Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1985 - 22

Temple and the Flight into Egypt (13941399), with Fra Angelico's The Annunciation (1440 -1450). Broederlam really
has two pictures in a single frame. He
has used the side houses as an open baldacchino to show an interior for the
Presentation. Right beside it is a landscape of the Flight that half-heartedly
climbs the background building-really
a form of the architectural screen. The
use of space is still na·ive. A century
before Palladio, Fra Angelico was
painting with a good sense of spatial
order. He uses an open, interior scene
for his Annunciation. To achieve depth
he uses the multiple side house convention. His three columns in perspective
lead our eye to the Virgin. The illusion
is still presented via architectural structures rather than locale but the illusion
of reality is shown to be possible.
The use of the architectural background, the convention of the exterior
and the development of the side houses
eventually led to the Renaissance concept of multiple vanishing points.
I suggested earlier that Palladio was
a man of his time. This implies that,
although he had a conscious desire to
reproduce the ancient Roman theatre,
he consciously or unconsciously absorbed the space conventions and concepts of the past age and those implicit
in the new. Therefore, another influence must be mentioned: the "Terence
stages.' ,
The basic form of the "Terence
stage" was the arcade screen. Scholars
realized that the revival of the Latin
plays necessitated a house for each of
the principal characters. Furthermore,
the texts of plays indicated a need for
interiors as well as exteriors. The artists
responded to the need by using
a pleasing arcade with curtains, sometimes flat, sometimes shaped forward
in the center like a medieval pavilion,
and sometimes with open arches at
the sides. A few curtains are pulled
aside to show realistic interiors'

Kernodle points out that this is a new
tradition, for the arcade can serve as a
unified place or as a multiple structure
with separate inner stages revealed by
curtain. However, it seems to be an
adoption of the medieval mansion.
Palladio died in August of 1580,
shortly after work began, leaving the
completion of the Olimpico to his son,
Silla, and to his pupil, Vincenzo Scamozzi. The completed work is not
entirely as Palladio intended.

After one glance at the Olimpico
several significant exceptions to the Vitruvian plan of a theatre can be seen:
it is not an open air theatre but is under
a roof or velarium; the cavea is a semiellipse rather than a semi-circle; and a
special arrangement is made for the five
doors mentioned by Vitruvius. The
first exception, that of roofing the theatre, could have been a concession to
both physical com fort and dramatic
necessity.
The second exception, that of making the cavea a semi-ellipse instead of a
semi-circle, caused several problems.
The stability and unity, marks of the
Roman stage, became turbulent and
strained. Although the semi-ellipse
provides better sight lines for the spectators, it breaks the esthetic whole, for
it is not proportionate to the architectural fa<;:ade. The seats obtrude upon
and cut into the area of the parascenia;
hence, the architectural space is divided
in two. However, it must be pointed
out that the use of the semi-ellipse is
conceptually correct for its intended
audience. Members of the Academy
were equal in importance; no royal box
dominated the cavea, nor was scenery
designed for one man's eye alone.
Bringing all spectators closer to the
stage by reducing the orchestra gives all
members a good seat.
What Palladio intended to do with
the five doors in the rear wall of the stage
is uncertain. Ottavio Scamozzi states
that the Vitruvian concept of three
doors in a circular form of theatre is not
completely adaptable to one in an elliptical shape. 6 However, Palladio's center door fits Vitruvius' description of
the Royal Door, a direct descendant of
the Roman tri umphal arch. I n his 1556
edition of Vitruvius, Barbaro placed
a small perspective street scene behind an arch in the architectural
screen which Renaissance artists had
both inherited through the tradition
of painting and borrowed directly
from the ancient theatre'

It is possible that Palladio's pupil, Scamozzi, raised the height of the side
doors to favor the perspective that he
added in 1584-1585, another depanure
from Vitruvian precept. Although Vitruvius favored scenery and even delineated types of scenes to be painted on
the periaktoi, he could not possibly
have meant scenery in terms of threedimensional perspective. The vistae
that Scamozzi decided upon were done
in an illusionistic style completely re-

moved from the stylistic features th(
theatre revealed. The stylistic unity wa~
compromised by the Italian interest ir
illusion:
the unquestionable ingenuity of the
scenic apparatus, built entirely in
wood and stucco shows Scamozzi's
ability 10 master subtle techniques of
illusion. But both illusion and artifices in perspective could not be farther removed from Palladio's poetical imagination.-

The stylistic gulf between prosceniuIT
and scenery was never remedied.
Although Palladio lauded the Vi
truvian concepts of "durability, pro·
portion and beauty," the completec
Olimpico cannot be commended on al
those terms. According to Vitruvius
who used the metaphor of the humar
body to illustrate his concepts of pro·
portion and decorum to effect beauty
balance and unity above all else induc(
the pleasurable background
limited on its sides by the narrow diaphragm of its vast walls, like motionless wings, faced and contrasted with
the steep and uncomfortable steps of
the semi-elliptical audilOrium.'

Again, the architectural space i~
split in two. The term "contrasted" in·
dicates that the idea of Vitruvian
wholeness is sacri ficed, perhaps by th(
given space with which Palladia
worked, or for the purely functiona
need of seating some three thousanc
spectators.
Similarly, a tension exists amon2
the elements of the arcade screen. Th(
screen is designed in three registers, th(
top register being a frieze. The col·
umns, the three archways, the archi·
traves, side wings with doors and th(
statues are a reproduction of a Romar
fa<;:ade. The feeling, however, is n01
that of the serenity and order of clas·
sical Roman architecture. The eye doe~
not rest; it moves over the fa<;:ade, find·
ing little repose. This results becaus(
the fa<,:ade is a "classicized" copy of a
Roman fa<,:ade as opposed to being
classical. That is, the esthetic attitud(
that engendered the fa<;:ade, althouglbacked with a wide knowledge and deer
appreciation of ancient Roman architecture, is weakened self-confidence, a
tendency toward self-consciousnes~
and mannerisms. This is due, in greal
part, to the way the screen is made.
When he was given the narrow and ir·
regular space to execute his design h(
necessarily modi fied the propon ions 0 I

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1985