculptures that Soane proposes can communicate
a plot.59 In the invisible layers of the San Lorenzo proportional system, for example,
elements that carry cultural associations include the root-2 rectangle, the number
pairs that closely approximate this ratio, such as 92 ⁄3 :132 ⁄3, (equivalent to 29:41), and
the Boethian number progression 1, 5, 9, 13, 17. As noted in the discussion of Principle
4, above, the root-2 rectangle attracted attention in the 15th century because its
incommensurability presented a seemingly intractable mathematical and philosophical
dilemma that could only be resolved, pragmatically if not ideally, through the strategic
deployment of particular whole number approximations of the side/diagonal ratio, as
thinkers as early as Plato had realized.60 Also culturally significant were Boethian number
progressions that, according to Severinus Boethius, formed the basis of arithmetic, the
first step in the quadrivium, or, a progressive ladder of knowledge (sometimes literally
represented as a ladder) that culminated in the study of philosophy, considered in
Boethius’s day and long after to be the highest intellectual pursuit.61 While these layers
might very well be discovered with the help of visual tools such as a tape measure
and sketchbook, the significance of each layer entails comprehension as an essentially
non-visual experience.
Thus far we have considered narratives communicated through proportional
systems that we assume were intentionally embedded in their respective buildings
by the original architects. Proportional narratives can also be attached to buildings by
others, however, sometimes long after the completion of construction; and such post
factum narratives do not always require physical points of reference in a structure as
do the proportional systems based on measurements or symbolic numbers described
541
Matthew A. Cohen
above. Indeed, all that is needed is some compelling storytelling combined with only
intermittently rigorous treatment of factual evidence, to alter public perception of a
building (or category of buildings) potentially for decades or more. Mark Wilson Jones
(Chapter 10) notes, for example, how almost a century ago William Bell Dinsmoor had
already expressed exasperation at the quantity and complexity of published attempts
to derive a proportional narrative from the stones of “the poor old Parthenon.”62
More recently the Dutch Benedictine monk and architect Dom Hans van der Laan,
as discussed by Caroline Voet (Chapter 23), saw the Parthenon as an embodiment of
his “plastic number” theory, while H. E. Huntley and Gyorgy Doczi have captured the
imagination of a broader public by claiming to find in this same building the golden
section.63
The Parthenon is not the only ancient building to have been reimagined centuries
after its construction through proportional narrative. In 1620 Inigo Jones visited
Stonehenge at the behest of King James I for the purpose of gathering evidence to
purportedly demonstrate that the structure was built by the Romans. Jones created a
proportional system to carry much of this new narrative, reconstructing Stonehenge in
a series of drawings to conform to a geometrical overlay of overlapping triangles that
he believed was Roman in character and must have represented the original design
(Fig. 12). Jones perhaps had ideological and political motives for establishing a Roman
pedigree for this “most notable antiquity of Great Britain,” as the title of his posthumous
book describes it, to facilitate acceptance in Great Britain of the Roman-inspired
classical style that he was promoting with his own design work, and to demonstrate, as
van Eck argues, “...that [James’s] kingdom could boast an authentic Roman past....”64
Fig. 12. Stonehenge,

interpretive floor plan
reconstruction. From: Inigo
Jones. The Most Notable
Antiquity of Great Britain,
vulgarly called Stone-Heng,
on Salisbury Plain. Restored by
Inigo Jones Esquire, Architect
Generall to the King. London:
Printed by James Flesher for
Daniel Pakeman, 1655. Plate
between pages 60-61.
Public domain.
Similarly, Francesco Benelli (Chapter 23) notes that beginning in 1940, in “a

definitively ideological move,” Rudolf Wittkower used proportion in an attempt “…to
verify the idea that Renaissance architecture responded to the same universal rules as
542
Roman architecture.”65 The subject of Wittkower’s first such comparative proportional

analysis was the façade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence—a particularly un-Roman
looking work despite its unassailable Renaissance pedigree by virtue of its authorship
by none other than the great Renaissance architect and theorist Leon Battista Alberti.
Indeed, Wittkower concedes that the complex polychromatic incrustations adorning
this façade make it “...a posthumous member of the 12th-century family of Proto-
Renaissance buildings,” as he termed the Tuscan Romanesque style. Nevertheless, he
notes, Alberti here managed to “…reconcile the past and the present…” by creating “…
the most important façade of the new [Renaissance] style….” Alberti did so, he argues,
not only by crowning it with a Romanizing pediment and adding entrance features
derived from the Pantheon in Rome, but by incorporating “…simple relations of one to
one, one to two, one to three, two to three, three to four, etc., which are the elements
of musical harmony and which Alberti found in classical buildings.”66
Those classical buildings, Wittkower believed, notably included the Pantheon,
the proportions of which he proceeded to analyze (Chapter 23 herein, Fig. 1). Lacking
measurements of the Santa Maria Novella façade, Wittkower imagined Pantheon-like
proportions within it, for such proportions were integral to his ideological assumption
that Renaissance architecture was fundamentally different than (and, implicitly,
aesthetically superior to), medieval architecture in large part due to its deep Roman
connections.67 Since visual evidence did not always support this assumption, especially
in the case of the Santa Maria Novella façade, he invoked what he believed were the
occult influences of harmonic proportions at the core of classical beauty.68 Indeed, this
interpretation of proportional systems, actual or imagined, led Wittkower to reject the
“hedonist” interpretation of Renaissance architecture that predominated prior to his
writing, according to which Renaissance architecture was a purely formal art created
for the purpose of conveying superficial visual pleasure.69 Wittkower thus attached a
post factum narrative of imagined harmonic proportions to this façade, without any
physical points of reference that could provide real verification. This narrative, today
a staple of textbook and tour guide explanations, normalizes this exotic Renaissance
work and brings it into alignment with Wittkower’s preferred Renaissance meta-
narrative of Roman rebirth that could not accommodate lingering medievalisms, such
as Santa Maria Novella’s polychromatic incrustations, in Renaissance architecture.
Also in Chapter 23, Benelli surmises that one source of personal tension
between Wittkower and Le Corbusier may have been the Swiss architect’s use of
proportional systems as a narrative tool for promoting his own work, in a manner
similar to Wittkower’s own use of this tool for reevaluating Renaissance architecture.
Indeed, Wittkower labeled Le Corbusier’s invocation of ancient Rome, through the
obvious similarities between his Modulor man and the geometrically and numerically
proportioned Vitruvian man, and his invocation of medieval tradition via the Modulor’s
incorporation of the golden section, as “propaganda.”70 Jean-Louis Cohen (Chapter
21) traces Le Corbusier’s long development of the complex Modulor narrative, which,
like Wittkower’s Renaissance narrative, relies on no specific points of measurement in
any particular buildings for its rhetorical power. He thereby illuminates how important
this narrative was for Le Corbusier. Indeed, the Swiss architect had pinned an ambitious
agenda to it: according to Jean-Louis Cohen, by 1955 “…the Modulor had…become
an instrument with which Le Corbusier tried to maintain his hegemony over postwar
production, by becoming a sort of master of measure.”71
543
Matthew A. Cohen
Unexpectedly to Wittkower, for a brief time in the early 1950s Wittkower saw
his own proportional narratives vying for the attention of modern architects alongside
those of Le Corbusier.72 Ultimately, however, Wittkower’s narratives have proven more
resilient than Le Corbusier’s, though in the field of architectural history rather than
architecture. His proportional narratives that render Renaissance architecture as a
paragon of mathematical perfection, from Brunelleschi’s San Lorenzo and Alberti’s
Santa Maria Novella to the residences and churches of Palladio, for over six decades
made Wittkower the unrivaled authority on Renaissance proportional systems in the
eyes of many scholars.73 Indeed, while the limitations of Wittkower’s proportional
narratives in explaining actual Renaissance theory and practice are increasingly
becoming appreciated, the vast and long-lasting influence of these proportional
narrratives makes Wittkower one of the most consequential figures in the history of
Renaissance architecture, if that history is understood to include the ever-evolving
historiographical reception of the style to the present day.
Conclusion
If proportional systems are to be understood as narratives, or, sequences of
geometrical, numerical, and/or arithmetical nuggets embedded in the dimensions of
buildings in order to produce certain outcomes, what were those intended outcomes
and for whom were they intended? Proportional systems could have been intended
as objects of private contemplation, intended by and for each individual architect;
or, more likely, as semi-private communications between the architect, his patron,
and those cognoscenti capable of deciphering them. In either case, they must have
been considered important for the architects to have gone to so much trouble to craft
them. As forms of communication, furthermore, they may have been similar to prayers
or incantations intended to support spiritual or metaphysical beliefs. Regardless of
the exact character of any particular proportional system, the participants in such
communications believed that proportional systems helped to bring about certain
desirable outcomes in architecture, such as structural stability, ordine, and perhaps
a relationship with God and the macrocosm. By thus helping to imbue lifeless stone
with the agency of communication, proportional systems have contributed to making
architecture a deeply meaningful art form.
Notes
1
This conclusion is a revision of: Matthew A. Cohen, “Conclusion: Ten Principles for the Study of
Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture,” Architectural Histories 2(1), Art. 7 (2014), in the
Special Collection “Objects of Belief: Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture,” edited
by Matthew A. Cohen and Maarten Delbeke, DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/ah.bw. On the Leiden
conference see the introduction to this volume, note 1.
2
Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 109 and 132. Cf. Fernie, "A Beginner's Guide."
3
Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 21.
4
See the introduction to this volume (Chapter 1), note 42; and Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 21–22.
5
See de Jong, “Subjective Proportions,” Chapter 4 herein, page 94.
6
See the introduction to this volume (Chapter 1), note 25.
7
This implied, subconscious analogy also operates biomorphically, as between a Paestum temple
544
and a creature of stocky build such as an ox, though here again the judgment of stocky ultimate-
ly operates through implied analogy with the human body. Since such empathetic responses are
probably subjective rather than innate, in light of the current global obesity epidemic might collec-
tive perceptions of normative body proportions eventually change, and with them, perceptions of
which buildings will be associated with otherness?
8
van Eck, “The Composto Ordinato,” Chapter 3 herein, 72.
9
See, for example, the Bern Digital Pantheon Project: http://repository.edition-topoi.org/collection/
BDPP, DOI 10.17171/1-4, discussed by Gerd Graßhoff and Christian Berndt, “Decoding the Panthe-
on Columns,” Chapter 17 herein.
10
Tallon, “Divining Proportions,” Chapter 16 herein, 357; and similarly, Murray, "Plotting Gothic"
(Chapter 6 herein), 129-130.
11
Murray, “Plotting Gothic,” Chapter 6 herein, note 38.
12
Barbieri, “Scamozzi’s Orders,” Chapter 11 herein, 242.
13
Pane, “Andrea Palladio,” 411, as quoted in Barbieri, “Scamozzi’s Orders,” Chapter 11 herein, 240.
14
Curti, “Canons of Proportion,” Chapter 2 herein, 61.
15
Trachtenberg, “To Build Proportions in Time,” Chapter 7 herein, 157.
16
Cohen, “How Much Brunelleschi?,” Appendix 2.
17
On the difference between numerical and arithmetical relationships, see the Introduction to this
volume (Chapter 1), note 94.
18
On the San Lorenzo nave arcade bay proportional system and related supportive evidence see
Cohen, Beyond Beauty, Chapter 2; and Cohen, “How Much Brunelleschi?,” 19-37.
19
In Fig. 1 (left), which accurately represents dimensional relationships, note that the tops of the col-
umn shafts, at the mortar joints where they meet the astragals (which in this basilica are integral
with the capitals), rise slightly above the top of the square plus root-2 rectangle overlay. The mis-
alignment in this figure represents actual conditions, but the column shafts were probably intended
to align perfectly with the top of this overlay. This figure is therefore annotated with the assumed
intended dimensions in braccia, including 13 2⁄3 br for the column shaft heights. On this construction
error, see Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 104–111; and Cohen, “How Much Brunelleschi?” 33–37.
20
For a corresponding figure for the Santo Spirito nave arcade bay, showing the actual, perfect align-
ment of the column shafts with the top of a root-2 rectangle inscribed between the column plinths,
see Cohen, Beyond Beauty, Fig. 2-47; and Cohen, “How Much Brunelleschi?,” Fig. 25.
21
Such justification must include logical historical scenarios supported by both verifiable evidence
and specific analysis of measurement discrepancies, and not merely a general appeal to construc-
tion error to justify any proportional theory that does not conform to the building measurements.
22
For example, the Florentine braccio (“arm”) used in the construction of the basilica of San Lorenzo
(and many other buildings and works of art in Florence) measures 58.66 cm, while that used con-
temporaneously in the basilica of Santo Spirito, also in Florence, measures 58.67 cm, as verified by
surveys of these basilicas and statistical analysis of repeated architectural elements. In both basil-
icas, for example, each column plinth measures 2 br per side, based on the preceding values, re-
spectively, with very slight variation from one plinth to the next (thus the need for statistical analysis).
The plinths thus effectively constitute 15th-century campioni (samples), similar to the bronze 1782
passetto (“step,” or, two braccia) preserved in the Florentine state archives, which measures 116.72
cm (or, 58.36 cm x 2). This and other evidence suggests that the San Lorenzo braccio was standard in
Florence while that of Santo Spirito was a deviation particular to that worksite. Cohen, Beyond Beau-
ty, 88; and Cohen, “How Much Brunelleschi?,” 27. For a photograph of the 1782 campione, see Co-
hen, Beyond Beauty, Fig. 2-41; and Cohen, “How Much Brunelleschi?,” Fig. 18. The Santo Spirito val-
ue of 1 br = 58.66 cm was first reported by Benevolo, Chieffi, and Mezzetti, “Indagine sul S. Spirito,”
2-4. Juergen Schulz incorrectly claims that I have derived the 58.36 cm value (which he reports as
58.35 cm) from 19th-century conversion tables, when in fact I derived it from the early 15th-century
built fabric of San Lorenzo and the 1782 campione, as noted above. His confusion apparently stems
from the context of the publication he cites, in which, as part of an analysis of the basilica of Santa
Maria del Fiore in Florence, I critique the braccio calculations of a 19th-century historian, Gustavo
Uzielli, in relation to the 19th-century conversion tables that he probably used. Schulz, “Measure for
Measure,” note 7; in reference to Cohen, “Quantification and the Medieval Mind,” 4-5.
23
Wilson Jones, “Approaches to Architectural Proportion,” Chapter 10 herein, 219; and on possible
similar practices during the Gothic period see Murray, “Plotting Gothic,” Chapter 6 herein.
24
For example, if a square has a side measuring 5 units, the length of the diagonal will not be a numer-
ical value, whether whole or fractional (recalling that fractions are numbers), but rather, the irrational
quantity expressed today as an infinite decimal, 7.071…. Vitruvius acknowledges the impossibility
of finding a whole-number value for the diagonal of a square in such situations, noting: “nobody can
find this by means of arithmetic.” Vitruvius, Ten Books, IX, Introduction, 4.
545
Matthew A. Cohen
25
Cohen, “Quantification and the Medieval Mind.”
Note that 13 ⁄3 divided by 9 ⁄3 (which is the same as 41 divided by 29), equals 1.4137…. This quo-
26 2 2
tient is so close to the numerical expression of √2, or 1.4142…, that the difference amounts to but
a few millimeters of stone at the scale of the San Lorenzo nave arcades, and therefore, far less than
any fifteenth century mason would ever have been concerned with. Thus through approximation,
Dolfini resolved the existential problem of the side/diagonal ratio in a manner consistent with me-
dieval thinking, though he was surely not the first to do so. On the question of authorship of this
proportional system, see Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 185–207, which expands upon Cohen, “How Much
Brunelleschi?” 41–44.
27
Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 53–111; and Cohen, “How Much Brunelleschi?” 19–37.
28
For units of measure used at Amiens, and the biblical reference (Revelation 21:14–17) to the height
of the wall of the Celestial City as 144 cubits, see Murray, Notre Dame, 159–160. Murray also notes
that the “...spread of the west façade buttresses with the twelve minor prophets is 120 feet,” a di-
mension that he suggests perhaps refers to the twelve foundations of the Celestial City and the
“twelve apostles of the Lamb” both of which are also mentioned in this passage of Revelation. The
number 144 therefore may be part of a broader proportional system, rather than a single symbolic
number. Chapter 6 herein, 138; and Murray, Notre Dame, 163. Similarly, New York City’s Freedom
Tower, which rises to a symbolic 1776 feet, would have required either a different symbolic number
or a vastly increased height had the United States adopted the metric system as it once considered
doing.
29
See, for example, Cesariano, Di Lucio Vitruvio Pollione; Alberti, De re aedificatoria; and da Vignola,
Regola delli cinque ordini.
30
For the term “belief-based proportional system,” see the introduction to this volume (Chapter 1),
14.
31
The columns in question include only those from the original early 15th-century construction. Note
that each end of the portico terminates quite unusually with a full column standing next to the end
wall, rather than with an engaged column or a pilaster more typical of the period. Thus Brunelleschi
appears to have made a concerted effort to include specifically ten columns. The average portico
bay width, on center, based on my measurements of the Ospedale recorded in June 2005, is 584.05
cm. The assumed standard length of the Florentine braccio during this period is 58.36 cm. See note
22, above; and Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 88–89. Saalman, Filippo Brunelleschi, 71, notes an on-center
bay width of ten braccia in this portico, but does not refer to any survey measurements.
32
Crosby, The Measure of Reality, 46-47.
33
The average chiostro bay width, on center, based on my measurements of the Ospedale recorded
in June 2005, is 350.2 cm. Indeed, this simultaneity is augmented on the fractional level: in the exte-
rior portico, fractional dimensions are expressed in terms of tenths of a braccio, such as the capital
height of 11⁄10 br (64.2 cm); and in the aforementioned chiostro, in terms of sixths of a braccio, such
as the capital heights of 11⁄6 br (68.1 cm).
34
Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 98–99, 105, and 146. This interpretation of the significant dimensions in the
Santo Spirito floor plan as being those measured plinth to plinth (i.e., 9 braccia between adjacent
column plinths) is not necessarily in conflict with Giuliano da Sangallo’s annotation to his Santo
Spirito floor plan drawing with two on center (axial) measurements, 22 braccia and 11 braccia. Da
Sangallo, Il libro di Giuliano da Sangallo, II: fol. 14r. During the late medieval and early Renaissance
periods, dimensions originally conceived by their architects as measured plinth to plinth were in
later documents sometimes reported on center, as in this drawing, perhaps for convenience. For a
similar discrepancy between measurements apparently conceived plinth to plinth, but later report-
ed in archival documents in terms of on center dimensions, see the documents pertaining to the
nave arcades of the basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore, as discussed in Cohen, “Quantification and the
Medieval Mind”; and Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 232–242.
35
Although the last two bays at the apsidial end are angled and therefore do not measure sixteen
braccia lengthwise, note that the length of the floor plan in bays is sixteen. For evidence that the Ca-
thedral of Milan was originally intended to be laid out on a sixteen braccia milanesi floor plan grid,
see Stornaloco’s 14th-century letter and diagram in Frankl, “The Secret of the Mediaeval Masons,”
53.
36
Cf. note 28, above, and den Hartog, 1, 2, 3, 6: “Early Gothic Architecture,” Chapter 8 herein. On
proportional simultaneity see also Wilson Jones, “Approaches to Architectural Proportion,” Chapter
10 herein.
37
As quoted in Krautheimer, “Introduction to an ‘Iconography,’” 9. Later in the medieval period this
mental habit appears to have had more practical manifestations. For example, the “Rule of Three,”
or, the “Merchant’s Key” employed three proportional formulae in order to redundantly triple check,
for maximum surety, the relationship between numbers in a numerical series, and was used in prob-
546
lems related to currency exchange and bartering. Baxandall, Painting and Experience, 95-99. I thank
Theresa Flanigan for calling my attention to this reference. For a mathematical definition of the “rule
of three” see Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 21.
38
Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 146; and Cohen, “The Bird Capitals.”
39
Galletti, “Philibert de L’Orme’s Divine Proportions,” Chapter 19 herein, 411.
40
Delbeke, “An Old Problem?,” Chapter 20 herein, 421.
41
Da Sangallo, Taccuino senese, fol. 21v. Sangallo’s San Lorenzo floor plan drawing (Fig. 7) contains
three differences with the present plan, in addition to the deep nave chapels noted above: nu-
merous circles in the plan indicating a succession of large and small domes covering each bay
throughout the basilica; an entrance portico, itself covered by five domes; and a second sacristy
symmetrically opposite the Old Sacristy, drawn at a time when there is no clear evidence that such a
sacristy had yet been planned. It is possible that da Sangallo had some knowledge of Brunelleschi’s
intention to include deep nave chapels in the original design, but that da Sangallo invented the
other three above-noted differences as was his habit elsewhere. The presence in this floor plan of
features almost certainly invented by da Sangallo, such as the numerous domes, does not preclude
the possibility that other features, such as the deep nave chapels, were based on da Sangallo’s
knowledge of Brunelleschi’s original intentions.
42
Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 209–231; and Cohen, “The Lombard Connection,” 31–44.
43
With an emphasis on the medieval and Renaissance periods, but with many likely similarities with
all periods prior to the mid-eighteenth century, those six intended purposes may be summarized
as: 1) to provide diagrammatic clarity; 2) to confer structural stability; 3) to confer an overall state of
correctness, including structural stability, which in Italy was often called ordine; 4) to communicate
non-visual, iconographical content; 5) to help ensure stylistic consistency; and 6) to create aesthet-
ic beauty, though prior to the eighteenth century the term “aesthetic” would have been lacking.
Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 25–35, and ch. 6.
44
The root-2 rectangle happens to be an efficient cross-section for a typical wood joist, ensuring
near-maximum strength per unit of material for the species of wood commonly used in construc-
tion. This rule-of-thumb appears in 19th- and early 20th-century builder’s manuals, but there is no
evidence that it had any significant impact on the history of architecture. It has no similar structural
benefits in masonry construction. Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 275 and note 118.
45
46
Graßhoff and Berndt, “Decoding the Pantheon Columns,” Chapter 17 herein, 374; and Gerbino,
“Were Early Modern Architects Neoplatonists?,” Chapter 5 herein, 121. On the impracticality of
proportional systems, note Krista De Jonge’s cautious assessment that the surviving documentary
evidence pertaining to early modern Netherlandish architectural theory “…offers a glimpse of the
discourse current with the intellectual and artistic elite of the time, rather than any measurable con-
nection with architectural practice.” De Jonge, “Early Modern Netherlandish Artists,” Chapter 12
herein, 250.
47
Lois made the drawing ten years later, in 1672, for a book manuscript. Ottenheym, “Proportional
Design Systems,” Chapter 13 herein, 280.
48
Howard Burns, in personal correspondence with the author.
49
Manetti, Vita, 66; and Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 211 and note 2.
50
De Honnecourt, Sketchbook, 92–93, pl. 41.
51
See also Cohen, Beyond Beauty, ch. 1 and 6.
52
53
For a definition of proportional system, see the introduction to this volume (Chapter 1), page 30
and note 93; and page 538 and note 43 in the current chapter. The prospect of attempting to com-
prehend multiple layers of meaning within a proportional system simultaneously, perhaps through
deep meditation, raises tantalizing questions about the original reception of such proportional sys-
tems among religious communities. Cf. Principle 5.
54
For the San Lorenzo proportional system see Principle 4, above; Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 53–111;
and Cohen, “How Much Brunelleschi?” 19–37.
55
Cohan and Shires, Telling Stories, 1 and 65.
56
Cohan and Shires, Telling Stories, 58. Cf. Aristotle’s definition of plot as “...the ordering of the partic-
ular actions” Aristotle, Poetics, 1450a–1451a, as quoted in De Jong, ”Staging Ruins,” note 25. For an
alternative interpretation of the notion of plot in architecture see Murray, "Plotting Gothic," Chapter
6 herein; and Murray, “Narrating Gothic,” 55–63.
57
Van Eck, Classical Rhetoric, 128. For additional discussion of parallels between theater and architec-
ture, see De Jong, ”Staging Ruins,” 334–351.
547
Matthew A. Cohen
58
For the purposes of this volume, numerical correspondences are the numerical qualities of integers
as revealed, for example, in number progressions, while arithmetical correspondences are relation-
ships between numbers that are revealed through simple calculation. Cf. the introduction to this
volume (Chapter 1), note 94; and Cohen, Beyond Beauty, acknowledgements page and 22.
59
On the non-physical nature of the San Lorenzo proportional system, see the introduction to this
volume (Chapter 1), 15 and 31.
60
See Cohen, Beyond Beauty, 102–104. Cf. note 54, above.
61
Cohen, “How Much Brunelleschi?,” note 30.
62
Wilson Jones, “Approaches to Architectural Proportion,” Chapter 10 herein, 205.
63
Huntley, The Divine Proportion, 63; and Doczi, The Power of Limits, 108-110. Cf. the introduction to
this volume (Chapter 1), note 12.
64
Van Eck, Inigo Jones on Stonehenge, 36.
65
Benelli, “Rudolf Wittkower versus Le Corbusier,” Chapter 23 herein, 495.
66
Wittkower, Architectural Principles, 42-45.
67
On the medieval geometry vs. Renaissance number component of the Wittkower Paradigm, see the
introduction to this volume (Chapter 1), 19; and Cohen, Beyond Beauty, ch. 1.
68
“All the new elements introduced by Alberti in the facade, the columns, the pediment, the attic, and
the scrolls, would remain isolated features were it not for that all-pervading harmony which formed
the basis and background of his whole theory. Harmony, the essence of beauty, consists, as we have
seen, in the relationship of the parts to each other and to the whole, and, in fact, a single system of
proportion permeates the [Santa Maria Novella] facade, and the place and size of every single part
and detail is fixed and defined by it.” Wittkower, Architectural Principles, 45; also quoted by Benelli,
Chapter 23. See also the introduction to this volume (Chapter 1), note 30; and Cohen, Beyond
Beauty, 38-39.
69
70
Benelli, “Rudolf Wittkower versus Le Corbusier,” Chapter 23 herein, 503; and Vitruvius, The Ten
Books, 72-73 (III.1.ii-iii).
71
Cohen, "Le Corbusier's Modulor," Chapter 21 herein, 451. See also Principle 4, above.
72
This, following the publication of Wittkower’s Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism in
1949, and in a second edition in 1952. Wittkower, Architectural Principles (1971), “Introduction”;
Million, “Rudolf Wittkower”; Payne, “Rudolf Wittkower”; and Pevsner, “Report on a Debate.”
73
Wittkower, “Brunelleschi and Proportion in Perspective”; and the preceding analyzed in Trachten-
berg, Chapter 7 herein. For Wittkower’s theories on Palladio’s use of proportion, see Wittkower,
Architectural Principles, Parts 3 and 4; Cohen, Beyond Beauty, ch. 1; and the introduction to this
volume (Chapter 1), 33.
References
Alberti, Leon Battista. De re aedificatoria. Florence: Nicolaus Laurentii, 1485.
Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1988.
Benevolo, Leonardo, Stefano Chieffi and Giulio Mezzetti. “Indagine sul S. Spirito di Brunelleschi.”
Quaderni dell’istituto di storia dell’architettura 15 (1968): 1–52.
Cesariano, Cesare. Di Lucio Vitruvio Pollione de architectura libri decem traducti de latino in vulgare.
Como: Gottardo da Ponte, 1521. Reprint, Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1968.
Cohan, Steven and Linda M Shires. Telling Stories: A Theoretical Analysis of Narrative Fiction. New York
and London: Routledge, 1988.
Cohen, Matthew A. “The Bird Capitals of the Basilica of Santo Spirito in Florence:
Some Observations, and a Proposed Iconographical Interpretation.” QUASAR: Quaderni del
Dipartimento di Storia dell’Architettura e Restauro... di Firenze 13-14 (1995): 48-58.
———. “How Much Brunelleschi? A Late Medieval Proportional System in the Basilica of San Lorenzo
in Florence.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67 (2008): 18–57.
———. “The Lombard Connection: Northern Influences in the Basilicas of San Lorenzo and Santo
Spirito in Florence.” Annali di architettura 21 (2009): 31–44.
548
———. “Quantification and the Medieval Mind: An Imperfect Proportional System in the Basilica of
Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.” In Some Degree of Happiness: Studi di storia dell’architettura
in onore di Howard Burns, edited by Maria Beltramini and Caroline Elam, 1–30. Pisa: Edizioni
della Normale, 2010.
———. Beyond Beauty: Reexamining Architectural Proportion Through the Basilicas of San Lorenzo
and Santo Spirito in Florence. Venice: Marsilio, 2013.
———. “Face to Face with the Angels: The Sculpted Friezes in the Basilica of San Lorenzo.” In San
Lorenzo: A Florentine Church, edited by Robert W. Gaston and Louis A. Waldman, 330-351.
Villa I Tatti: The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 2017.
Crosby, Alfred W. The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250–1600. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997.
da Sangallo, Giuliano. Taccuino senese. Biblioteca Comunale, Siena, n.d.
———. Il libro di Giuliano da Sangallo: Codice Vaticano Barberiniano Latino 4424. Introduction and
notes by Cristiano Huelsen. II vols. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1984.
da Vignola, Giacomo Barozzi. Regola delli cinque ordini d’architettura. Rome: Camera Apostolica for
Vignola, 1562.
de Honnecourt, Villard. The Sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt. Edited by Theodore Bowie.
Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1959.
de Jong, Sigrid. “Staging Ruins: Paestum and Theatricality.” Art History 33, no. 2 (2010): 334–351.
Doczi, Gyorgy. The Power of Limits: Proportional Harmonies in Nature, Art and Architecture. Boston
and London: Shambhala, 1985.
Fernie, Eric. “A Beginner’s Guide to the Study of Gothic Architectural Proportions and Systems of
Length.” In Medieval Architecture and its Intellectual Context: Studies in Honour of Peter Kidson,
edited by Eric Fernie and Paul Crossley, 229-237. London and Ronceverte: Hambledon Press,
1990.
Frankl, Paul. “The Secret of the Mediaeval Masons.” The Art Bulletin 27, no. 1 (1945): 46–65.
Huntley, H. E. The Divine Proportion: A Study in Mathematical Beauty. New York: Dover Publications,
Inc., 1970.
Krautheimer, Richard. “Introduction to an ‘Iconography’ of Mediaeval Architecture.” Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 1-33.
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1970.
Le Clerc, Sébastien. Traité d’architecture, avec des remarques et des observations tres utiles pour les
jeuns gens qui veulent s’appliquer à ce bel art. Paris: Giffart, 1714.
———. A Treatise of Architecture, with Remarks and Observations Necessary for Young People, Who
Wou’d Apply Themselves to that Noble Art. Translated by Ephraim Chambers. II vols. London:
Taylor, Innys, Senex, and Osborne, 1723–1724.
Manetti, Antonio. Vita di Filippo Brunelleschi. Edited and with an introduction by Giuliano Tanturli.
Milan: Il Polifilo, 1976.
Million, Henry A. “Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism and its Influence
on the Development and Interpretation of Modern Architecture.” Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians 31 (1972): 83–91.
Murray, Stephen. Notre Dame, Cathedral of Amiens: The Power of Change in Gothic. Cambridge:
———. “Narrating Gothic: The Cathedral Plot.” In Gothic Art and Thought in The Later Medieval Period:
Essays in Honor of Willibald Sauerländer, edited by Colum Hourihane, 55–63. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.
Pane, Roberto. “Andrea Palladio e la interpretazione della architettura rinascimentale.” In Atti del XVIII
Congresso di storia dell’Architettura, 408-412. Venice: Arte veneta, 1956.
Payne, Alina A. “Rudolf Wittkower and Architectural Principles in the Age of Modernism.” Journal of
the Society of Architectural Historians 53 (1994): 322-342.
549
Matthew A. Cohen
Pevsner, Nikolaus. “Report on a Debate of the Motion ‘that Systems of Proportion Make Good Design
Easier and Bad Design More Difficult,’ held at the RIBA on June 18, 1957. The President, Mr.
Kenneth M. B. Cross, in the Chair.” RIBA Journal 64, no. 11: 456–463.
Saalman, Howard. Filippo Brunelleschi: The Buildings. University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1993.
Sanpaolesi, Piero. Brunelleschi. Milan: Edizioni per il Club del Libro, 1962.
Schulz, Juergen, “Measure for Measure.” Annali di architettura 24 (2012): 179-184.
van Eck, Caroline A. Classical Rhetoric and the Visual Arts in Early Modern Europe. New York:
———. Inigo Jones on Stonehenge: Architectural Representation, Memory and Narrative. Amsterdam:
Architectura & Natura, 2009.
Vitruvius. The Ten Books on Architecture. Trans. Morris H. Morgan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1914. Reprint, New York: Dover, 1960.
Wittkower, Rudolf. “Brunelleschi and ‘Proportion in Perspective.’” Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953): 275-291.
———. Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism. New York and London: W.W. Norton &
Company, 1971.
550
Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture:
A Critical Reconsideration

Edited by Matthew A. Cohen and Maarten Delbeke, 2018
Errata Corrige
Chapter 25: “Ten Principles for the Study of Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture,” by
Matthew A. Cohen

Page 545, note 17
“note 93” instead of “note 94”

Page 545, note 22
second line: “measures 58.36 cm” instead of “measures 58.66 cm”
thirteenth line: “1 br = 58.6 cm” instead of “1 br = 58.66 cm”

Page 547, note 41
first line: “(Fig. 8)” instead of “(Fig. 7)”

Page 548 note 63
“note 11” instead of “note 12”

Page 548 note 72
“Millon” instead of “Million”

Page 559
Millon, Henry: add page 548
Proportional Systems
in the History
of Architecture
A Critical Reconsideration
Edited by
Matthew A. Cohen
and Maarten Delbeke
LEIDEN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cover design: Suzan Beijer
Cover image: Jacob Lois, Proportional System of Schielandshuis, from his manuscript Oude en
ware beschrijving van Schieland, 1672, coll. Gemeentearchief Rotterdam.
Layout: Friedemann Vervoort
ISBN 978 90 8728 277 6
e-ISBN 978 94 0060 287 8 (e-pdf)
e-ISBN 978 94 0060 288 5 (e-pub)
NUR 648
©Matthew A. Cohen and Maarten Delbeke / Leiden University Press, 2018
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this
book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without
the written permission of both the copyright owner and the authors of the book.
This book is distributed in North America by the University of Chicago Press

(www.press.uchicago.edu).
Contents
Acknowledgements 9
Part I Introduction
1 Two Kinds of Proportion

Matthew A. Cohen 13
Part II Thinking and Seeing Proportion
2 Canons of Proportion and the Laws of Nature:

Observations on a Permanent and Unresolved Conflict
Mario Curti 61
3 The Composto Ordinato of Michelangelo’s Biblioteca Laurenziana:

Proportion or Anthropomorphy?
Caroline van Eck 71
4 Subjective Proportions:
18th-Century Interpretations of Paestum’s “Disproportion”
Sigrid de Jong 91
5 Were Early Modern Architects Neoplatonists?

The Case of François Blondel
Anthony Gerbino 113
6 Plotting Gothic:
A Paradox
Stephen Murray 129
7 To Build Proportions in Time, or Tie Knots in Space?

A Reassessment of the Renaissance Turn in Architectural
Proportions
Marvin Trachtenberg 147
Part III Designing with Proportion
8 1, 2, 3, 6: Early Gothic Architecture and Perfect Numbers

Elizabeth den Hartog 161
9 Proportion and Building Material or Theory versus Practice

in the Determination of the Module
Lex Bosman 183
10 Approaches to Architectural Proportion and the “Poor old

Parthenon”
Mark Wilson Jones 199
11 Scamozzi’s Orders and Proportions:

An End to Illusions or a Visionary Harbinger?
Franco Barbieri 233
12 Early Modern Netherlandish Artists on Proportion in Architecture

or “de questien der Simmetrien met redene der Geometrien”
Krista De Jonge 249
13 Proportional Design Systems in 17th-Century Holland

Konrad Ottenheym 277
14 The Matrix Regained:

Reflections on the Use of the Grid in the Architectural Theories
of Nicolaus Goldmann and Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand
Jeroen Goudeau 295
15 Dynamic Unfolding and the Conventions of Procedure:

Geometric Proportioning Strategies in Gothic Architectural Design
Robert Bork 317
Part IV New Approaches to Well-Known Sources
16 Divining Proportions in the Information Age

Andrew Tallon 347
17 Decoding the Pantheon Columns

Gerd Graßhoff and Christian Berndt 361
18 Leonardo da Vinci:
The Proportions of the Drawings of Sacred Buildings in Ms. B,
Institut de France
Francesco P. Di Teodoro 381
19 Philibert de L’Orme’s Divine Proportions and the Composition

of the Premier tome de l’architecture
Sara Galletti 397
20 An old problem?
Claude Perrault’s Views on Beauty and Proportion in Architecture
and French Aesthetic Theory
Maarten Delbeke 415
Part V Twentieth-Century Perspectives
21 Le Corbusier’s Modulor and the Debate on Proportion in France

Jean-Louis Cohen 437
22 Between Looking and Making:

Unravelling Dom Hans van der Laan’s Plastic Number
Caroline Voet 463
23 Rudolph Wittkower versus Le Corbusier:

A Matter of Proportion
Francesco Benelli 493
24 Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture:

A Conversation with James S. Ackerman
Conducted and edited by Matthew A. Cohen 511
Part VI Conclusion
25 Ten Principles for the Study of Proportional Systems in the

History of Architecture
Matthew A. Cohen 525
Index 551

Ten Principles For The Study of Proporti

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ten Principles For The Study of Proporti

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

25

Ten Principles for the Study of

Principle 1: The word “proportion” signifies two unrelated

This distinction is particularly germane in Sigrid de Jong’s analysis (Chapter 4) of

Principle 2: Proportional systems must be described with

Architectural surveys, whether manual or digital, constitute basic archaeological

Principle 3: Proportional systems are never executed exactly

Fig. 1. Summary of the San

Since the preponderance of evidence in favor of the proportional system

Principle 4: Proportional systems are executed in terms of

Proportional systems designed prior to the introduction of modern standardized

Principle 5: Belief-based proportional systems communicate

Fig. 3. Basilica of Santo Spirito,

Fig. 4. Cathedral of Milan floor

Principle 6: Proportional systems constitute historical evidence

Fig. 6. Proposed diagrammatic

possible roots of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand’s grid-based architectural proportional

intellectual monolith…unaltered, from its conception to its publication, by the process

Principle 7: Belief-based proportional systems serve no practical

Principle 8: Proportional systems constitute design methods

Principle 9: Proportional systems contribute no aesthetic

The question of whether proportional systems contribute universally recognized

Principle 10: Belief-based proportional systems communicate

terms as communicators of meaning, but in their specific literary senses as well. A

Fig. 12. Stonehenge,

Similarly, Francesco Benelli (Chapter 23) notes that beginning in 1940, in “a

Roman architecture.”65 The subject of Wittkower’s first such comparative proportional

LEIDEN UNIVERSITY PRESS

©Matthew A. Cohen and Maarten Delbeke / Leiden University Press, 2018

This book is distributed in North America by the University of Chicago Press

1 Two Kinds of Proportion

Part II Thinking and Seeing Proportion

2 Canons of Proportion and the Laws of Nature:

3 The Composto Ordinato of Michelangelo’s Biblioteca Laurenziana:

5 Were Early Modern Architects Neoplatonists?

7 To Build Proportions in Time, or Tie Knots in Space?

8 1, 2, 3, 6: Early Gothic Architecture and Perfect Numbers

9 Proportion and Building Material or Theory versus Practice

10 Approaches to Architectural Proportion and the “Poor old

11 Scamozzi’s Orders and Proportions:

12 Early Modern Netherlandish Artists on Proportion in Architecture

13 Proportional Design Systems in 17th-Century Holland

14 The Matrix Regained:

15 Dynamic Unfolding and the Conventions of Procedure:

Part IV New Approaches to Well-Known Sources

16 Divining Proportions in the Information Age

17 Decoding the Pantheon Columns

19 Philibert de L’Orme’s Divine Proportions and the Composition

Part V Twentieth-Century Perspectives

21 Le Corbusier’s Modulor and the Debate on Proportion in France

22 Between Looking and Making:

23 Rudolph Wittkower versus Le Corbusier:

24 Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture:

25 Ten Principles for the Study of Proportional Systems in the

You might also like