Giuseppe Viola Zanini, On Architecture (1629)

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Giuseppe Viola Zanini
Della Architettura di Gioseffe Viola Zanini
[On Architecture by Gioseffe Viola Zanini]

Edited by Andrew Hopkins

Vicenza, Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, 2001

Giuseppe Viola Zanini. Dell'Architettura
Source: http://architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr/Traite/Images/Gonse321Index.asp

[1] Herewith is re-printed Della Architettura (On Architecture) by Gioseffe (or Giuseppe) Viola Zanini, published in Padua in 1629. In front of the facsimile reprint are placed a foreword by Mario Piana and an introductory essay by Andrew Hopkins. Hopkins's essay is avalaible on the Internet. Viola Zanini (1575 ca.-1631), architect and decorator of perspectives in the ceilings of important local mansions by nobles, originated from a family which had been active in that field for at least two generations. He was also a disciple of the Paduan Vincenzo Dotto, to whom the work is dedicated.

Giuseppe Viola Zanini, Dell'Architettura
Source: http://architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr/Traite/Images/Gonse321Index.asp

[2] The work is structured in two books (a third book, which the author mentions and is dedicated to public buildings, was never written). "The first book deals essentially with practical issues concerning construction techniques and materials, while the second is dedicated to [architectural] orders" (p. XIX).

Giuseppe Viola Zanini, Dell'Architettura
Source: http://architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr/Traite/Images/Gonse321Index.asp

[3] The discreet fame of which the work of Viola Zanini enjoyed may be probably also due to some misunderstanding. On Architecture was in fact included by Roland Fréart de Chambray in his Parallèle de l’architecture antique et de la moderne (Parallelism between antique and modern architecture) (1650) with a particular reference to the treatment of the orders, which is likened to that by Leon Battista Alberti in his De re aedificatoria (it should be said, in passing, that Fréart de Chambray was harshly critical of this discussion). In fact the combination is at least inappropriate, and one may think that it finds its only explanation in the fact that the work by Viola Zanini was, chronologically, the last one to be published before the release of the Parallèle. However, it is curious that the Treaty of Viola Zanini is also taken into account in a Spanish treaty of the seventeenth century like the one by of Fray Lorenzo de San Nicolás, which does follow the work of Fréart de Chambray (the second volume, in which speaks of Viola Zanini, was made in 1665), but that does not seem to have drawn from the French author. Apparently, it is credible (and it should be submitted to a deeper exploration) that - in perhaps not exciting context of Italian treatises of 1600 - the present work has enjoyed a greater reputation than we can imagine. In reality, of course, the work which is object of this review has little in common with the great Renaissance treatises, both the one by Alberti as well as those of Venetian origin (from Palladio to Barbaro’s Vitruvius and Scamozzi). Of course, there are parts where issue contained in the just mentioned treatises are repeated  (it is the case of the description of architectural orders in Book Two), but there is no doubt that Viola Zanini wrote with a different spirit, which is to produce a work that would be both useful and understandable to the amateurs, containing practical advice and being not excessively expensive. The author, in short, has more modest motivations; his work has a lower ambition, and - just for this – is intended for a different audience.

Giuseppe Viola Zanini, Dell'Architettura
Source: http://architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr/Traite/Images/Gonse321Index.asp

[4] At the end of the volume, a map of Padua is displayed, designed in 1599 and considered without doubt to be the first reliable plant of the city and its fortified walls.