Constructing the Architect: Print Culture and the Art of Building in the 16th Century

Building Books

The Renaissance is often hailed by nineteenth-century historians, such as Jacob Burckhardt, as an exemplary moment in the elevation of art and architecture, the foundations of which were built upon the remains of ancient Greece and Rome. To understand the nature of Renaissance architecture, one must consider the advent of the printed book as a medium through which building theory and typologies could be transmitted. In 1485, Leon Battista Alberti published the first theoretical architectural treatise, De re aedificatoria or “On the Art of Building.” His text outlined the ideal shapes, structures, and ornaments for all types of buildings, from family homes, to government buildings, to churches. Prior to this publication, there had been no widespread architecture texts since Vitruvius’ De architectura. The only text on architecture to survive from antiquity, it only survived in fragments. Renaissance humanists and polymaths, such as Daniele Barbaro, had to reconstruct Vitruvius’ work in order for it to be printed in its entirety in 1486.

Print culture enabled the emergence of the artist as a cultural identity and cultivated a wider audience of non-specialists who could now engage with literature about architecture. The architectural book was a product of its time, made possible by the technology of movable type and printing. Several architectural codices from before and after the print revolution demonstrate a shift toward recognizing the role of the architect.

Frontispiece of Daniele Barbaro's Italian translation of Vitruvius' De architectura. Published in Venice in 1567.

Who's Who of Renaissance Architecture

Originally published in Latin, neither Alberti’s De re aedificatoria nor Vitruvius’ De architectura employed the use of illustrations or diagrams. For Vitruvius, the lack of illustrations originated from the circumstances of manuscript culture. Pictures could not accurately be reproduced and were, therefore, omitted. In the case of Alberti, his work was written for a specialized intellectual audience with the assumption that they would be familiar with any extant buildings or features discussed. Later editors translating these texts into Italian then added illustrations of their own, in order to appeal to a wider audience, unfamiliar with the art of building. I dieci libri dell'architettura, produced by Daniele Barbaro in 1556, was an Italian translation and commentary on Vitruvius. The text was revised in 1567 and republished alongside an edited Latin edition. During the sixteenth centurythose interested in architecture were literate, i.e. able to read Latin. The translation of the original text into the vernacular, allowed non-specialized audiences to engage with the buildings where they may have lived or worked.

Frontispiece of Sebastiano Serlio's De Architectura Libri Quinque. Published in Venice in 1569.

Unlike the first editions by Vitruvius and Alberti, Sebastiano Serlio published De Architectura Libri Quinque (1569) and made images intrinsic to his theoretical arguments. In essence, Serlio’s model of architecture used the ability to reproduce elements of Classical architecture, much like movable type. Specific building features or “modules” could be endlessly rearranged to construct buildings that would become evocative of the Italian Renaissance style. 

Constructions of the Architect

With the rising number of architectural books being published, a new conception of the ‘architect’  began to take shape. Prior to the sixteenth century, practically anyone could claim the title of “architect.” There were no schools and the representation in guilds was as a mason, builder, or craftsman. The term architetto was rarely used to describe many of the people that modern historians understand to be key figures of architecture during the Italian Renaissance. In the records of the Florentine Opera del Duomo, Filippo Brunelleschi, architect of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, was typically referred to as provveditore meaning “superintendent” or “purveyor,” rather than as architetto of the project.[1]

Although Vitruvius had outlined the qualifications of an architect and civil engineer, there was not a significant distinction between those two roles. This is something that would develop later in the sixteenth-century. The Vitruvian architect is described as being technically and intellectually skilled and well-versed in law, history, geology, and even medicine. Vitruvius’s ideal architect of the Classical period must also be a model of trustworthiness and good reputation.[2] Similarly, Alberti’s late fifteenth-century architect is an elite civic figure, a paragon of professionalism, and a singular individual. As an intellectual and scholar, the role of the architect is elevated beyond the anonymous masons of the Middle Ages.[3]

Illustration from Libri Quinque depicting a perspectival illusion for the stage of a tragic play, demonstrating how Serlio concieved of the built environment engaging with a social environment.

By the mid-sixteenth century the idea of the architect was moving away from being a craftsman and towards being an artist. According to Giorgio Vasari, a true architect ought to have a  mastery of disegno, or design, and would therefore be participating in similar groups as painters or sculptors. One such group was the prestigious Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, founded by Cosimo I de’ Medici and Vasari. The Accademia was not a school in the traditional sense of the word, but functioned similarly to a guild specifically for artists. Many of the household names of art history, such as Michelangelo, Bronzino, and Artemisia Gentileschi, were members of the group. [4]

Another influential idea of the sixteenth-century architect comes from Sebastiano Serlio. Serlio’s conception of the architect is fairly aligned with Vitruvius and Alberti: a figure with the intellectual background to understand the rational and ordered nature of their work but, nonetheless, an independent individual. The Serlian architect was intended to be able to configure the social environment into the built one. In many ways, architecture was supposed to have functioned in the same ways as social governance.[5]

Buildings in Print

The Print Revolution profoundly changed the nature of architecture during the Renaissance. With the newfound technology of the architectural book and the emergence of a new understanding of the architect, it was not the way buildings were made that changed, rather, the way they were designed.[6] Returning to Serlio’s Libri Quinque, it was only through the development of faithfully reproducing words and images en masse that his ideal of modular architecture could be formed. The presence of textual sources on the evolution of architectural theory positions printing as an integral element in the history of architecture. Additionally, it is because of the spread of architectural books that we see the perception surrounding the identity of the architect beginning to shift towards what we see today.