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The Architect Reader-as-Writer Early Modern Architectural Texts as a Playground for Creation through Active Reading
From the introduction
When we read handwriting, we can imagine the physical attitude and labour that produced it, because we do a similar thing ourselves when we take hold of pens.
David M. Theodore[1]
A lot of ink has been spilled over the study of active readers from the Early Modern period, including annotations and marginalia.[2] However, in architectural historiography, very few writers have focused on how Early Modern readers interacted with printed architectural texts actively, with the labor that David Theodore stresses above as inherently understandable to reader/writers today. Sarah McPhee put forward revolutionary analysis in her 1999 essay, “The Architect as Reader,” where she focuses “uniquely architectural forms of reading,” and this idea of activity: the architect-as-reader acts as “an active interpreter,” “a partner in the determination of meaning.”[3] Michael J. Waters, in his essay, “A Renaissance without Order,” echoes McPhee’s ideas about architectural readers being ‘active interpreters’ and ‘partners’ as he emphasizes the “mutability” of printed architectural text and image when faced with the active Early Modern architect-as-reader, “print was always at the mercy of its user who gave the text and image individualized meaning through the act of reading and viewing, which placed prints in dialogue with other drawings.”[4] Waters’ analysis calls attention to how reductive and mistake-ridden Early Modern printed architectural texts and images were and that human readers had to counteract the mechanical process of printing by engaging actively with the printed architectural matter. David Theodore agrees that “the ‘fixity’ of print was hardly assured” in this period, using the example of Montaigne, who “had no concept for the fixity of print, and that he saw the typeset text not as finished works but as canvas and palimpsest.”[5] This paper will extend on these writers’ analyses, setting out a catalog of different ways the Early Modern architectural reader engaged with the palimpsest of active reading on printed matter, extending on the formulation ‘architect-as-reader.’ It will rely on primary texts in the Avery Classics collection and on scholarship around Inigo Jones, an architectural reader who has garnered specific scholarly attention. The scope will encompass the period from early European architectural printed texts, like Alberti’s 1485 edition, into the architectural culture of Europe in the 18th century, culminating in a 19th- or earlier 20th-century example to illustrate how these attitudes and strategies have continued post-Early Modern period.
If we want to understand how architectural readers understood their own textual relationships, we can begin with the ‘architect-as-reader-as-writer.’ One of the most illuminating self-written accounts of architectural reading is found in Goethe’s Italian Journey 1786-1788, in which Goethe notes buying and reading Vitruvius and Palladio editions and meeting Scamozzi in person.[6] Goethe pays great attention to reading Palladio and visiting his buildings, noting,
Looking at the buildings which Palladio completed, in particular at his churches, I have found much to criticize side by side with great excellence. While I was asking myself how far I was right or wrong about this extraordinary man, he seemed to be standing beside me, saying: “This or that I did against my will, nevertheless I did it because it was the closest approximation to my ideal possible under the circumstances.”[7]
Firstly, this moment is notable because Goethe is confident enough to laud and criticize Palladio’s legacy and work, considering himself as an equal or “partner,” to use McPhee’s word choice. Goethe also feels authoritative enough to question Palladio when he, in one instance, notes that he knows more about a temple than Palladio; while comparing Palladio’s plate with seeing the temple in person, Goethe is assured that “he cannot have seen it personally.”[8] This sets up the dynamic as one of a dialogue with participants or partners of equal worth, not the author having overwhelming authority, fixity or immutability. Perhaps the most significant moment is the ‘conversation’ that occurs when Goethe imagines the 200-years-dead Palladio appearing and speaking to him in response. This dialogue with Palladio is analogous to the actual conversation Goethe has with Scamozzi, suggesting that reading is analogous to speaking. Goethe is a reader-as-writer and, concurrently, a reader-as-speaker or even reader-as-conversationalist, engaging in an architectural conversation that spans centuries.
[1] David Michael Theodore, “‘Aproued on my self’: Inbetween the Sheets of Inigo Jones’s Palladio,” 2000, master’s thesis, p. 42. Emphasis added.
[2] See: Roger Chartier, The Order of Books, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), tr. Lydia G. Cochrane; Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); H. J. Jackson, Marginalia, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); William H. Sherman, Used Books, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).
[3] Sarah McPhee, “The Architect as Reader,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 58, no. 3, 1999, pp. 459, 454-455.
[4] Michael J. Waters, “A Renaissance without Order: Ornament, Single-sheet Engravings, and the Mutability of Architectural Prints,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 71, No. 4, Special Issue on Architectural Representations 2, 2012, p. 508.
[5] David M. Theodore, “Aproued on my self,” pp. 43, 46.
[6] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey, 1786-1788, tr. W. H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer, (Pantheon Books: New York, 1962): “Since Palladio keeps referring to Vitruvius, I have bought Galliani’s edition, but this tome weighs as heavy in my luggage as it weighs on my brain when I study it,” p. 89; “At last I have acquired the works of Palladio…” p. 53; “I called upon Scamozzi, an old architect who has brought out a book on Palladio and is himself a competent and dedicated artist,” p. 49.
[7] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey, p. 74
[8] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey, p. 104
From the body: reader corrections and illustrations
Another form of comprehension comes from the most practical kind of annotation: corrections. In this act of correcting, the architect-as-reader-as-copyeditor appears as another instance of active readership. Erasmus noted, at the beginning of the age of printing, “how little is the damage done by a careless or ignorant scribe, if you compare him with a printer!”[1] The mechanization of the printing press was not, then, a standardization and perfection of immutable books, at least in its infancy. Readers, such as the annotator in an Avery edition of Filippo Maria Bonini’s Il Tevere Incatenato (AA3101 B63), made spelling and dating corrections, correcting the Italian “longo” to the Latin “longum” or “M.CCCC.XII” to “1422” (see also: figures 4 & 5 [not available in this online version]). Similarly for practical understanding, Inigo Jones verified the correctness of Scamozzi’s calculations by going through and doing mathematical working out in his margins. In his The Order of Books, Roger Chartier interrogates the idea of correctness, “To be sure, the creators [of books]…always aspire to…proclaim the correct interpretation, the interpretation that ought to constrain reading (or viewing). But without fail reception invents, shifts about, distorts.”[2] This idea of ‘correctness’ as restraint, of textual definition as limiting to the living reader, expands this concept of the reader-as-copyeditor, where the reader is ‘partner’ in determining, questioning, and undermining—‘shifting about’—the basic concepts of what is correct and true, calling into question the orthodoxy of the printed text.
There was also a visual component to this comprehension and correcting, where the reader shifts into a ‘reader-as-illustrator.’ Sometimes, this was as simple as pasting in the correct plates over misimposed ones, such as when Joseph Moxon pasted over 15 out of 50 engravings in a copy of his translation of Vignola (AA520 V683233 S; Figure 6), a clear example of the frequent mistakes of printmaking.[3] Annotators could also add their own illustrations, sometimes simply doodles or pen tests as in the Avery copy of Bibiena’s Direzioni à Giovani Studenti nel Disegno dell'Architettura Civile (AA520 G1332 S; Figure 7), but often original work based on the text. In the Avery 1485 copy of Alberti (AA520 Al1), published without images, the reader added their own mathematical illustrations, along with a letter key, to make up for the lack of visual information (Figure 8). Other readers used cutting and pasting as a mode of illustration, either sticking prints into their texts, as outlined in Michael J. Waters’ essay on single-sheet prints, or sticking in their own drawings, as with an owner of a Serlio edition now in Avery (AA520 Se616), where their copy of Serlio’s vase was pasted into the foremost pages (Figure 9).[4] Readers could also annotate additional information to previously existing plates, for example, the prolific image captions in another Serlio edition (AA520 Se6121), where a reader added “Profilo del Teatro fatto dall’Autore a Vicenza,” and “Tempio fiori di Roma” among other image captions: situating the plate locationally and in terms of authorship. This shows a digestion of information, signposting information that literally situates the reader within the text and the world. Thus, the reader-as-illustrator contributed towards the comprehension and interpreted the correctness of a work through active reading practices: annotation, drawing, and cutting/pasting.
[1] Erasmus, The Adages of Erasmus, ed. William Barker, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), p. 145, II.i.1.
[2] Roger Chartier, The Order of Books, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. x. Emphasis added.
[3] See: Michael J. Waters, “A Renaissance without Order: Ornament, Single-sheet Engravings, and the Mutability of Architectural Prints,” p. 503, figure 16.
[4] Waters, “A Renaissance without Order.” It is unknown whether the original draughtsman of the AA520 Se616 drawing was the one to stick it in or whether they would have just placed it between the leaves for it to be stuck in by a later owner of the book. Either way, this is an insertion of (semi)original work into an architectural text. For a comparison to the original Serlian vase in the same edition, see appendix.
Avery Classics primary source materials I used for the entire paper
Alberti, Leon Battista. De re Aedificatoria. Florence, 1485. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, AA520 Al1.
Bibiena, Ferdinando Galli. Direzioni à Giovani Studenti nel Disegno dell'Architettura Civile: nell'Accademia Clementina dell'Instituto delle Scienze. Bologna, 1745-1753. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, AA520 G1332 S.
Bonini, Filippo Maria. Il Tevere Incatenato, overo, L'arte di Frenar l’Acque Correnti. Rome, 1663. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, AA3101 B63.
Fréart de Chambray, Roland. Parallèle de l’Architecture antique et de la moderne: avec vn recveil des dix principavx avtevrs qui ont écrit des cinq ordres : sçavoir Palladio et Scamozzi, Serlio et Vignola, D. Barbaro et Cataneo, L.B. Alberti et Viola, Bvllant et De Lorme, comparez entre eux ; les trois ordres Grecs, le Dorique, l'Ionique, et le Corinthien, font la premiere partie de ce traitté, et les deux Latins, le Toscan et le Composite, en font la derniere. Paris, 1650. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, AA2812 F87211 c.2.
Jones, Inigo. [Facsimile] Inigo Jones on Palladio: Being the Notes by Inigo Jones in the copy of I Quattro Libri dell’architettura di Andrea Palladio, 1610, in the Library of Worcester College, Oxford. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Oriel Press, 1970. AA520 P181120.
Robinson, William. Proportional Architecture, or the Five Orders: regulated by equal parts: after so concise a method that renders it useful to all artists and easy to every capacity. London: 1733. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, AA2810 R563 S c.2.
Serlio, Sebastiano. Il Sesto Libro di Sebastiano Serlio Bolognese: nel quale si descriuono, e mettono in disegno cinquanta porte : cioe', trenta di opera rustica mista con diuersi cordini, e venti di opera più delicata, lequali possono leruire a molti generi di edificij. Venice: 1600. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, AA520 Se64111.
Serlio, Sebastiano. Il Terzo Libro di Sabastiano Serlio Bolognese. Venice, 1540. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, AA520 Se616.
Serlio, Sebastiano. The first [-fift] booke of architecture. London, 1611. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, AA520 Se613 F.
Serlio, Sebastiano. Tutte l'opere d'architettura et prrospetiva [sic] di Sebastiano Serlio, Bolognese. Venice: 1600. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, AA520 Se6121.
Vignola, Giacomo Barozzi da. Tr. Joseph Moxon. Vignola: Or the Compleat Architect: shewing in a plain and easie way the rules of the five orders in architecture : viz. Tuscan, Dorick, Ionick, Corinthian & composite : whereby any that can but read and understand English may readily learn the proportions that all members in a building have one unto another. London, 1665. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, AA520 V683233 S.