Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1998 - 53

to mention Sigismondo, himself, all rolled into one.' He formulated the "five orders" which became near doctrine in Renaissance architecture, introducing them in Rucellai Palace
(Florence, 14.q6). In the church of S. Andrea at Mantua he
combined the Roman temple front, the triumphal arch, a
dome and the tberlIIae (Roman baths) in his design. He also
used the basic rhythm of bay-arch-bay for both the facade and
the internal elevations. Tllis arrangement became velY popular
and was used later by Aleotti in llis designs for the proscenium
stage. 4 He remodeled the facade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence between 1456 and 1470, and gave it the classical columns, pediment and scroll buttresses which are considered by
some to be the beginning of the mannerist style. j At Ferrara, he
designed tlle canlpanile for tlle gotllic catlledral, San Giorgio.

DE RE AEDIFICATORIA
De re aedificatoria, is the first treatise on architecnlre to have
been written since Roman times. 11 is, tllerefore, both the direct successor to Vitrll\~us' treatise6 and the beginning of modern European literature on arcllitecture. 11 is a detailed and
thorough exposition of architecture and like Vitrll\~us, Alberti
did no illustrations.
Having made an intensive study of Roman ruins for his
Descriptio llrbis /'OlIIae, Alberti was convinced that a true
form of modern arcllitecture could be derived from a study of
classical ruins checked against ilie theoretical principles laid
down by Vitruvius. Thus, De re aedificatoria is consciously
modeled on the latter's work; indeed, it is a continuation and
clarification of that work. However, it was Alberti's thesis that
architecture as explicated by Vitruvius was not just a matter of
doctrine, but of discernable, natural laws of harmony, based
on mathematics, wllich he sought to explicate in his own
work. Though it is generally accepted tlmt tlle work was finished
by 1452, Alberti may have worked on alleast paI1S of it tillilis
deatll in 1472. It was not published till 1485,- but it was probably
read in manusClipt before tllen. It wenl tluough a number of subsequent editions, of wllich ilie later editions aI'e illustrated 8

1. Apo tolic abbreviators were Curial functionaries (in the Chance,,)

inrolred in drafting documents. These often were humanists employed for their knowledge of Latin.
2. He pretended to have transcribed it from a Latin codex and attributed it
to the Roman dramatist. Lepido. He finally admitted to having written it himself and dedicated it to Duke Leonello of Ferrara in 143 .
3. The exterior was never finished and is rather bizarre in it's unfinished
state. The interior is a magnificent synthesis of Romanesque, Gothic
and Renaissance styles.
4. Gian Battista Aleotti (~) used this arrangement inlhe
proscenium facades of his theatres at Ferrara (Teatro degli Intrepidi 1606) and Parma (Teatro Farnese - 1618). It became characteri tic
of theatres in the baroque age which followed.
5. ~lichelangelo is usually given this honor for his design of the
Laurentian Library, 1542.

Book Eight, Chapter Seven, is dedicated to Theatre. In it,
Alberti begins with all aI'gument promoting the performing
arts as useful to the state lumping everything from armed
combats and chaI'iot races to Theatre into one general category, "spectacle". 11 is, definitely, a revisionist view of llistory
and a \~gorous aI'gument in support of "spectacle". There is
no hint of the murderous \~olence and moral depravities common in the theatres aIld arenas of Imperial Rome, which had
moved the Chll1'ch to declare Theatre an anathema as a matter
of policy for over a thousand years.
Alberti calls up all army of classical personages (both
real and mythological) to support his argument: spectacle is
necessary for a well regulated society. This is in concert with
his overall view that all art, especially arcllitecture, the most
useful of the arts, is in the sef\~ce of state. 11 projects tIle humanist view, later expressed by Maclliavelli, that a well regulated society is the best we can hope for on tllis eaI·th,
buildings being an essential part of the body social.
Alberti follows with the general requirements for a Roman theatre, frequently making comparisons with the Greek.
He surpasses Vitrll\~us in llis meticulous attention to prop01~
tions and aI'chitecnu'al details, paI'ticularly to acoustics. He
feels tllat the voice is the most important consideration in the
construction of a Roman theatre and so conceives of it as a giant acoustical strucnlre, designed to envelop an audience. He
considers nearly every element of a ROmaIl theatre as a part of
the overall acoustical design.
He also describes periaktoi and the three classical scenes
from Vitrll\~us which beCaIlle S)~lonymous with Renaissance
theatre through the works of Sebastiano Serlio, though Alberti
precedes the later by more than a half a centuly.9 De re
aedificatoria appeared sixty years before Serlio's much
vaunted Five Books ofArcbitectllre (1545) and a year before
the publication of Vitruvius' De arcbitectllra. De re
aedificatoria staIlds at the threshold of Renaissance perf01~
maI1Ce as a bridge between classical aIld modern theatre.

6. ~Iarcus \'itruvius Pollio. (n. 0-15 B.C.), was the author of a treatise on
architecture known as De arcbifecful'a. or "The Ten Books of Architecture." It i the only work on architecture to hare come down to us
from antiquity. The original Latin manuscript was discorered at 5t.
Gaul in 1414, and it was widelv circulated in manuscript fonn before
its first publication in 1486. The 5t. Gaul manuscript had no illustrations. In 1511. an edition with illustrations appeared, and Vitruvius
went through many subsequent illustrated editions in eve,,' major
European language, down to our own times.
7 It was published posthuJllously by his brother Bernardo..8. De re aedijicaforia was printed again in Paris in 1512 by Geoff!)' TOIl',
the famous designer of lettering and typography, who gave the work
its present organization into chapters. In 1546. it was translated into
Italian by Pietro Lauro and this translation was superseded in 1550
by Cosimo Bartoli's, which added crude illustrations. The Bartoli
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1998