Vitruvian historiography

Abstract

In the world of Vitruvianism the study of historical architecture was completely different from what one would expect. What historiographers wanted to know had less to do with the reconstruction of a development than with reconstructing a pure beginning. All this with as a starting point the ten books on architecture written by the Roman Vitruvius in the first century BC. Writers of treatises such as Leon Battista Alberti and Sebastiano Serlio were not much interested in the history and historical development of ancient architecture, but rather in recovering the correct rules. Their manuals were lessons in building according to the directions of the classics. Although the Cours d’ Architecture by Jacques-François Blondel, of which the first part appeared in 1771, does offer a retrospective of the past, everything that does not fit in with the line leading towards his own time and particularly his own work is left out of consideration. The great exception to this tradition is Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach with his Entwurff Einer Historischen Architectur from 1721. This is the first illustrated description of architecture in all parts of the world. In addition, the book offers a survey of the studies available at that time. It is not clear why he did not include any reference to Gothic or Renaissance architecture, unless he meant his book to be a Wunderkammer in book form. It is remarkable that someone like Sir Christopher Wren, who had also studied the history of architecture, was so much less well-read than Fischer von Erlach. From a small tour of the writers on historical architecture between 1450 and 1800 it is obvious once again that this field of study could only develop after the limitations of Vitruvianism had been cleared away.