This dissertation reexamines the
problem of architectural proportion in the basilica of San Lorenzo in
Florence following a rigorous new methodology that combines
comprehensive measurements and other observations with documentary
evidence, in order to identify the intentions of the basilica’s
fifteenth-century creators. It finds that the proportions of this
basilica are indeed extraordinary, as scholars have long contended, but
for reasons different than previously believed. This dissertation
analyzes the proportions of the basilica with greater quantitative
precision than any previous study has done, and demonstrates that
carefully-crafted sets of proportions expressed in the measurements
constitute mental constructs that communicate non-visual, iconographical
content. It thus reframes the subject of architectural proportion as
part of the rhetorical, rather than visual, structure of architecture.
The sets of proportions identified in this dissertation correspond with
late medieval knowledge and practices pertaining to geometry, number and
arithmetic in so many documented ways that they can be considered
genuine historical artifacts, and thus, sources of historical evidence
themselves. As such, these sets of proportions lead both to several
unconventional new conclusions pertaining to the history of this
basilica, and to a proposed alternative to Rudolf Wittkower’s framework
for the study of medieval and Renaissance architectural proportion.LEI Universiteit LeidenMedieval and Early Modern Studie
