Bernardo Vittone. Elementary Instructions to Foster the Study of Civil Architecture by Young People (1760)

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Bernardo Antonio Vittone
Istruzioni elementari per l'indirizzo dei giovani 
allo studio dell'architettura civile
[Elementary Instructions to Foster the Study of Civil Architecture by Young People]
1760

Edited by Edoardo Piccoli

Rome. Dedalo Publishing House, 2008

The church of St. Mary Assumpted in Grignasco (Novara), designed by Bernardo Vittone

[1] Opening the sixteenth chapter (entitled The Italian contribution in the eighteenth century) of the first volume of his A history of architectural theory (p. 255), Hanno-Walter Kruft writes that, without any doubt, the role which Italy played in this field in the eighteenth century is secondary, even if he feels compelled to list the names of Ferdinando Galli Bibiena, Carlo Lodoli, Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Francesco Milizia. He adds, a little later, that "in Italy in the eighteenth century, there are numerous architectural texts, mostly of a Vitruvian-classicist orientation. They have often a regional scope and are in accordance with the program of religious schools" (pp. 256-257); "Some treatises have the function of textbooks" (p. 257); "There was a vast literature in Italy, characterized in part by an arrogant provincialism, where poorly assimilated and by then worn-out concepts were exposed with great pomposity" (ibid). Maybe by chance maybe not, one of the first examples of this type of literature to be analysed by Kruft is precisely the one of Bernardo Vittone, author in 1760 of the Istruzioni elementari per indirizzo de’ giovani allo studio (Elementary instructions to foster the study of civil architecture by young people) and six years after of the Istruzioni diverse concernenti l’officio dell’architetto civile (Diverse instructions concerning the office of the civil architect), both printed in Lugano, at the expense of the author. Our personal impression is that, especially in the second half of 1700, there was a proliferation of writings on architecture in Italy, with the most diverse contents and purposes: as diverse as the new edition of Vitruvius by Berardo Galiani or the practical manual aimed at future architects or engineers. We are having an increasingly broader picture of this proliferation as long as texts forgotten for centuries are being re-released (like these Elementary instructions by Vittone or L’Architetto prattico - The practical architect – by Giovanni Biagio Amico) or texts which had remained manuscripts are edited (for instance, Dell’Architettura civile - On civil architecture - by Baldassarre Orsini). Without wishing at all to overestimate a phenomenon that is still frequently marked by fragmentation and, in reality, merely repeats formulas designed beyond the Alps, there is a need for a new comprehensive study of these works, since on the one hand Comolli’s work appears too "close" to the events to get a comprehensive overview, and on the other hand the Letteratura artistica - Art Literature by Schlosser as well as the works by Wittkower and Kruft are now many decades old.

Bernardo Vittone. Project for the Church of the Vergin visiting St Elizabeth
Valinotto of Carignano (Turin)

The Chuch of the Virgin visiting St. Elizabeth (Valinotto of Carignano, Turin)

[2] The theoretical work of Bernardo Vittone, for example, is laboriously framed in this or that trend. First of all, we must not forget that Vittone cured (in 1737 and not in 1739, as Kruft writes) the posthumous edition of the Architettura civile (Civil Architecture) by Guarino Guarini. However, surprisingly Guarini is quoted only marginally in the Elementary Instructions (see the modern analytical index at the end of volume II), although, for admission of Vittone himself, the drafting of the Elementary instructions themselves (the first of his two works) substantially began contemporaneously. Actually, already Nino Carboneri was inclined to believe, in his introduction to Guarini’s Treatise published by The Polifilo Publishers, that the intervention by Vittone was circumscribed "to some ‘cleansing’, that is to purely extrinsic readjustments, and to the necessary task of ‘bringing together in one volume’ the manuscripts which had remained in disorder"(p. XXI). That said, it remains that, for example, Kruft writes that Vittone "manifested, especially in his statements on ornamentation, a classicist trend (p. 258), while the curator of this reprint, i.e. Edoardo Piccoli points out that, in the Instructions, "ornaments have a key role. Vittone, in fact, does not believe in perfect geometric beauty, or in an decisive language by itself (even that of the architectonic orders, which he called a "practice"), and indeed assigns a primary role to the decoration, considering it the main tool not only to make architecture beautiful, but also to enrich it with forms, symbols and signs alluding to a specific function or to a given client ... On this point Vittone seems to be aware that he is in conflict with other theories of his times ... Sure, Laugier and Lodoli would not have agreed with him..." (pp. XX-XXI). Similarly it is not to be understood (or, rather, it is vividly discussed) whether the writings of Vittone must be enrolled in a very local cultural circuit (i.e. Piedmont) or whether his ambition was to prepare texts with a broader scope (the events of the edition of the Instructions and in particular the choice of a family of publishers-printers as the Agnellis, who worked in Lugano, but distributed their volumes especially in Lombardy, would seem to support this second hypothesis - cf. the introduction at pages XLV-XLVII ). This facsimile reprint is therefore most welcome, as it allows us to check directly the text, without any previous conditioning.

Bernardo Vittone, Church of St. Chiara,  Bra (Cuneo)

[3] Perhaps most evident in the Instructions - and the curator rightly emphasizes it - is that already the title of the work (originally in two volumes: the first containing the text, divided into three books, and the second with 101 (or better 102) illustrated tables in support), shows that Vittone does not claim to draft a treatise, but a volume with obvious didactic character: in short a textbook, we would say today (if textbooks, nowadays, were not receiving more or less the same sympathy as land mines). However, it is a course of study "to be considered among the most sophisticated results of a didactics in the eighteenth century, which exceeds the elite filter of the academies to open up to a wider, possibly even anonymous, audience " (p. LI), where difficulties are graduated (starting precisely from an elementary level of acquisition of mathematical skills in Book I, to continue (Book II) penetrating into the topic through a presentation of the architectural orders that substantially follows Vignola (in its own way, the "textbook" par excellence for centuries) until Book III in which Vittone wants to display "the manifold activities of preparing a project" (p. xxiv). "More than a handbook of the architect, then, it is one of the first handbooks to become architect. The most recent studies have highlighted the scale and duration of the teaching career of Vittone: in his workshop and at the Collegio delle province (the Board of the provinces [e.d. of Savoy]), Vittone has trained dozens of architects and measurers, has provided the foundations of geometry and algebra and the ABC of the architectonic orders to future officials. This parallel career to the parable of professional designer and builder allows us to speculate that the 622 pages of the Elementary instructions have the real function of a textbook: to a student who can truly be young and inexperienced, Vittone offers a progression of topics and subjects, divided in a simple structure, although susceptible to different levels of reading" (p. XVI). What makes Vittone’s manual different from other contemporaries is its pragmatism, or the fact - as we have already said - to be born for a middle-class public and outside the often suffocating world of the academies.