Most of Leonardo’s architectural drawings still await examination with regard to proportion

4. Conclusions

Still, the exploration conducted on the sheets of Ms. B – which is only slightly antecedent preciso Leonardo’s studies of the problem of the Tiburio of Milan Cathedral, in which he thus comes into contact with the realities of construction 22 – has brought onesto light some modalities that Leonardo puts to use (valid at least for the drawings of this codex from Paris):

• Leonardo rapidly derives the elevations from the plans;
• this method is facilitated either by the fact that the plans are drawn before the elevation, or by the reciprocal position of the two drawings;
• per the simplest examples the elevations are defined starting from per particular element of the plan by means of progressions (for the pair at the primo posto of f. 21r the progression is 1, 2, 4, 8);
• durante the more complex cases the lines passing through quite particular portions of the plan define the heights and the cornices of the exterior (ff. 24r, 39v, 19r–18v, 18r–17v);
• mediante some cases the golden section intervenes either sopra the definition of the plan (ff.19r–18v, 18r–17v) or con that of the elevations (ff. 18r–17v).

The recourse onesto the golden section is not odd because Leonardo, who applies a simple graphic method, seems sicuro have been familiar with it since his Florentine years and at least since the beginning of the 1470s.

Taccuino

1 Preciso Scholfield ( 1958: 52, 139–141 ) is owed one of the first contributions pertaining onesto the proportions of the plan sopra the temple con f. 95v of Ms. B of Leonardo da Vinci, as part of a broader study of the octagon primo attore scheme (with reference preciso number theory and the number ? of the Pell series; see Figure 2 ).

2 Pedretti ( 1962: 178 ) refers to Wittkower ( 1952 ), the second edition of Architectural Principles mediante the Age of Humanism, and makes explicit reference ( 1962: 133 n. 63 ) puro the sistema of Scholfield.

3 For the drawings of Ms. B and the themes explored here see, con particular, Heydenreich ( 1929 ); Maltese ( 1954: 333–358, especially 343–346 and plates CXXX–CXLV ); Heydenreich ( 1974 ); Firpo ( 1963 ); and Schofield ( 1991: 137–143 ). For some issues durante the codex (bridges, pilings, pile drivers, https://www.datingranking.net/it/tsdates-review barns, fireplaces), see Di Teodoro ( 1985 ; 1993 ; 2009 and [ forthcoming ]).

4 For the central plan, in accessit esatto the fundamental Wittkower ( 1949 ) and Lotz ( 1964 and its Italian translation, 1989: 43–47 ); see also Adorni ( 2002 ).

5 Durante arriving at this number I have also considered structures that are not ‘churches’ a dato che, but that contain a centralized or basilical plan: a plan and perspective section of the ‘Pavilion of the Duchess’s Garden’ (‘Casotto del serra della duchessa’; f. 12r) and the ‘preaching theater’ (‘sportello da p(re)dicare’; ff. 52r, 55r, 95r).

6 The drawings are distributed mediante the ten folded sheets that originally formed the codex as follows (the folded sheet 10 constitutes the present Codex Ashburnham 2037): folded sheets 1 (5), 2 (13), 3 (24), 4 (8), 6 (12), 10 (18).

7 In ff. 17v–18r and 18v–19r the plans are on the right sheet and the perspective views are on the left; f. 21r bears two distinct pairs of drawings; in f. 21v the pair of diagrams is accompanied by an enlarged detail of the plan and by two internal elevation details; f. 25v bears two pairs of drawings; f. 93v contains five pairs of diagrams, while con f. 94r the plan and perspective elevation are accompanied by a partial section. The other sheets (22r, 24r, 39v, 52r, 95v) each contain individual pairs.