Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
Albrecht Dürer
- Cosimo Bartoli
Institutiones
geometricae - I geometrici elementi di Alberto Durero [Geometrical institutions - Albrecht Dürer's geometrical elements]
Edited by Giovanni
Maria Fara
Nino Aragno Publishing House, 2008 (but actually published
in 2009)
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| Albrecht Dürer, View of Arco, 1495, Louvre Museum |
[1] The theoretical work of Albrecht Dürer basically consists of three works: a treatise on geometry (Unterweysung der Messung), published in 1525; a treatise on fortifications, printed in 1527, and a treatise on human proportions which appeared posthumously in four books, in Nuremberg in 1528. The treaties of the great German artist were soon translated into Latin, after his death, by Joachim Camerarius (in 1532, the treaties on the geometry and proportions; three years after the one of fortifications), so that they could enjoy the maximum spread among scholars across Europe. And in fact the success of the Latin versions was so large that all chronologically following translations in Europe were conducted on the versions of Camerarius. In Italy, for example, only the treatise on proportions was translated in 1591, by Giovanni Paolo Gallucci, who based himself precisely on Camerarius’ version, except that he added a fifth book, "in which he teaches in what way the Painters can - through features and colors - illustrate the feelings of the body and the soul: they are equally natural and contingent in the images of men and women, according to the opinion of philosophers and poets. It was now first given to light. “Only very recently the need was felt to translate directly from the original German editions. Only recently in 1999, for example, Giovanni Maria Fara published the first Italian translation of the treatise on architecture, or “Some instruction on the defense of cities, fortresses and villages” (included in Giovanni Maria Fara, “Albrecht Dürer as Architectural Theorist. An Italian story”). And in 2007, Judith Moly Feo produced from the first German edition (and not from the one by Gallucci) the critical edition of the Four books on human proportions (this publication is not mentioned in the present book. Fara noted that his study was completed in December 2004; some slippage has so far prevented its publication). The volume on which we are now writing is not, in truth, a new modern translation, but it documents an hitherto virtually unknown event, which is the first (and probably only) translation in Italian of the Underweysung der Messung conducted by Cosimo Bartoli in 1537 (this time however on the basis of the Latin version of Camerarius). The translation by Bartoli is proved in an autograph manuscript preserved in St. Petersburg.
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| Albrecht Dürer, The Four Riders of the Apocalypse, 1497-98, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe |
[2] From the foreword by Giovanni Maria Fara (pp. IX- XV) :
"The main theme of this book is the study and edition of the version that
Cosimo Bartoli led, in 1537, of the Underweysung der Messung, the handbook on
measurement published by Albrecht Dürer in 1525, three years before his death.
In 1532 Joachim Camerarius, a humanist and a student of Philipp Melanchthon,
translated into Latin (with the title of Institutiones geometricae) the
original German text,... and it is, of course, from there that Bartoli produced
his own version. A version that, given its early date, anticipates the reasons underlying the foundation
of the Academy of the Humid (later on called the Florentine Academy, as suggested
by Cosimo I), a public institution of which the same Bartoli was part of, and which
had among its primary tasks the translation into vernacular language of
important scientific texts, ancient and modern.... In addition, the translation
of Dürer’s text also represents the first experience of translation known to us
by the one who, in a few years, would become universally known for his translation
into Italian of the artistic, scientific and literary writings of another great
artist of Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti [note of the editor: the
translation of De re aedificatoria , for example, was dated 1550 ]...
The fatigue of Cosimo, despite its obvious importance, remained limited to a manuscript
in a code that at that time met a very limited fortune (and until now has never
been fully published and studied, although it is preserved in the Library of
the Academy of Sciences in San Petersburg), with the unfortunate consequence
that this version is generally still unknown to scholars of Dürer. It
was therefore decided, first, to write it down completely, flanking it to the
Latin pages of the Camerarius, according to the edition of 1532 [editor's note:
Fara points out in a footnote that the Latin specimen used was marked Palatine
8.8.3.18, kept at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence], in order to
make the quality and completeness of Bartoli’s translation immediately apparent.... Once this crucial introductory moment of research had been fulfilled, a
really brand new open question emerged, on which we can say that there is
almost no bibliography: the Italian fortune
of Dürer’s treaties between Renaissance and Baroque... An effort was therefore
made to clarify the impact of Dürer’s solutions in the Italian context, which
very improbably could be based on Bartoli’s translation. The chronological period for a survey of this
type is between 1532 (the year of the Latin version of Camerarius) and 1686 (the
year of publication of the Cominciamento
e progresso dell’arte dell’intagliare in rame by Filippo Baldinucci, book
marking an important watershed for the knowledge of Dürer’s biography in Italy - especially his work
as a painter, up to that moment almost unknown). Baldinucci was able to fill this
gap by virtue of his knowledge of accurate news on the collections of Rudolf II,
contained in the Schilder-Boek by Karel van Mander... [N.d.t.. See also, Giovanni Maria Fara, Albrecht Dürer nelle fonti italiane antiche 1508-1686, Leo S. Olschki 2014]
The translation of the handbook on measurement by the Bartoli has certain meant
the highest (but at the same time the least known) moment for the
reconstruction of this fortune. Next to such an important testimony, however, a
series of small particular fortunes coexist, like it they were almost
individual and independent from each other channels, due to isolated, and
sometimes unrelated, parties to Dürer’s treaty. From here the good fortune of
some geometric constructions (the pentagon through the unvaried opening of the
compass, for example), the systematic use of the orthogonal projections in the
representation of geometric solids or human figures, the invention of some
design tools for painters (the veil or the door), solutions to which Italian
writers resorted many times, sometimes quoting each other, and thereby
recovering a certainly fragmentary, but substantially utilitarian, size of the whole
course of measurement. In addition to Bartoli (in his capacity as a translator),
we will see only another theoretic-writer who managed to escape such a partial
and unique dimension of Dürer’s reading: Daniele Barbaro, who submitted the
entire Institutiones geometricae to a significant and substantial critical
review, not without meaning for later generations’ readers."
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| Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait with Gloves, 1498, Madrid, El Prado |
[3] As to the didactic dimension of the Treaty, it seems that the
considerations by Fara are substantially the same as those presented by Judith
Moly Feo in the critical edition of the Four books on human proportions.
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| Albrecht Dürer, A Young Hare, 1502, Albertina, Vienna |
[4] The Institutiones geometricae – it was said – are currently considered to
be a treatise on geometry. It should also be pointed out that "the third
book in the Unterweysung is dedicated to "solid bodies”, and (in significant
proximity to the largest military treatise on architecture and urban planning)
is the greatest contribution thought by Albrecht Dürer in relation to a theory
of architecture. See Chapter III of the essay by Giovanni Maria
Fara (Albrecht Dürer, architect, reader and interpreter of Vitruvius and
Alberti). It also refers to Hubertus Günther, La théorie de l'architecture en
Allemagne à la Renaissance in Sebastiano Serlio à Lyon. Architecture et Imprimerie, Volume 1. Le Traité d'Architecture de Sebastiano Serlio. Une grande entreprise éditorial au XVI siècle. From the above it follows that the
translation of the Institutiones geometricae first (1537) and De re
aedificatoria later (1550) - made by Cosimo Bartoli - enable to better grasp
the importance of the latter’s figure in the development of a technical vernacular
vocabulary related to architecture. In this regard, see the pages 114-122 (For a
glossary of Italian architecture: Bartoli as translator of Dürer). On the
change of Bartoli’s attitude towards the German artist, in the sense of a
substantial removal of Dürer in favor of Michelangelo's theories, see instead pp.
28-35 (Michelangelo adversus Dürer).
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| Albrecht Dürer, The Adoration of the Magi, 1504, Florence, Uffizi Gallery |
[5] It was already said that the manuscript with the translation of the
Institutiones geometricae is preserved in St. Petersburg,
precisely at the Library of the local Academy of Sciences, marked as Sobr.
Muzeja Prijenisej Skogo Kraja 69 (p. 143). The translation is preceded by a
dedicatory letter to Giovanni Camerini and Papi Tedaldi, two friends of Bartoli
with interests for architecture (especially in the field of military
architecture) that precisely mandated the translation (probably also because
they did not master Latin sufficiently well). It is far from clear whether
Bartoli eventually delivered the manuscript to the two, "as the Russian
code is a working copy, full of corrections and repetitions, and not a accurate
final version for submission" (p. 41). Certainly, the bottom of the first card
of the manuscript (p. 40) shows the note of possession " of Cosimo of Captain
Francesco Medici", the son of a member of a sub-branch of the Medici
family. It is known , however, that during the Nineteenth century the code was
in the possession of the French architect Auguste de Montferrand , and that he
came to St. Petersburg from Siberia (sic) in 1929 (p. 3).
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| Albrecht Dürer, Feast of Rose Garlands, 1506, Praha, National Gallery |
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