THE DE RE AEDIFICATORIA: A L B E R T I , OR DESIRE AND TIME

by King Ptolemy o f Alexandria to adjudicate the games he had instituted,222 is

not found in the De re aedificatoria. 223 The other two types, however, are fre-
quently used by Alberti, either as personal anecdotes, or as borrowings from
Vitruvius, some o f whose stories seem at first glance to have been simply tran-
scribed from the De architectura into the De re aedificatoria.
With a few rare exceptions,224 the illustrative narratives ofVitruvius, all
borrowed from historical tradition, are brief, autonomous fragments that could
be eliminated without altering the form o f his 'theoretical text' or even its es-
sential content. In effect, centered on exploits o f individuals which inspire the
Roman architect to digress and moralize, their relation to the theoretical content
o f the treatise is often very weak. Thus, the chapters o f the De architectura de-
voted to the selection o f sites are illustrated by the biographies of, respectively,
Marcus Hostilius, who moved the town o f Salapis to get it away from the
marshes, and o f Andronicus o f Cyrrha, who built an octagonal tower corre-
sponding to his classification o f winds.225 Book 2 on materials vaunts the ad-
ventures o f the wealthy Mausolus, who had his palace walls built o f brick. 226
Hermogenes, who invented proportions, and Agaturius, who painted the fres-
cos for the city ofTralles, are the respective heroes o f stories embedded in the
chapters on symmetria and ornament.
O n the contrary, the illustrative narratives in the De re aediftcatoria are closely
tied to their context. They are considerably varied, and much more numerous
than those o f the De architectura, but shorter and, granting little importance to
their protagonists, assume no autonomy. They cannot be dissociated from the
text o f the treatise into which they are integrated and literally absorbed by the
play o f shifters which refer to the situation d'enonciation as well as to the situation
d' enonce. Alberti's references to history, his citations o f the past, whether bor-
rowed directly from ancient literature or reconstructed by him as an archaeol-
ogist working with material evidence,227 serve either to help comprehend the
motivation and thus the meaning o f certain forms, or to justify and explicate
certain rules. In the former case, he is led to evoke manifold aspects o f human
behavior down through history, describing the ceremony o f communion in
early Christianity,228 the hospitality policies o f certain Italian princes,229 the

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diversions o f travelers using the ancient roads, 2 3 0 or the foundation rites o f an-
cient cities. 2 3 1 In the latter case, which is the more frequent, the examples cho-
sen by Alberti are alternately positive and negative. This seeming indifference
si g n als the critical distance he adopts with respect to a past taken to be not ex-
emplary, but rather illuminating. The validity o f the rules o f t e De re aedificatoria
is confirmed as much by the invocation (and condemnation) o f the excess which
led to the building o f the temple o f Jerusalem, 232 or the lavish widening o f the
streets o f R o m e ordered by Nero, 2 3 3 as it is by reportage (and eulogy) on the
methods the Ancients used to select an urban site 2 3 4 and situate an edifice,23 5 or
by the way the architect o f the Pantheon conceptualized the construction o f the
walls o f that temple. 2 3 6
If, then, in linguistic terms, the illustrative anecdotes ofVitruvius are truly
narratives, for Alberti we can speak only o f 'pseudo-narratives', since the anec-
dotal passages are an integral part o f Alberti's discourse, entirely subordinated to
the enunciative soverei g n ty o f the text whose author's use o f the present tense
dominates their perfects and imperfects. This dependence also leads us to sus-
pect that, aside from their obvious role o f confirmation and explication, 2 3 7
Alberti's illustrative narratives have another function: as they invoke history, they
also invoke time itself, the dynamic time o f births and creations ignored by
Vitruvius, in whose flow Alberti's textual enterprise and that o f building itself
are simultaneously inscribed.
This double role played by the subject (the first person singular) and by
temporality in the De re aedificatoria emerges even more clearly when we con-
front Alberti's origin narratives with those ofVitruvius from which they derive.
The De architectura contains three origin narratives. The first recounts the
birth o f architecture. It is announced at the end o f the proemium to book 2,
where Vitruvius admits to having borrowed it from tradition, but does not ex-
plain why he locates the narrative 2 3 8 at the beginning o f this book on materials.
We can summarize this narrative as consisting o f six sequences connected to one
another by temporal adverbials: 1) men lived in forests like wild animals ("ut.
ferae''); 2) one day, a fire was started by lightning and caused them to flee; 3) when
they returned, after the blaze had died down, they discovered the utility o f fire,

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 THE DE RE AEDIFICATORIA: A L B E R T I , OR DESIRE AND TIME

and, wanting to communicate with each other about this, they invented lan-
guage and thus society; 4) in time, they profited from these new capacities to cre-
ate various kinds o f shelter (shelters made ofleaves, caves dug into the ground);
5) finally, by virtue o f progress, they built the first hut. After the fifth sequence,
the story is interrupted by an 'ethnographic' parenthesis intended to confirm the
testimony o f the legendary or mythical tradition o f sequences (4) and (5).239
Following this, the last sequence (6) recounts the refinement o f building with
the invention o f ' s y m m e t r y ' - i n other words, with the advent o f architecture
stricto sensu. The narrative ends as abruptly as it began, and, with no transition,
Vitruvius tackles the subject o f his second book, the materials o f construction.
T h e second narrative, presented in book 4, accounts for the origin o f
the orders. It is more complicated than the preceding story, and assigns histor-
ical priority and superiority to the Doric order ("prima et antiquitus Dorica est
nata"). 240 It can be divided into eight periods: 1) Dorus reigned over Achaia
and the Peloponnese; 2) he erected a temple in Argos dedicated to Juno, which
was by chance constructed with a type o f column which came to serve as model
for many other temples that still, however, lacked 'symmetry'; 3) the Athenians
founded thirteen colonies in Asia, and Ion, their leader, created cities (Ephesus,
Miletus, Priene, Samos, etc.) which would constitute Ionia; these cities erected
sanctuaries on the model o f those o f Achaia and for that reason called them
'Doric'. But these sanctuaries were nevertheless different because their
columns used a system o f proportions (symmetria) based on the male human
body; 5) a column o f the same type, but built according to the proportions o f
the female human body, was invented next; 6) the successors o f these inventors
created the Ionic column, which is more slender; 7) finally the Corinthian col-
u m n appeared, created in imitation o f the body o f a young girl; 8) the
Corinthian capital was invented by Callimachus after the death o f a Corinthian
girl. This second origin narrative, also credited to tradition, differs from the
first in two respects. First, it is better adapted to its context, since it is placed
in the first chapter o f book 4, following a section o n the Ionian order (at the
end o f book 3) and a comparison o f the three orders (at the beginning o f
chapter 1 o f book 4). Second, it no longer refers to anonymous protagonists

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in imprecise settings, but rather specific characters (from mythology or his-

tory) in a specific place, Greece.
The third and last narrative ofVitruvius is located in the second chapter o f
the same book 4, and deals with the origin o f the ornamentation o f capitals.
Much shorter than the preceding ones, it is not presented as the legacy o f tradi-
tion. Neither does Vitruvius claim to have invented it, even though he seems to
have deduced it from his analysis o f wood construction.
Only the first two origin narratives found in Vitruvius were, in part, reused
by Alberti, and only at the expense o f transformations which altered their func-
tion and meaning.
From the long first narrative, which takes us from the dawn o f society to
the origins o f architecture as an art, Alberti took only the theme o f an original
beginning, which he split into four brief etiological2 41 schemas which are au-
tonomous and located at crucial points in the space o f the text. The first, ho-
mologous to the first three sequences o f Vitruvius, is situated, as we have seen, at
the beginning o f the prologue. By locating edification at the origin o f human so-
ciety, in an original gesture Alberti begins with a justification and foundation for
the project enunciated and realized in the De re aedift-catoria.
The second etiological schema, situated at the beginning o f the first part o f
the treatise (book 1, chapter 2), is not actually homologous with sequences 4
and 5 in Vitruvius, in that what Alberti describes is not the 'primitive hut'242 but
rather the innovative behavior o f the first builders: the six steps o f this process ac-
count for the six operations o f the fourth axiom, and lay the foundation for the
whole first part o f the De re aedift-catoria.
The third and shortest schema, which opens chapter 1 o f book 4, is only
loosely related to the fifth and sixth sequences o f Vitruvius. T h e genesis o f the
built world is no longer seen in terms o f technological results, but instead in
terms o f motivations, according to the desire and demand which the De re aed-
ift-catoria views as the very driving force o f edification. It deals with the origin
o f works which satisfy not just commoditas but also voluptas, providing the basis
for the second part o f the treatise, whose rules, as we have seen, are also in fact

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generators o f organic beauty by the application of the third corollary of the

axiom o f the building as a body.
As for the fourth schema, located at the end o f chapter 2 o f book 6, the
only feature it shares with the sixth sequence o f Vitruvius is its connection with
the origin of'symmetry', or, in Albertian terms, the finitio which symbolizes the
rational aesthetic and completes edification. Alberti gives his schema more gen-
eral and abstract scope. It concerns all o f the artes, o f which architecture is just a
particular example; and he substitutes for the six legendary stages of develop-
ment three abstract factors: chance, observation and experiment, and rational-
ization. This triadic schema thus seems to be intended as a justification for the
specific operator o f book 9 (the fifth axiom) and as support for 'the history o f ar-
chitecture' (book 6, chapter 3) which provides the basis for Alberti's dogmatic
aesthetic.
In comparison with Vitruvius' first origin narrative, the four schemas o f
the De re aedificatoria are distinguished by their abstraction, by the way in which
Alberti appropriates them, and above all by their active role and the functions
they perform in the text. I have already pointed to the dr y n ess ofAlberti's origin
narratives. Nothing remains o f the picturesque and the detail so dear to
Vitruvius. The forest fires, the pantomimes, the diversity o f the first attempts at
construction are all gone. The original men occupy sites, divide space into pub-
lic and private places, erect walls: these are protagonists so theoretical it would be
tempting to conceive o f them as a single individual, Man. The word prindpio,
this 'in the beginning' with which each o f the four fragments begins, is also an 'in
principle'. Moreover, as in the case o f the illustrative narratives,Alberti takes over
his etiological schemas, integrates them into a situation d'enonciation, and in so
doing, strips them o f their status as historical narratives. However, this time the
appropriation is accomplished not by an appeal to judgment, but by a claim to
paternity. Not without condescending to tradition2 43 or ironically invoking the
schemas Vitruvius copied uncritically into his treatise, Alberti explicitly states that
he is the inventor o f these four narratives. He thus banishes the mythical di-
mension which the Roman architect introduced into the De architectura with

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an overt appeal to tradition transmitted by the Latin literature through authors

like Ovid or Lucretius in particular. 2 4 4 In the schemas he derives from the first
Vitruvian narrative, Alberti replaces the mythical time o f beginnings with the
abstract and ahistorical dimension o f operative analysis. Finally, as we have seen,
each etiological schema is located earlier than the section o f the text for which
i t - a l o n g with its operators-serves a foundational functiori. This functionality
o f the narratives stands in stark contrast with the inertia o f the origin narratives
in the De architectura, which are distributed more or less randomly but always
occur posterior to the textual field with which they are related.
We are thus justified, as I suggested above, in taking the origin narratives or
etiological schemas o fAlberti as constitutive o f a second type o f operator whose
function is to give legitimacy to the first type, which could be called 'logical',
and which are constituted by the axioms. I have called these operators o f the
second type meta-mythic 2 4 5 because they function both to contest the myth and
to p r e s e r v e - n o doubt parodically-its form. Thus, the meta-mythic operator
appears in Alberti as an epistemological instrument, 2 4 6 intermediate between the
ancient etiological myth and what our contemporaries-after centuries o f
searching for first causes-imagine to be 'cultural universals'.
This reading brings out the different status in the De re aedificatoria o f the
'history o f architecture' constructed in three stages modeled on the schema o f
the artes. It differs from the etiological sketches in that, far from generating cre-
ative time, it virtually occupies space and time itself. In spite o f its form, it does
not belong to the meta-mythic operators: Alberti's history o f architecture is
merely a pseudo-operator, which helps him to justify the truth value he attrib-
utes to the aesthetic o f the Greco-Roman orders. This selective and 'cultural'
history, 2 47 which does not yet really warrant the denomination 'history', cannot
in any ever..t be assimilated to the legendary narratives ofVitruvius, which are
essentially inspired by the Hellenistic tradition.
In fact, only the second origin narrative in the De architectura has a true
echo in the De re aedificatoria: the story concerning the orders in chapter 5 o f
book 9. N o t that Alberti renders it more any more faithfully than he does other
preceding examples, but whereas he simplifies and rationalizes it, he nonetheless

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acknowledges the tradition transmitted by Vitruvius, he adopts a self-effacing

posture 2 4 8 by deferring to the Ancients, and he goes so far as to attribute to them
the axiom o f the building as a body. N o t only is this the case, but it is o f crucial
importance that the long narrative on the origin o f the orders performs no func-
tion. It is divisible into seven episodes 2 4 9 distributed between chapters 5 and 7,
where they are interjected very oddly into the theoretical discourse, in contrast
with the other origin narratives o f his treatise.And, this narrative is situated after
the rules for the orders o f which it speaks. Furthermore, its protagonists are not
the abstract h o m i n e s - m a n - o f the other schemas, but above all maiores nostri-
our ancestors-and then architecti, predecessors which derive from historical
times. Far from being a meta-mythic operator in the text, this narrative-which
after a fashion historicizes the legend o f Vitruvius-reveals in the same way as
the 'history o f architecture' the theoretical difficulties that Alberti faces in the
part o f the De re aedificatoria devoted to aesthetic pleasure.
Thus this comparative study o f the narratives in Vitruvius and Alberti con-
firms my preceding analyses. It brings out the ambi g u ous and decisive role played
by a history o f architecture which does n o t - c a n n o t - y e t dare to call itself such,
and which comes to disturb the relation o f the D e re aedificatoria to the past.
It is now clear that Alberti's treatise is undergirded by the irreducible opposition
between a time which is the locus o f architectural creation and an abstract time
in which this creation, in a permanent state o f becoming, is founded in theory.
In spite o f an identical use o f past tenses, only the illustrative narratives refer to
real duration in time. They evoke the past n o t to valorize it as such, but to
exalt the creativity o f time itself, which is stated and restated, almost as a the-
sis, throughout the D e re aedificatoria. The axis o f duration is necessary for the
activity o f edification to be deployed. This message is repeated, systematically
transmitted from the beginning o f the book to the end by numerous references
to the past. But we have seen that, as soon as it is uttered, this past is, so to speak,
defused by the Albertian enunciation. It loses the status it would have in a truly
historical text. The author's watchful I appropriates it so successfully that he re-
duces it to no more than a dimension o f his own construction, in other words,
o f his treatise.

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V I . THE ARCHITECT-HERO

It is not the least paradox that the ordering I o f the De re aedificatoria, the sub-
ject who addresses the reader and refers constantly to the situation d'enonciation,
introduces his own history into his treatise. However, we have seen that it is only
the intellectual biography o f the author, his speculative enterprise, which is
evoked in the book.The only episodes o f his past experiences which come into
play in the text are those related to the situation d'enonce, whether they concern
a milestone in his thinking, or an architect's site visit. This could, then, be a kind
of situational reference which is proper to theoretical texts, and is to be under-
stood as a 'reference to interdiscourse', 250 o f which in this case we can consider
the built world to be the non-literary side o f the coin.
Alberti's biography as it unfolds in the De re aedificatoria is, however,
something altogether other than a discursive or even situational referent in the
strict sense. The story o f Alberti the author begins with his decision to write
the De re aedificatoria and proceeds as difficulties arise and solutions are found
which progressively generate the sequencing o f the parts o f the book and the
order o f the procedures o f edification, and also determine the position and or-
ganization o f the etiological schemas as well as the choice o f historical exam-
ples. O n this story (so oddly detached from history itself) which narrates the
stages o f a theoretical investigation and the construction o f a book depend
both the ordering o f the rules o f edification and the ordering o f the text. In
the last analysis, the whole generative project o f the De re aedificatoria is based
on the creativity o f the author-subject o f the text. Alberti suggests this himself
when he assimilates his persona as writer to that o f a builder: "But we shall
now proceed to set out the whole process, beginning from the very founda-
tions, describing it as though we were ourselves about to construct the building with our
own hands." 25 1
The evolution o f edification, as the De re aedificatoria presents it, is thus de-
termined by the personal history o f the writer. It does not matter that this his-
tory is compressed and reduced, and that references to it are sporadic: far from
being secondary or pedagogical, it has imposed its order on the narrative.

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But what status are we to assign to the De re aedificatoria, given that it

appears not only to be unified by the enunciation (enonciation) of an authorial
I, but also to be structured by the telling (enonce) of his story? Can we still
speak of a discourse, of a theoretical text? O r is it, more precisely, a discourse on
a theoretical text, a discursive category of which Alberti has produced a canon-
ical example with his De pictura? The De re aedificatoria can in fact be compared to
this work, also unprecedented and distinct from all earlier treatises on painting,
which exalts the creative power of the artist as deus in natura, 252 and in which
the author is constantly present in the first person singular, 253 imposing his per-
sonal viewpoint on the reader, expressing his pride as innovator. Comparison
would be even more relevant, perhaps, with another example of a discourse on a
theoretical text, the Discours de la metl10de of Descartes, 254 who assimilated the
presentation of his philosophy to an account of his intellectual enterprise and
even certain circumstances of his life.
However, in the De pictura as well as in Descartes' Discours, the speaker's
insistent reference to himself as a concrete historical person, affirming "una
metcifisica dell'uomo creatore," 255 does not affect the form of the text, and does not
modify its status as a discourse on a theoretical text. On the other hand, although
the De re aedificatoria does indeed express the goal of demonstrating that "l'attiv-
ita umana, che si esplica nella costruzione della citta, e ii dominio proprio dell'uomo:
l'uomo qui e artifice, e causa, e Dio. fl suo significato e, non nel contemplare un dato, ma
nel fare, nel produrre," 256 its form reveals something other than the ecstasy of cre-
ation and the affirmation of individual power. The critical approach of the author
speaking in the first person, and that second person who is constantly addressed
by the first; the weight of the present indicative, which is the basic tense of the
text, and the future indicatives, subjunctives, and imperatives which appear al-
ternately in the formulation of the rules of edification; the firm expression of a
theoretical project: the whole impressive apparatus paradoxically conceals a his-
torical text that shelters, behind the I of the author and theoretician, the he of its
hero. Whereas the De pictura and the Discours de la methode both present a theory
which from time to time happens to be pointed up or clarified by a reference to
the situation d'enonciation or the past of the speaker, the De re aedificatoria tells how

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a hero discovers the rules o f edification after having first reinforced their foun-
dation, in the four moments when his power is at its height and he constructs
the origin narratives o f the prologue and books 1, 4, and 6.
The word 'hero' is not advanced innocently. It is meant to point up the
singularity o f this historical text and the quasi-mythic dimension o f its secret
protagonist, the great orderer o f the D e re aedi.ficatoria, the architect-hero whose
triumph is consecrated in the last chapters o f the text. He is an exceptional and
ambivalent fi g ure, dwelling outside human time and yet immersed in its flow by
the intermediary o f Alberti's I, who metaphorically assumes his role as the edifier
o f the book, discoverer o f the rules o f edification, and fabricator o f the origin
narratives. Thus, this hero resolves the contradictions accompanying the task o f
law-giving by fulfilling the antinornic functions o f a man called upon to formu-
late hie et nunc the rules o f edification, and o f the Architect who has the author-
ity to found them in the ahistorical time oflogic.
B y integrating his discourse as such into a historical text, Alberti recom-
poses, on the level o f his book, an analogue o f those origin narratives whose
model he found in Vitruvius and other writers o f Antiquity, and which he had,
through the use o f irony and by an implacable subordination to the sit11ation
d'enonciation, stripped o f their mythic or religious overtones. The D e re aedi.ficato-
ria thus loses some o f the transparency which had first drawn our attention.
O f course Alberti's systematic elaboration o f the rules o f edification from
a limited set o f logical operators is still the first undertaking o f its kind, and his
project-given the roles he assi g n s to time and desire-is indeed inau g ural and
remains unsurpassed. But it nevertheless becomes clear that this theory plugged
into the real world occupies a superficial stratum o f the text, which is subordi-
nated to a deeper stratum, whereupon by virtue o f a heroic narrative w e can
read between the lines the workings o f myth.
Is this narrative parodic or in fact mimetic? Was it composed deliberately
or rather surreptitiously introduced by the author's unconscious? The answer
matters little.What is essential is the contradiction that confronts us, the fact that
it symbolically refers to the tradition against which, from the outset,Alberti's en-
terprise was directed.

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To interpret this secret flaw, this obscure face o f a masterwork without

'shades', we must attempt to re-enter the period in which Alberti devoted his
treatise to the task o f introducing reason, imagination, and desire into a domain
from which they had previously been excluded as long as that domain was gov-
erned by the commands o f the gods o f the city. To abolish these ancient limita-
tions, to free oneself from all transcendent or unmotivated regulation, was not
an anodyne gesture. What was possible (albeit not without risk) 257 in the fi g u ra-
tive domain o f painting, proved to be impossible in the real-life domain o f build-
ing, which engages a practical human activity. Alberti did not have at his
command the means to effect the emancipation o f the act o f building, which
was in effect still associated with sacrilege. His unprecedented project, the con-
ception o f a generative program o f laws for building, could only be uttered as
an exorcism. That is why he invents and constructs, by his own particular means,
a secular foundation narrative in the first person whose builder-hero simultane-
ously escapes from historical time, dominates it, and is able to recognize its fe-
cundity. The transgression Alberti committed when he provided edification with
its own legislation is thus symbolically exorcised by means of this odd historical
text simulating a foundation myth: a derisory, but indispensable, concession in
the service o f delivering the soverei g n theory o f the De re aedificatoria.

135