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virtue

a r c h i t e c t u r e
and memory
in

Filarete's

a n d

Trattato

t h e
di

Architettura

b e e :

O Carole Yocum, July 1 998

College of Architecture

McGill University, Montrgal

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Masters of Architecture in History and Theory.

1+1

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pm)og= biography - treatise - miian

introduction be e s

- memory

virtue

sclfipoftraib the dance - antiquity - bees

foundatiom gathering
excavations stones

elements

interment

books

vice & vbttn fantasia - mountains ark - the path summit - grotto -

adam rooms rituals

conclusion

appendix
bibliography

Antonio Averlino, known as Filarete (I 400- 1469), wrote that architecture rs a gestational process, likening the architect to the mother and the father as the client. The process requires the architect-mother to 'fantasticare e pensare e rivoltarselo per la memoria," fermenting ideas and ~ncubat~ng them in conjunaon wrth one's memory. The intent is to understand mnemonics as a creatlve operat~onin Filarete's Tranato di Architetwra. A key to fits lies wrth Filarete's persoml symbol, the bee. The bee's process of mellification acts as a metaphor of the archrtect's gestatronal design. The bee, long utilized as a memorative trope, points towards other memory models created the throughout the treatise, culminating wrth the design for the i-fouse of Vice and Virtue. D~recting reader and inhabitants of the city in a social narrative, Filarete's architecture reveals the dependence

upon remembrance and v r u for the cny's creation and pubiic rrtuals to sustain rts life. ite

Antonio Avedino, connu sous le nom de Filarete ( 1 400- 1 469)' a &-it que I'archrtecture eG
un processus de gestational, cornparant I'architecte

la mere, et le pere en tant que client. Le

processus exige de la mere d'architecte de 'fantasticare e pensure e nvoltarselo per lo memoria." de fermenter des id& et les incuber en e r n e temps que la mkmoire. L'intention pa de comprendre la

memore comrne processus crkteur en Filarete's Tramto di Ardiitemra. Un cle a cecl se trouve avec Ie symbole personnel de Filarete, I'abeille. Le processus de 'abeille du mellificaaon agrt en tant que metaphore de la conception du gestational de I'architecte. L'abeille. longtemps ser d'un trope de mernor-ie, se dirige vers d'autres modeles de mgmoire c&& dam tout le livre, culminant avec la

conception pour la Chambre le Vice et la Vertu. Dirigeant le lecteur et des habitants de la vdle sur dans un &it social, I'architecture de Filarete indique la dependance le remembrance et la venu pour
a que les ntuels de la c k t i o n et du public de la ville soutiennent s vie.

architocturo and tho boa / abstract

To Alberto Perez-G6mez. for his patience and fanh during the formulation of the ideas compnsrng this thesis. and his unstated understanding that it may take some of us years t o find the fomtude and acumen to open the box of knowledge.

To Greg Caicco, for his persistent belief in the keys of memory and guidance in uncovenng the bee of architecture; his enthusiasm and encouragement is gratefully infeaous.

To Susie Spurdens, for her kindness in helping the finalization of the thesis proceed smoothly and easily.

To the lntedibrary Loans Department at the Unwerjrty of Louisville, and t h e r Art Library, who

unknowmgly enabled the completion of the work t o be realized away from Montr&i.

To Ted Bressoud, for his flexible understanding and friendsh~p that facilitated my search to find ume to

complete the w o r k

To Megan Sprigs, Alice Guess and David Williams. for their crucial moral support. advlce and countless reassurances.

To Jerzy Rozenberg, Keith Plymale, and others at the Univenrty of Kentucky who guided my first
I

nvemgatrons into architecture and rts poetic content. They initiated the fundamental gestat~on these of

thoughts.

architecture and the boo / atknowlodgomonte

li

- mikn In 1 446 Francesco Sforza led the March of Ancona through Italy and named himself "Count and Viscount. Lord o f the Marches."

He had already, by 1 434, acquired the moniker

"Gonfaloniere della Chiesa" from Pope Eugene IV, who approved of Sforza's drive to conquer various cities and was a powerful ~ondottiere.~ However, when Sforza was evenrually able to
take over Milan (with the monetary assistance of Cosimo d'Medici), his entrance Into the crty ~n

February of 1450 was under hostile and questionable circumstances. Among the methods to establish his legitimacy to the throne was the forging of a deed claiming that his father-in-law, the former Visconti duke, had given him power and he went to the extent of adopting their coat-of-arms. There was much opposition to his claim and it became necessary to 'engineer some semblance o f security for the struggling Francesco Filelfo wrote an epic poem on Sfom's deeds. 5 ra e f zd, oi and began a history on hrm.

De vita et rebus g w s Frantisu Sfortae. The creation o a strong system of diplomatic alliances f
also became part of Sforza's regime. Among them wms Fnnce, where he sent diplomats to reside wrth Louis XI beginning in 1460.~ When Christian I of Denmark visited Francesco's

I G.

Mattrngty. T e First Resident Embassies." Speculum. (Cambndge, 1 937). 43 l . h

2 J. Spencer. "Filarete's Bronze doors at St. Peter's" Collaborat~on ltoiian Renaissance Art. (New In Haven. i 978),36. and n. 14. A condottiere was a mercenary soldier that was for h ~ r e other crt~es therr by in miirtary reg1mes.
3 G- lanzrti. 'Patronage
Art and Sooety. ed. F. W. Kent,

P. Simons, and j. C.

and the Production of History: the case of Quattrocento Milan." Patronage. Eade. (New York. 1987). 305.

4G. Mattingly. "The First Resident Embassies." 437.

arthltrcture and the bee / prologue

son Galeazzo in 1474 he was shown the Sforza's collection of relics and valuable items. They included the body of a Holy Innocent, the a m of Mary Magdalene, a tooth of St. Christopher, r s. and some of the Virgin's hair, all displayed in ornamented, gilded r e ~ i ~ u a r i e As~well. S f o m developed extensive patronage - "the distribution and manipulation of favors to create a clientele of firm supporters amongst Milanese noble

fa mi lie^.'^

Machiavelli writes that

Francesco Sforza's rise to power - from private citizen t o prince - was obtained precisely because he was skilled in arms.'
He took Fortune by the hand and when she abandoned

him, he was equipped with military preparations and was able to resist adversrty in pan by these engineered constructions.

- b k n ~ h -y
By 1 45 1 , not long after Sforza took control, Antonio Averlino, known as Filarete, was
at work on various projects in the crty, including the still extant Ospedale Maggiore. Averlino

and was born around 1 400 in Florence to Pietro ~ v e r l i n o ~ nothing is noted about his life untd
1 433, when it is known he entered Rome, and was present for the May 3 I n coronation of

Sigismondo. Later in that year he began work on the bronze doors for Old St. Peter's (they
are still intact in the present day St. Peter's and were extensively cleaned in 1962), obtaining
the commission from Pope Eugene IV. He ran a large bronze foundry in the city and 1. R.

5 M. Hollingsworth. Pavonage i Renaissance lt0IyY (London. 1994). 160. n

6

G. lanziti. "Patronage and the Pt-oduaon of History." 305.

The Prince. C. E. Detmold, trans. (New York, 1965). 7 3 .

7 N. Mocfiiovelli.
8 Trattato

di architemra. ed. A M. Finoli and L. Grassi. (Milan, 1 972). 'nota cronologica," Ixxxv~~i.
8rchltocture and tha boa / prologue
N

Spencer speculates that in order to have received this large commission, there must have been some strong recommendation t o the pope from established, recognized artists, possibly Donatello and Michelono. It is conjectured that these t w o might have taught the young Averlino in his years prior t o arriving in ~ o m e . ~ expected that some political relationship It is

was established for Filarete to have received the work. Regardless, it is known that he and his
studio toiled on the doors for twelve yean, until 1445. Spencer constructs some other

interening scenarios involving Filarete's possible travel outside o f Rome during this period,

as suggesting ~t a potential factor in the length of time involved to complete the project.
!n 1434. Piccinino led anti-papal rebellions in Rome and it is possible Filarete left the

crty in search of safety, likely moving to Todi, where Sfona was at the time. There is also
evidence given by some of the content in the doors' images that Filarete may have again left

Rome, this time to Florence, in Juneto November of 1439. The basis of this supposition is the
depiction of a group of Greek diplomats in full regalia on one of the panels. During the before noted months of 1439, there was a treaty being formed between the Greek and Roman churches and the clanty and detail of Filarete's images are convincing enough ro find this believable. By 1447, the doors had been completed for two years and there is no evidence of any other extant work o r projects that could be attributed to Filarete in Rome. However, Filarete managed to remain a topic of discussion by being charged with the theft of the relic head of St. John the Baptist. He was tortured and then freed (the pope pardoned him) but

j. Spencer. "Filarete's bronze doors a St. Peter's." 33. t

architecture and the bee / prologue

expelled from Rome. 'O Filarete apparently traveled to Venice, making his way through Rimini. where he stayed until he most likely was expelled with the other Florentines in December of
1 449.

''

It is not long after that he made his way to Milan. There are various letters recording
m

s the possible activities and trips outside of Milan by Averlino during these years ! 2a"d it j
generally unclear as to where Filarete journeyed after 1464, when power in Milan shifted from Francesco t o his son Galeano, but it is known he left around that time. Various scenarios depict him travelling to Constantinopie,l 3 returning t o Rome, o r going back to Florence, t o work under Piero d'Medicils patronage to whom he ultimately dedicated his Trattato di Architecttura, written in Milan and originally dedicated to Francesco Sforza.

- treatise The Trattato di Architettura, in twenty-four books, relates a narrative dialogue

between a king and his architect, a work that Filarete suggests be read aloud in several sittings.
Its structure is episodic and f i t h g to the oral transmission of its ideas in short, evening readings. It is a traditional relationship of an advisory, tutorial position of a philosopher to bng on how to

rule and behave. Seneca's On Clemency, Plutarch's T an Unvained Ruler and Aqu~nas' o

Regimen Principum all follow this model. St. Thomas Aquinas writes. "the founder of a state or
kingdom must mark out the chosen place according t o the exigencies of things necessary for

10

Tramm. "nota cronologica," Ixxxix, and n. 6. 1 03.

M. Sanuto. " V I de Duch~ Venezia," Rerum ltolicorum Scr~ptores.xx~i, di col. I 136.

1I

12 13

Tramm.. 'nota cronologa," xc.

E. Legrand. L e a s grecques de Francois Filere. (Paris. 1892) 120. letter 70.
architecture and the bee / prologue

the perfection of the state or kingdom. . . . These are . . . the duties of a king, in founding a crty or kingdom a derived from a comparison with the creation of the world."4 s After a

dedication, Filarete opens with the relating of his views on architecture within the atmosphere of a dinner party. Architecture is established as deriving t o m man, and after relating the process of design as gestational, he goes on to tell of the types of buildings, continuing through the materials required - lime, sand, brick, stone, marble, wood - and how to estimate the number of workers and cost of materials. Book IV focuses the story on the creation of Sforzinda, a new crty in the countryside for Francesco, and its civic buildings. Book XIV begins the construction of a second ctty on the water, named Plusiapolis, and its m o u s buddings and their social-architectural programs. The final three chapters discuss the aspects required in learning to draw. An additional chapter, Book XXV, ends the Magliabecchianus manuscript
(the one dedicated to Piero d'Medici) wrth a delineation of various Medici buildings in Florence.

My concern is not with the legitimidng nature of Filarete's treatise - i fin convincingly t ~ntoh e political framework of Sfom's Milan, and likely reinforced i - but with the method and t t philosophy from which Filarete structured the narrative. It would be naive for us to believe in s~mply answering the quesoons about the Trattoto by neatly including it among the producton

ofSforza's 'historiographyn. The work extends beyond this equation of patron - architect to an
engaging personal philosophy of architecture's modes. What does it provide us, as readers, with in a civic and public regard, as well as in a penonal manner? And how does this Renaissance architect answer these questions? Filarete introduces the treatise to his patron
by saying: " Come si sia, pigliola, non come do Vivuvio, ne dalli altri degni architem, ma come dal

1' S t Thomas Aquinas. De Regimine Principumi. p. 97, trans. G. 0. Philan, (Toronto 1935). For the hertage of the prince-philosopher relaonship I owe 5. Lang, 'Sforzinda, Filarete and Filelfo," journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute. 1972. See n. 29, 394.

architocturo and tho bee / prologue

vri

tuo filoreto architetto Antonio Averlino fhrentino."

His self given name filareto, from the Greek

fil and mete, means "lover of virtuen, distinguishing himself from other architects, even

Vitruvius, with this term, and guiding his architecture and stories for the crty wrth this individual
ideology.

1s Trattato. f. I r.. 5. See also n. I. 5. Treatise. 3 . "Such as it is take it as not Mitten by Vivuvrus nor by other w r t h y architects, but by your Filareto architect Antonio Averlino, the Florentine."
architotturo and the boo / prologue

rn

figure I . Initial letter 'En. from Codex Trivulzio (destroyed 1944).

architecture and the bee / introduction

'We ought to imitute bees, as they say, which fly about and gather m m ] flowers suitable for
making honey, and then a w e and sort into their celk whatever necrm they hove colIected.''

'

The medieval author, in depicting himself, would use a common trope of assuming the role of a reader of an old book, or listening to an old story in the telling of their own narrative. Another commonplace was to represent oneself as a bee. Mary Carruthen, In her work The Book of Memory, broaches this topic by bringing the reader t o Seneca's above quote concerning the imitation of bees. Elaborating on this metaphor, she writes, "composi~on begins in reading, culled, gathered, and laid away distinctively in separate places, 'for such things are better retained if they are kept separate', then, using our own talent and faculties, we blend their variety into one savour which, even if it is still apparent whence it was derived. w~ll be something different from its ~ o u r c e . "This blending of flavors speaks directly to the yet ~ role of the architect in Filarete's Trmato di Ard-ritettura. An eariy Renaissance treatise on the art of building, Filarete's work remains a product of a medieval sensibilrty in his choice of its metaphors, but the development of these is truly representative of the Renaissance architect's

I Seneca. Epistuloe rn~rales. Ed. L. D. Reynolds. (Oxford: Cfaredon Press) 1965. Quote from p. 84, translated by M . Camhers, The Book of Memory. (Cambridge Universty Press, 1 990), 1 92. d., 7,p. n.

335.
2 M- Canuthen. The Book ofMemory. 192. Seneca: "ut etiam si apparuent unde sumptum tamen esse quam unde sumptum est uppareat."
st. aluid

architmcturm and the bee / introduction

ideas on making the world around them.)

The trope o f the bee is mentioned only briefly

within the treatise itself14 however, Filarete's personal identification wtth this symbol is not to be overlooked as an impetus in his formulation of architecture. Bee symbolism from ancient and classical writen to medieval and Renaissance works is well documented as a well rounded symbol.' In 1 464. Filarete composed a self-portrait medal depicting himself with

bees flying about his head, and on the verso, working at a tree filled wrth honeycomb. The bees' connection to Filarete as his own sort of coat-of-arms creates a symbolic, emblematic motto. The complexty infused into the bee trope that has emerged from my investigation for this essay has appeared t o be critical to penetrate Filarete's treatise and his proposals for the role of architecture in society. Filarete's simple choice of a bee as a single symbolic image leads
us directly to the key issues of his own m o d outlook: memory and virtue.

While discussing the conception of a building, Filarete states in his Trattato that the

archaect's role is t o 'fontasticare e pensare e rivdtarsdo per la memoria. n6

Architecture is

designated as a manipulation of one's fantasia, our imagination, and the architect must revolve these creamons over in his memory, allowing the ideas to ferment and gestate. Filarete ties the realm of memory directly to the act of composition

- it is an incubation.

The building itself

3 The treatise has been tradiDonally disregarded as a meandering and unclear work, wrth most cm~cs mtroducmg the project wrth an apology for Filarete. Georgio Vasari charactenzed it as 'full of foolishness with some good things in it." Vite. ed. G. Mibnesi. (Florence. 1878), 46 I .
-' Bees are included in the design of the statue of Virtue (f.

r.), and the

142 v.). the foundat~on ceremony (f. 26 story of Ansteus and the bees i told near the end of the m s e (f. 152 v.). s 72-80.

5 T. M. Greene. The Light ;n Troy.

6 Tratruto di Architettura. L. Grassi, editor. f. 7v., 40. The English translation by 1. Spencer essentially omrts the word 'memoria', saying that *he should dream about his conception, thrnk about it. and wrn it over i his mind in many wp," 15. n

rrchitecturm and the bme / introduction

becomes a manifestation of the memory, combined with the imaginations of the present, creating a harmony that is an 'echo of the celestial and universally valid
As the

bee combines different nectars into a whole, architecture becomes a thick flesh of the world. The relaionship of bees and memory to Filarete's architecture is suggested by a largely ~ unmentioned drawing in the little cited Trivulzio manuscript in ~ i l a n .M. L. DOAncona's
article "I1 'S. Sebastiano' di Vienna: Mantegna e Filarete" reproduces an image from the

prologue of this manuscript. We see the illustrated initial "En (figure I ) with what appear; to
be a self-portrait o Filarete and below him, a scribe working on a book. D'Ancona suggests f
this is the golden book of the treatisegg which is inscribed 'Memoria lntelleno ingegno. " 'O Flying

around Filarete's head, under the scribe's chair, and through the decorative, trailing illustration, are bees. Memory acts a creative force for Filarete, in an engaging riat ti on of the growing Renaissance use o f mnemonics to explicate architecture's social and personal funaon. The
memory system employed by Filarete operates through the narrative dialogue as both a

reading process, and as a participatory act.

J. R. Spencer's translation of the treatise dismisses the fantastical creations woven

through the text as peripheral matter - "the flights of fancy, the allegorical conundrums, and the

R. Wrttkower. Architectural Prinuples in the Age of Humanism. (W. W. Norton & Co.. 197 1). 8.
8 See "appendix", which contains a 'family-tree' of the rnanuscnpts. The most commonly referenced one is the Magliabecchianus, from which the English translation by Spencer is denved. The Tnvulzio manuscript was destroyed in the fire bombings of Milan during WWII.
9 The golden book. discussed further in the following chapters, IS a book discovered by workers excavat~ng the building of Filarete's crty. It is an 'ancient' text that Filarete relies on for gu~dance des~gn for in wrthin the last sections of his narrative.

Image

1 D'Ancono. "I1 'S. SeMano' di Vienna: Mantegna e Filarete." A m Lombarda (Milan. 1972). The 0 also reproduced in M. k a r o n i and A Mufioz. Filarete, scuitore e orchitem. (Rome. 1 908). 238. fig.

113.

arthitatture and tho boo / introduction

digressions - tend to obscure the true aim of Filarete's treatise."

''

However. Filarete's treatise

extends beyond this reading of the manuscript as a prescriptive outline. It is precisely through these fantasia that the 'true aimn of Filarete becomes apparent. This thesis intends to reveal Filarete's treatise structure, a narrative dependent upon these fantasia, to be a personal interpretation of the memory arts influence. The aim of his architecture becomes the making of an all-encompassing site for an understandingof the world and our place within it. The memory arts tradition has a long and diverse history as a means to memorize slgniticant details and universal precepts through the use of 'places', loci, and 'images'. Simonides is the man credited with the invention of the art around 500 B.C. After singing a poem at a banquet for a nobleman in Thessaly, Simonides was told that he would only be paid half of his fee because he had included a praise to Castor and Pollux in the lyric. A bit later,

was called outside to meet two men (Castor and Pollux, no doubt). However, no Simon~des
one was present, and while he was outside, the building collapsed. killing everyone inslde. The bodies were unrecognizable, but Simonides, the only suwivor, was able to identify all the bodies by remembering where they had been sitting around the banquet table. Simonides realizes the importance of an orderly placing of things for a good memory and is credited with

the ~nventing art. l 2 Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, is the mother of the Muses. and this

fact alone transmits the art-of-memory into all the arts, establishing a labyrinthine and at times
f eetmg world that this basic human activrty encompasses. l
The many facets taken on by the art and expounded by Filarete's narrative is my

I I Treatise on Architecture. J. R. Spencer, trans. p xix. The 'true aim' according to Spencer is the "exposrtion of the 'new' architecture," and a denouncement of anything Gothic. (xix-xx).

12 F, Yates. The A n of Memory. (Chicago, 1966), 1 -2.

rrchitacture and the bee / introduction

exploration, and it is my contention to establish it as an important underlying structure for the treatise. By tracing the development of the memory arts from the classical tradition to its various permutations in the medieval learning circles and ensuing appropriation ~ n t o the Renaissance culture, Filarete's treatise will emerge as another variation of this evolution, amid what is an ever increasing array of memory treatises. l 3 Spencer's translation and introductory analysis also seems t o overlook another predominant interest of the Renaissance, the authority of the ancients.

By delegating its

frequent references as a ploy to "doak the practice of architecture wrth enough erudition to make it one of the liberal a a , "
l4

he ignores the increasing prominence given to antiquity and

its constant invocation during this time. Instead, the overall structure of ~ e s "digressionsnand e

entertaining narratives provide us with a sense of the scope in Renaissance memory enactment, and of the art of remembering well to establish a proper and influential kingdom.
I t is valuable to remember the trouble to which Francesco Sforza,

the new, self-appointed

duke to Milan went to in order to do this very thing. It is the prevalent fascination with a past culture and rts dependence on a creative memory that is cultivated in Filarete's writing. The etymological root of memory has been traced back to the two-letter construaion,

mr, and linked to the phrase 'head-watersn. l 5 As well, it is connected to respiration and
circulation, a concentrated breath that grounds us. Works to be discussed in this essay lnvolve

' 3 Yates. The Art of Memory, 105. The number o f memory treatises increases so much that there are

too many for her to discuss. See n. I , 105. There is a

complexrty to the memory tradmon that develops In

the Renaissance which Yates in intent on drawing out.

I + Treatise. Introduction, xx.

15 C. Dunne. "The Roots of Memory." Spring (Dallas, 1988), 1 17- 18.

arthitocturo and tho boo /

introduction

mainly Cicero and Quintillian, writers of mernory technique as a tool for classical rhetoric. Admitting this phrase 'head-watersn and realizing the fluid nature of memory, we will benefit

'oy addressing the topic through Hugh of St. Victor, Ramon Lull, St. Thornas Aquinas and
Albertus Magnus, proponents of the use of memory in religious medieval scholasticism. We will begin to see the transformation the art took and its deep, thick center into which the
imagination could expand. In a study of this scale I do not intend to evaluate the writings of each one of these works in depth, but hope to outline an established tradition of mnemontcs,

rendering a foundation within which the work of Filarete may be investigated.

It is my

mtention to form an assembly of mnemonic models which Filarete and the early Renaissance

t ingested. I do not feel i is possible t o make concrete historical suppositions over where and
when Filarete may have absorbed such material but can only ask the reader to accept that the

p atmosphere was extant. My work depends to a great extent o n the schola~hi of Frances
Yates' The Art ofMernory, specifically her discussion of Ramon Lull and the classical beginnings

o t e art in the area of rhetoric, and the initial uses of architecture as its site of study. As well, I f h
am indebted to the work of Mary Carruthers in The Book ofMemory, on the art of memory in

the Middle Ages, that establishes a clear link between scholarship, memory and vinue. My approach is in the interest of archrtecture and in exploring one of its varied expressions In the Renaissance. The hope is to understand how the architecture of Filarete, so often pushed
asde In historical studies, was actually tied to the center of its world through links made with

perhaps a less understood area of influence upon fifteenth century architecture and humanism. The essay that follows wilt trace Filarete's use of symbols, emblematic devices, and metaphoric tropes, and their interaction with the architecture, depicted by written imagery
a r t h i t o t t u r o and tho bee 1 introduction

and visual dnwings. The intent is to place emphasis upon the culmination of these concepts in his ambitious project of the House of Vice and Virtue.

A s central to this remaking, is the lo

excavated golden book of Filarete's narrative, from which we hear the author retell the story of a former crty on the exact site that Filarete intends to build the crty Plusiapolis for the duke Sforza. Other scholarship done on Filarete regarding his early work on the doors for Old St. Peter's; his possible sources for design; and the mrious translations of the Trattato will also be
in d~scussed light of my argument of the significance of mnemonics in his architectural work.

"E impossible a dare o intendere queste case dell0 edificare se non si vede disegnato. e nd dsegno
l ancora e dIfficile a 'ntendere 11 disegno, perche e maggiore fatica a 'ntendere i disegno d7e non 6 i/

dsepare. "

'
it

W t h this remark to the prince who asks to learn about architecture, Filarete says

is

impossible to understand the building if you don't see the drawing, and the design itself is difficult to understand if you have not made it yourself. The architecture that Filarete descnbes closely follows this explanation. The buildings are so intricately described it is difficult to grasp
them fully and the drawings lend insight, further adding to the detailed information given about

the design. Filarete continually expresses t o the king in his treatise that he wishes to describe
the design briefly, and then, when it is completed, the king will see and understand

completely. In this sort of reasoning by Filarete, I suggest that the architecture he intends

IS

one that necessitates a personal interaction precisely through the use of memory. The mebculous descriptions inscribe an order that strives to be universal, requiring a personal interpretation in a memorable manner with these figures.
16 Trattato.

f. 138r.
architecture and the bme / introduction

As well, this issue of memory is linked to the rnoralrty of man, and I believe becomes a
motivating force in Filarete's architecture, stressing the importance of virtic. The points that Filarete builds upon revolve around virtlj and imagination - his fantosia - in the act of building, an action that ultimately is linked to memory. Filarete associates the Greek term arete to his o w n work - the designs of the architect - and the Latin v i d to the social program of the built work and the virtue of the citizens and the virtue of the king. He acknowledges the role of
the architect as someone distinct, with his own realm of virtuous acts. Filarete is someone

who blends the responsibilities and requirements of the varying aspects of design - the virtue
of the patron-king an cg t i
wrth prudent industriousness and military strength, as compared to

-he ultimate giving over of the architecture to the citizens, called upon to pursue a virtuus life dependent on knowledge and ritual in Filarete's city. I will trace the role of these elements with his architecture and how they may have provided the impetus for him to write the
Trattato. As well, taking lead from the transformations of the memory arts by Aquinas and

Albertus, Filarete's continual thread of Christian overtones in the work will be grounded. Not incongruous asides, nor merely personal overtures, the making of a city that culminates with the House of Vice and Virtue, is a complex realization of his theories on building. His architecture is a sixred procedure that puts forth elements that generate truth and access to knowledge, divine and secular.
"It is not the function of the poet to relate what has

happened, but what can happen." "

l7Anstotle.

Poetics. (Chapel Hill. NC, 1942). 18.

archltmtturo and tho bee 1 introduction

2 .

p o r t r a i t

figure 2. Filarete's sfgnatwe portrait, bronze doors of St. Peter's. 123 cm x 22 cm,back of the left-hand leaf.

architecture and the bee / self-portrait

1 0

"CETERlS OPEKAJE PRETIUM FU-US

[ ]MUS VE MlHl HILARITAS. "

This phrase appears on a panel of Filarete's bronze doors for Saint Peter's in Rome.
The panel is an unusual and atypical self-portrait scene. made around 1 445. (figure 2) The

'

inscription 'OPEWE

PRE-~UM" has

been translated in two forms: 'the price of the work" or, 'it is

worthwhilen. This phrasing renders the inscription as either "For others, the price of the work, the pride or the 'smoke', but for me joyfulness" or, "To others the pride of the 'smoke' The makes it worthwhile, to me it is the joy of k W 2 self-portrait depicted is certainly full of joy. Not only IS Filarere depicted, but he is trailed by six named disciples. Behind them is an older figure riding a donkey, emerging from a gate and carrying a jug of wine. The gate bears the inscription: 'ANTONIUS
PETRI DE FLORENTl.4 F E a T DIE ULnMO lULll MCCCXLV ."4 The

disciples are all

holding hands, wearing work aprons and carrying various tools, in a son of weaving dance. Filarete leads the group, and holds an upturned compass inscribing a circle, as they make their
way towards a man seated on a camel, playing reed pipes. Below him, the image bears the

inscription 'DROMED~US." Around Filarete's feet i is written: t

U~~~~~~~~

FT DISaPULl MEI."

I j.

R. Spencer. 'Filarete. Medallist of the Roman Emperors." Art Bulletin (New York. 1979)

2 C. King. 'Filarete's Signature Self-Portrait." lourno1 of the Warburg and c o u ~ a u l dInsututes. (London, 199 I ). 297. See dso. n. 5.
3

C. King. 'Filarete's Signature Self-Portrait." 297.

They are: Angniolus, Jacobus. Janneilus.

Passquinas, lovannes. V a m Florenti[a)e. See Lazzamni and Muiioz. 79.

4 The date of July 3 1 st was uncovered in the 1962 cleaning of the doors.

rrthltrcturr

and the bee / #elf-portrait

11

There are t w o other inscriptions on this panel and they bear a bit of considention. Underneath the donkey we find the letters "APO a " that have been interpreted as
CI[VITATE]"

*APO[STOL~]

- 'in the crty of the ~ p o r t l e . W. von Oettingen, in his m d y on the treatise. "~

apparently was generally confounded at this inscription6 and agreeably, it is difficult t o make clear sense o f this interpretation. Possibly the
'APO"

can be read as

' A P ~ L O G U ~ " meaning ,

'narrative', rendering the phrase as "the story of the crty," which dearly describes the various sciences on the doors. The doors depict scenes such as Christ enthroned; Paul condemned and executed; Mary; and Peter receiving keys from Pope Eugenius, the foundations of the Church. In addition, Filarete created four small n m t i v e panels showing Eugenius' pontificate.
it has been suggested that these pictures, inserted into specific places amid the larger

in theological images were able to act as glosses, like ~llustrations manuscripts (figures 3. 4 , 5.

6).7 If we consider his self portrait in this manner, it appears as a forerunner of the veatise.
Filarete's Trattuto can be characterized as an evolution cf the 'narrative-portrait' that relates a contemporary situation side by side with a classical scene into one story, carrying a similar vem of ideas that transpire in the self portrait.

1.

R. Seymour begins to describe the above scene as this: "Representing the master

with his assistants who weave their way in a 'dance of life' away from Intemperance, symbolized by a figure holding a jug, o n an ass.'* They move towards a camel a t whose

C.King. "Fibrete's Signature Setf-Portrat" 297.

6 W. von Oettingen. Quel/enschri@n fir Kunstegeschicte und Kunsttechnik des Mittelalters und der

NeuzerL (New York. 1974). 12. See C. King, 'Filarete's Signature Portmt", n. 6.
7

C,W. Westfall. In C.Seymour.

this Most Perfect Paradise. (Univenrty Park. PA. 1974) 9.

Scvlpulre in Italy. 1400- 1500. (Battimore, 1966), I 16.

architecture and tho bem / rdf-portrait

head it reads "PIOVI", translated by M. I m i and A. Mufioz to mean "in divine wine" ("PIO VI[NO]").~ Catherine King, in her article on the signature portrait, suggests this is not very convincing and interprets it as " P I O ~ U M ]VI[RN~. or, the 'virtue of the pious." This

connection of virtue to the camel paints a discemabte portrait of Filarete, the self-proclaimed 'lover of virtue.' The rest of Seymour's depiction pertainingto the camel strengthens this crtynarrative concept.
He says, the figures are approaching 'Virtue and Rght judgement,

symbolized, as in medieval bestiaries, by a dromedary." I

This particular slant on the

composition links the issues t o the larger body of work and ideas of Filarete. Not only do we see the early emergence of his ideas on virtue as they pertainto the city, but the narrative structure of the treatise can be seen as a natural extension and development of a notion of story-making in a world increasingly involved in composing an archeology of the past, both formally and mythically. These crucial elements are tempered by the use of remembrance and recollection of the past. Other images on the doors, specifically the borders, have also been linked to medieval bestiaries and dr6lleries, and it is likely they 'conveyed moral allegories as complicated and pious as the story of Cato and Marcia did to Dante.'

''

The dromedary acts as a symbol of piety, a sort of moral emblem to the city. The pig and an other unidentified animal (a sheep, perhaps) at the camel's feet, along with the ass,
suggest this sort of moral drellerie. While the camel is curiously related to winged serpents

9 M. Lazzaroni and A Muiioz. Filarete scultore e architem del secolo XV.

79.

l o C.
1 1

King. "Fiiarete's Signature Portrait." n. 7.297

C. Seymour. Sculpture i Itoly. I 1 6 . n

12 H. Roeder. "Borden of Fiiarete's bronze doors" journal of the Warburg and coumuld Insu'tutes. (London. 1948). 1 5 1 .

architecture and the

bee / srlf-portrait

13

(according t o the Zohar, the serpent in Eden was a 'flying camel'), memory.

l 3 it

is also a symbol for

As Mary Carruthers asserts, bestiaries existed in monastic libraries to 'provide

them. [the monks], with mnemnically valuable heuristics, orderly 'foundations" or sets of mnemonic loci. "

'

Wfih its natural storage swem to carry the essential sustenance of life. and

ability to maintain its strength, the camel easily becomes a metaphor for retention of knowledge. The use of animals in general in memory training seems to denve in part from t e h

Ad Herennium, an anonymous text written in Rome circa 86-82 B.C.E., where the author uses
a ram's testicles as part of an image-makingscheme: "And we shall place the defendant at the bedside, holding in his right hand a cup, and in his left tablets, and on the fourth finger a ram's testicles." l 6 As well, 'if we wish t o recall a horse. a lion, o r an eagle, we must place its irnage
in a definite background." l 7 During the Middle Ages, animal images were used more

frequently in relation to memory techniques: Dominican Hugh of St. Cher used an openmouthed bear in depicting a vicious adversary1*;Thomas Bradwardine used the animals associated with the zodiac;

''and in the Renaissance, Peter of Ravenna, a

15th century

13 The Zohar is a basic source o the Kabbalah. See also. j. E. Cirlot. A D~ctionary Symbols. (New f of York, 1962). 37.

15 Camrthers. The Book of Memory. 1 10.

16 [Cicem] Ad Herennium.

I l l . XX, 33. See editor's note 'b' which tells of a nerve whch extends

from the fourth finger of the left hand to the heart.

17 Ibrd. Ill, XVII, 30.
18 The Book ofMemory.

128.

archltacture and the bae / aalf-portrait

14

lawyer, was able to associate

any number of animals to each letter o f the alphabet."

It is the

creation of this 'background', the loci, that becomes the memory-making element, and the

t essence of this it seems,is in story making. Whether i is the tale of each specific image, or the
namtive of moving along the path and seeing a complex of scenes, the loo' and story converge

to make the pieces memorable. In the case of the bronze doors, the story is contained wrthin

its images and enclosed by the frame of the doors. The use by Filarete of a camel's retention
of knowledge transports the wisdom from architect/sculptor into the ritualistic dance and ihe public arena of the city. The namtive of Filarete and his workers dancing at the completion of
the doors, amid an assortment of animals and music creates a visible and palpable story that

begins to establish a consistency in imagination and philosophy in Filarete's own vision on remembrance and virtue for a meaningful life in the crty.

- antiauitv Aiso included on the bronze doors, amid contemporary scenes of ceremonies are Christian stories and myths of antiqurty, like medieval r n u r g i n ~ l i o . ~ 'Among them there is Hercules and the Bu!l, Cadmus and the Dragon, the Death of Hercules and animal scenes derived from Aesop. The collage of images hints at the emerging Renaissance equation of contemporary authority paralleling ancient and religious authorities. The borders themselves
seem to function as memorative cues, creating loose correlations to contemporary events a,,.

20 Ibid. 109. Also, Dominican Cosimo Roselli associated an animal to each letter of the alphabet, remembering the w o r d 'air'. for exampie, with a donkey (asinus), elephant, and rhinoceros. See 'fates. 1 19.
2 ' C. Seymour. "Some Reflections on Filarete's use of Antique Visual Sources." (Milan. 1973). 37.

Arte Lombarda.

architecture and the bee / self-portrait

15

people, forming the frame of a knaissance preoccupation with antiqurty. The images consist
of not only mythological scenes, but simple pictures of birds, fruit and flowers amid large

acanthus ornamentation (figure 4). These are early metaphorical motifs, traditionally made t o create memorable pages in books

*,and applied in this case to doors for the crty, mnsforming

their relevance into a social and public environment. Amid the representation of the many Roman emperor medallions there exists a timid
self-portrait relief in the doors' border. It shows a young man, resembling Filarete, in a

characteristically Roman coin motif (See top edge of figure 4). Spencer has dated it t o pre1445 and also attributed a number of actual coins depicting Roman emperon and classical

~~ g stories as being fabricated by ~ i l a r e t e .It is f ~ n to believe that "Filarete viewred] such celebrities not only as figures of historical eminence but also as exemplars of virtue."24 I t seems this is a modest start of Filarete's ideas on architecture's relevance for a city. The creation of w o bronze doors plants the seed. perhaps, of the potential of social imagery. The responsibility of Filarete's designs are expanded and grow, shifting from the pope's Rome to the laying out of his ideas o n a new crty for Sforza.

- bees The explanation o f these two self-portrait inventions leads to a discussion of Filarete's

22 Carruthers. The Book of Memory. 246. "Certain classes of images appear over and over in the margins from the earliest decorated books through hand-painted printed books. These include jewels. colns, brds, fruit, flowerj (sometimes shown with insets sucking their nectar), and scenes of hunting and fshing. both by an~mals and humans."

23 1. R. Spencer. 'Filarete. Medallist of the Roman Emperon." Art Bulletin. (New York. 1 979)

l4 C. Lord. 'Solar lmgery in Filarete's doors to St. Peter's." Gazette des B w u x 1976). 145.
architecture and tho

Am. (L~echtensteln.
16

boo / self-portrait

bronze self-portmit medal2' (figure 7). Dated to the 1 46OPs, this design sumMnzes Filarete's ideology. By probing the metaphor he presents us I hope to locate a key reading of the
Tratcoto. Imitating an ancient artistry and inserting his own imgination into its mode. Filarete

strives to show us his desired position of virtuous-architect. Cyriac d'Ancona searched antiquity t o "wake the dead". He believed that through antiqurty his contemporaries would 'recognize their true nameswand thus find their true selves.26 I believe we can artach a similar sentiment to Filarete, in that his ambition strives to establish an expansion of architecture, reaching out to the essences that establish a meaningful life. The self-portrait shows us a profile of Filarete's head on the front, surrounded by three bees and the inscription: "ANTONNSAVERLINVS ARCHITECTVS." The verso depicts a rnan smng at
a tree wrth its trunk cut open to reveal an over-flowing honeycomb that forms a pool of honey
at its base. Bees swarm around him as he works at the tree to reveal its richness. The

~nscripnon reads:

"vr SOL AVGET APES SICNOBIS COMMODA

PRINCEPS."

The gentle help of the

prince IS like the assistance of the sun t o augment the bees' making of a sweet fmrt.
The bee is industrious and selfless and Filarete invokes it as a plea to his patron for

munificence, a tone that underlies the whole treatise. After a dedicatjon to Piero d 1 ~ e d i a 2 ' the story begins with Filarete recalling being at a dinner party where the conversation turned

2 5 There are t w o copies of the

medal, the better of them located at Gabmetto nurnismatlco

In

Mdan.
2 6 C. Mitchell. "Archaeology and Romance in Renaissance Poetry." ltolian Renaissance Studies.

(London, 1 960). 470. Quoted from Mehus.. Kyraici Anconitoni Itenranurn. (Florence. 1 742).
27 The treatise was rededicated t o Piero in 1464. Although the original tome was written for Francesco Sforza, it is assumed that Filarete rededicated it after leaving Milan, hopmg to obtain work elsewhere. The Palatinus 14 1 1 manuscript contains the dedication t o Sforza. See n. 5. page 4 rn the Spencer translation.

architecture and the boe 1 self-portrait

17

to architecture, and there being no other architects present, he steps forward, saying 'P&aps you will think me presumptuous for attempting to tell you these modes and measures

. . .[but]

beg your excellency to be attentive M i l e he listens to my arguments t o the same extent that he would i f he had ordered his troops to reconquer and defend one afhis dearest ponenions. n28 N o t only does Filarete relate architecture for the patron-king as a action similar to seizing a military opportunity and appealing to his desire for manly excellence, but, it is Filarete's hope that the paron iove the architect as his own wife, honoring her and being a devoted mate to the work. For the architect's 'k n d e d g e is rare and [she] should be esteemed for it, because . .

.[she] is called noble insofar as H h e has v i h . n29 Obtaining this honor Filarete realizes depends
upon the virtuous action by the architect. However, the architea's action is as a "lover of
wrtue", the mete of goodness and excellence of character.3o Part of this role involves the

gestation of the design idea, like a mother. Since the building is like man according to Filarere.
it also requires a time of conception and birth.

"I/ genare dello edquo si e in quesm forma: che si come niuno per se solo
non pu6 generare sunzo la donna un altro, cmi ezjand~osimilitudine lo edifuo per a uno solo non pud s e r e m a t o , e come sanza la donna non si pub fare. cosi cdui
che vuole edifcore bisogno che abbia l1&itetto

e ensieme collui ingenerado, e p a

I'architetto partorirlo e poi, partito che I'ha, I'architetto viene a essere la madre d'eno edificio. . .

. Cosi

I'architetto debba nove o sene mesi fantasticare e

28 Trwtise. f. lv.-2r..

5. Trattato, 9.

29 Treatise. f. 9r.. 18. T r a m t o . 44. In calling the architect female I am following the metaphor Filarete develops about the mother-father relationship.

30 Classic Greek Dictionary. (Chicago. 1 962) 1 00- 1 0 1 .

architecture and the bee / self-portrait

I 8

pensure e rivdtarselo per la memoria in piG rnodi. w3

The architect is entrusted with the life o f the prince's kingdom and requires love. N o t only must the prince love the architect as a wife, but the architect must sustain the design with her own nourishment. Part of this gestation involves meditation and study, another requires searching out of all the materials necessary for a successful birth and fostering of the relat~onship, like someone in love. This metaphor of architecture is also quite alchemical in
tone. "Philosophers contemplating their alchemical works are like a mother contemplating the

fruit of her womb . . . and the art is like the developmnt of the embryo and then the child." 3 2
The work of architecture must be loved and maintained as a body.
The architect locates a site in the treatise and begins to locate the materials and

Filarete relates this process to us in episodic stories. In locating the site for Sforzinda he tells
the first of many 'adventures': "I found a gentleman near this valley . . . Afier we had dined bile

discussing many things, he saw that I wanted to see the valley.

. . Since Idesired to know all the

good and utility of this valley, Iasked him the name of the river that flawed through it. H e said that it was called Sforzindo and the valley was called Inda. . . . Then we rode along searching it

out and looking at its shape.n33

In the self-ponrait medal. Filarete depicts an image of the

architect working at a tree, searching o t its own shape and plenitude. H e delves into the u

3 1 Trattato. f. 7v.. 40. Treatise. t 5: " The building is conceived in this manner. Smce no one can concerve by himself &out a warnan, by another simile, the building cannot be concekd by one man alone. Ps rt cannot be done without a w m a n . so he h o wishes to build needs an architect He conceives i t w i t f ~ him and &en the architect carries it. . . . Before the archirect g k birth he should dream about his conception. thtnk about it, and un i t over in his mind in many uoys for seven to nine months." Spencer does not translate the r crucial term 'memoria'.

32 G. Roberts. The Mirror of

Alchemy. (London,1994), 22.

53.

3 3 Treatise. f. I l v.- 1 2 . 23. Trattato, r.

arehftactura and tha bee / self-portralt

tree wrth his tools - a symbolic tree-of-life perhaps - to find all its sweetness. The honeycomb fills the tree, a microcosm of the world and the architect reveals the nectars hidden within each cell. The throng of bees flying about his head and the tree are like the workers Filarete mentions - that much depends on good master masons, because if they are bad, shame and damage may come to the project. 34 Filarete's excurjions describe trips into the countryside. surveying of land, finding flowing rivers of crystal water full of fish, crops of grain, wine, oil. saffron and apples, deer and all sorts of wood and marble necessary for the buildings. The hunt too, is a memory metaphor - Aristotle says that people recollect from a starting point and "hunt successively," and Quintilian relates that a skillful orator knows his memory places in the

same way a hunter k n o w how t o tradc game.3s The architect's excursions are quests for
suitable building materials, the first step of formulating his worthy and noble designs. Filarete's procurement and discovery of the fruits of the world, examined with the image of the honey-extractor on the medal brings us to the bee-trope in memory circles. The bees on the bronze medal "pack close the flowering honey and swell their cells with nemr sweet."36Quintilian, in his lnsritutio orotoria, equates the orator, making an eloquent speech from many different sources to the bee making honey.37 The honey comb is like a book and each cell a storeroom for knowledge and wisdom. The bee gathers as the architect similarly does, and tucks it away into the chambers of her memory. "The search for wisdom is a

34 Treatise. f.

8r.. I 6. Trattato., 4 1 .

35 lnstitutio oratoria. V . X . 20-22.

36 Vergil. The

Aeneid. 1. X. 7 .

3' lnstitutio orotoria. I . X . 7 .

8rchltetture and the bee 1 self-portrait

search for the symbols of order that we encounter

. . . medieval poets and mystics stress the

motive of the hunt.n38 It is important, however, to elaborate on this metaphor of memory and bees. The critical element in the gathering and hunting of mrious nectars in not that these

pieces are collected and repeated by rote or simply displayed. Instead, they are kept for what
Abenus Magnus calls 'reminis~ence.'~~is the 'investigation with the memory in a heuristic It ~ a n n e rTo relate this difinction to the bee-model of mnemonics we m u n acknowledge .~ the entl rety of the honey-making process, specifically digestion/mellification . The use of a mnemonic scheme depends upon a transformation of the components. Seneca suggests "we should see to it that whatever we have absorbed should not be allowed to remain unchanged, o r it will be no part of us. We must digest it; otherwise it will merely enter the memory and not the reasoning power [ingenium].n4' b!ending into a new essence for a meaningful life. T. M. Greene writes about the storage of the nectar and its transformation: 'We do not, perhaps cannot, know exactly how nectar becomes honey, how food becomes tissues and blood; analogously the assimilation of our reading is a process not to be codified" and Seneca's analogies have maintained such a long life simply because he 'is tadul enough to The various substances require

t leave a space for an invisible event.n42 1 think i is fair to suggest Filarete was aware of the

38 I. Illich. In the Vineyard of the

Text. (Chicago, 1993). 31.

39 Albertus Magnus. Liber de memoria et reminescentia. tr. 2, c. I. (p. 107): [Rleminrscent~a n~hd alwd est nisi lnvestigatio obliti per memoriam." See The Book of Memory, n. 19. 292 .
40

Carruthen. The Book of Memory. 20.

a Seneca. Ad Lualiurn. 28 1 .
42

Greene. The Light in Troy. 74.

arthltocturo and tho boo 1 solf-portrait

21

broad range o f associations contained in the bee symbol, with Seneca's words having had a long influence. The issues touched upon by Greene hold great r e l e ~ n c e relation t o in mellification and architecture. The transformation o f substances is intrinsically the magic the architect performs in building. In Delphic beliefs the three fateful sisters known as the Thriae were also called bees. They lived in a rock cleft of Mt. Parnassus and made wax. *Their divining could only be relied on when they could feed on 'the sweet food of the gods'; if honey was denied them, they lost direction and would not speak the The space of

the invisible event is precisely the key of creation, o r alchemical transformation of the sod.

When Filarete discusses the various modes of explaining his designs no single element carries
w~th the entirety of the project and he repeatedly shifts from verbal description to drawings it

and promises comprehensive understanding upon completion. It is this invisible, digestive. gestational process that allows the true and virtuous, that is, ethically grounded construction of architecture to emerge.

43 Quoted from Rykwert.

On Adorn's House i Paradise. 142. The quote is from Homer. n

4'' See T. Burckhardt. "The alchemist, in his dreamlike search, brings t o the light of day certain contents of his own soul previously unknown t o him. and thus. without consciously intending to do so, bnngs about a kind of reconciliation between his superficial, ego-bound, everyday consciousness and the unformed (but form seeking) power of [his unconscious]." Alchemy, science of the cosmos. science of the soul. (London. I %7), 8.

rrchitecture and the

bee / relf-portrait

22

'igure 3. Empemr S@smund m m i r g t o Castel Sant'An@o, bronze doon at S. Peter's t

igure 4. Birds and acanthm, borders ofthe bronze doors at St. Pcter's. kft leaf, bottom ail.

architecture and the bee / self-portrait

23

figure 5. Detail of n@tkaf, madydom of S t Peter, b m e doors o St Peter's. f

figure 6. Detail of q h t leaf, &pubire

d the Greek. bronze doom at k.Peter's.

architecture and the bee / self-portrait

24

figure 7. Self-portrait medal ofFilarete. Gabinetto numisrmtico, Milan.

rrchltecturo and the bee / self-portrait

figure 8 . Initial letter 'P". Codex Magliabecchianus. Biblioteca Nazionale. Florence.

architecture and t h e bee / foundations

26

-nlthcn'nnl
The correlation of memory and cities is told in two stories by Filarete that differ in plot,
but show two sides of the same memrative 'coin' present in the Renaissance. One tells of

discovering, the unearthingof a box of relics from 'mtiqurty'; the other of creating a foundation

box, containing symbolic items gathered together to preserve the memory of the city
Sforzinda. After consulting his astrologer for a fortuitous date and hour t o lay the fim stone of the city,' Sforza allows Filarete t forge ahead with the plans and preparations for the o ceremony. It is this gathering of elements for the foundation of Sforzinda we will emmine first (figure 9). While the elements are intended to substantiate and nurture a virtuous and vital city, the fact that they are hidden and stowed away inside the body of the building is indicative of Filarete's preoccupation with memoria and iu relation to the gestation/digestion process. "Symbolic memory is the process by which man not only repeats his past experience but also reconstructs this e ~ ~ e r i e n c e . Consider the words of Hugh of St. Victor concerning this "~ procedure: Hugh suggests that we need to "gather brief and dependable abstracts" in the "chest of our memory". Later, when required, we will be able t o access the combinations collected and "turn [them] over in the mind and regurgitate from the stomach of one's

1 It is determined to be April I S , 1460, 21 minutes after 10:OO. See n. 4. 43 in Treause and Spencer's article "La Datazione del Trattato del Fitarete desunto da suo e s a m interiore." Rivista d ' k e .

( 1 956).

E. Cassirer. An Gsay on Man. 57.

architecture and the bee I foundations

27

memory to taste them, lest by long inattention to them, they disappear."3

This metaphoric

process also echoes filarete's sentiments on the gestation period of the mther-architecL4 The components involved in Filarete's ritual reconstruction are a dated marble stone inscribed with the name of Sfom, the pope and Filarete. In the cornerstone a marble box is placed, containing lead and bronze effigies o f worthy men. vases holding various substances and a bronze book "dove 4 fatto memoria di rrtte /e cose di questa nostru eta e anche degli uomini degni do /om fine.

"' N o t only does this book have the figures o f Vice and Vlrtue
This

carved on them, but the other projects of Filarete are also carved on the box - the Milan
hospital, the B e r m church, and his doors for St. Peters - 'rhe noble thrngs I hove done?

desire for recognition strives to create a noble soul. Filarete wishes to invent an image of his noble character that is eternal, in the way that God is eternal. Later in the treatise, during the excamtion of items, the king implores Filarete 'non guardate a spesa nesuna e a fare cose

perpeme, e massime la rnemorio. n7 Filarete wishes t o obtain a personal honor, putbng his virtue
at his patron's disposal, s o that the king may triumph even if fortune does not shine on the city.

In addition to the vice / virtue book, Filarete also intends to place inside the box

another book which will contain moral stories, reminiscent of the stories on the doors of St.

3 Hugh of St. Victor. Didascolicon. 94.

4 See

'seH portrait' chapter.

s Trortato. f. 25r., 1 03. Treatise. 44: ". . . in which there is a book of bronze conraining the record of thrs our age and the deed of mrthy men."
6 Ibid. f.

25 r.

7 Trattato. f. memorial to this king."

IOZr.. 389.

Treatise. 179: "Forget the expense but build eternal things, especially the

archltmcturo and tho boo 1 foundations

28

Peter's as moral - mnemonic cues.

The mirroring, or doubling, of the 'box' parables in the

treatise rely heavily upon the book-trope. The significance of the inclusion of books in the foundation box is not to be overlooked - they are external memory banks8 While Filarete's

ot concern wrth memory and virtue relies upon this s r of gathering and burial of items, we can
withness a diferent understanding of these issues for the condottiere turned prince. This exploration of virtue and the prince's architecture is concerned with the discovery / rediscovery of these texts as guides t o constructing the city.

Awllsok
"A uty ought to be like the human body and for this reason it should be full of all that g w s life to man.

"' describes the vital substances Filarete places inside the cornerstone box of This

Sfozinda's fim building. Six earthen vases are made and filled wrth grain. water, wine, milk, oil. and honey. Each has its own generative force and its essence is kept pure inside the buddingbody. If this precious box of essences, the pith'' of the constructed body is maintained then the city will be strong and able to act properly. It is a matter of giving symbolic images the correct, memorable form so they have strength.

''

Vases and vessels inherently symbolize a

place to store things to be remembered. The Codex Alexandrinus, a 5th century Greek

8 S. Huot. 'lnventional Mnemonics." Connotations. (Munster, Gerrnany. 1993/4). 104.

9 Treatise. f. 25.. 45. Trattoto. 104.

l o One etymological root of the word memory, (s)mer-, is connected t o pith, marrow. and the medulla, the very 'stuff of life. See C. Dunne, "The Roots of Memory."
I I E.H. Gombrich. "Icones Symbolicae: the visual image in Neo-Platonic thought." lournol of the Warburg and Courtould Institutes. (London, 1948).

archltotture and tho boo 1 foundations

29

Bible provides an applicable image of an empty vase with the words of God pouring into it

'

A full vase symbolizes fertility and is a simile for Filarete o f all that gives life. At Paenurn, for

example, a small, sealed building / tomb has been found that contained eight bronze
amphorae and two bronze hydnae, holding honeycomb, the sweet preservative of life. l 3

The fim vase of Sforzinda contains grain and the container depicts the portraits of Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the "three fatal goddesses in whom our lrfe consists,that is one
spins, one receives the thread, and the other break i t

O the vase nothing is witten but these two n

words, Life and Death, for there is nothing in this w d d but living and dying. A city endures for the

term conceded to it. " The next v s contains water, because it is "dean, ae pure, and dear and very usebl to
everyone. If it is not dirtied by other matter, it always clear and luud. In the same way the

inhabitants of the city shwid be dear and dean and useful to others. " If this water is dirtied and spoiled by poor actions of the residents, the men themselves are defiled and will not be nobly remembered. In its most reduced etymological form, 'memory' becomes 'mr' - the letter 'm' representing "watern and the letter ' r f , "head", to f o m an intriguing relationship of memory to
the flowing vitalrty of life. l 5

Water contains everything that was in existence prior ro the

materia prima and contains all wisdom. It is symbolic of both life and death, the submers~on

' 2 See Carruthers. The Book of Memory,

n. 64. 345.

The Idea of o T o m . (Cambridge, 1 976). 3 5. See ako, on honey as a sacrificd 1 3 J. Rykwert. o substance. n. 59. 206. Honey acts as a presetvatbe and was offered t the dead. The souls of the dead were a s called bees. See n. 9,On Adorn's House in Paradise. lo
14

Treatise. f. 25v., 45. T r a t ~ ~ t o . 104.

' 5 C.Dunne. "The Roots of Memory." 120. For more o n water and its symbolic content. see I. Ilhch. HZO. or the Waters of Forge~lness.

architacturo and the bee / toundetiona

and interment of death and the birth of the whole world that has sprung from it, and is symbolized succinctly by baptrsm. 'Wine Iinclude bemuse it n o liqucr suited to the life of man

if used ternperatdy.

Its

excess takes owoy both feeling and health ."l 6 Wtne represents blood and sacrifice. "All liquid

substances

. . . which were offered up in antiqurty . . . were images of blood."17As a symbol

of blood, wine also elevates man to God, acknowledging the element of the divine in all men.

On the converse, there is the vase of milk, which 's every man h n s . . . is diNMed bloodn a c u.

'

It is the basic nourishing element of mankind, and represents the purity that we should

pursue, as well as alluding again to Filarete's basic mother-&her relationship of architecture. 1 9

The architect places within the body-child-building the sacrificial blood of birth and the
unadulterated blood of nourishment for a purified and virtuous existence. The fifth vase contans oil, which Filarete calls useful and naturally inclined t o rise above water. It
IS,

of

course, related to Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, to whom the olive tree is dedicated. "The olive s~gnifies victory and peuce. This great city should hove victory, peace, and, like oil, dom~nim
aver those smaller than itself; with Msdom, pleusantness, and in a good manner. ^"

Lastly, there is the vase of honey, placed in the foundation because it is sweet and the
bees are ~ndustrious, severe, and just.

"They desireandhovealordandmleroverthemse~ves

16 Treatise. f.
17

2Sv., 45. Tramto, 105.

1. E.

Grlot. Dictionary of Symbols. 24.

19 See above. "self-portraitnchapter.

20 Treatise. f.

25v.. 45. T r a m t o , 105.

architmcturo and the bao / foundatlone

and they fdow all his commands. Everyone hm his tusk and ewyme obeys. When their ruler
becomes so dd thot he can no longer fly, through justice and demency they curry him. Thus should the men of the city be. . . . Thus their fruits rvill be sweet and useful like those of the bees.

"* ' In

Orphic tradition the bees are symbols of wisdom and "the spiritual exercise of selfimprovement.n22 and self-improvement depends upon the gathering of knowledge. transformed into

by the memory. The honey of the bronze jars at Paestum suggen

the worship of a dead person, the memory of a sacrificed founder.23 'Thus though a bee is weak in body, yet i is strong through the power of wisdom and the lover of virtue." 24 t
It is

hoped that the city of Sforzinda will be wise and good by remembering these elements placed within its own 'body' and the symbolic burial of the ritual within the inhabitants' memory.

The box of elements buried within the body-buildingis ceremniously placed wkh the digging of three shovels of earth, symbolizing the "three times, past, present and future." The
act of burial is deliberate and crucial for the abilrty of the foundation elements to maintain their

symbolic and literal power. The enclosure keeps their consummate purity intact, as a hermetically sealed sanctuary. Symbolically, they are buried into the foundation of man, his city
-

21 Treatise. f. 22 j . E.

26r.. 45-6. Trattato, 105.

Cirlot. Dictionary of Symbols.. 24.

23 Rykwert. Idea of a Town. 35.. and n. 59. 206. On honey as a sacrificial food, see Paulys, ReolDlcydopadie der Klaswchen. Ed. Georg Ntertumswiaenschufi: new edn.. (Stuttgart: Wissowa) 1 894 ff.

24 F. Unterkircher. Tiere, Glaube, Aberglaube: Die Schoensten Minaturen aus dem Bestiarum. (Raz: Akadem~sche Druck und Verlagsanstatt) 1986. Quoted from H. Biedennan. Dictionary of Symbolism. (Facts o n File. 1992). 35.

rrchltocture and the bee / foundations

32

that is built up in the mind, the social memory of a crty; the box is contained by her body, the

flesh of the building. Their memory is kept present by the remembrance of the ritual as well
as the visual date on the cornerstone. Every inhabitant that "could see, inscribed on marble or

bronze stele, the decrees and omhs u25 was connected to the larger sacred crty. During the placement of the foundation stone there is an incident involving the death

me saw of one of the workers. 'During the e x ~ u v ~ o n of the d i g g e ~ a hole near him. With hrs
shovel he w e d a large piece of earth and discovered a den where a large and beaut@/ serpent was

coiled up. . . . The serpent wrapped itself around his neck and squeezed so hard that it took h ~ s

life. u26 The death of this m n provides a sort of necessary sacrifice to the work and allows the prudence and wisdom to prevail over anger. 'The killing of the man is this: someone will come as a beast to the city and without reason, will wish to do it harm, and it will turn on him in its fury. kil him and undohim. h then willretireondgovm inelfwxh prudenceandwi~dorn."~~imparts It
the mark of 'tomb' to the foundation stone. As a symbolic casket, the box also suggests the

alchemical opus and the personification of the king and his tomb as a stage of the process. In
alchemical theory, the birth of the work could not occur unless a death happened

The Renaissance, and Filaretels treatise on architecture, depends upon these metaphors of resuscitation and the rebirth of antiquity. It occurs as "no accident that the

25

1.

Rykwert. The Idea of a Town. 40.

26 Treatise. f.

26v, 47.

27 Treatise. f. 4 . 5 , 78.
28 One emblematic representation of the alchem~cal process involves a series of images of a king who i , in one variation, chopped into pieces, buried. and exhumed. becoming whole again. It IS a death that s occurs in order to return t o basic elements. the prima materia, so that a new understanding of the self, and hence the world. can be born.

arthltetturo and the bee 1 foundations

cultivation of memory received new and careful attention." 29 I think we can begin to discern how memory is related to virtue in the Renaissance envioenment and operates differently from a medieval schoalstic method. As a visual mnemonic device, we can imagine the sight of

the stone and recall the momentous start of the crty, acting as "a complex of symbols; in which
the citizen, through a number of bodily exercises, such as processions. . . . [and] sacrifices,

identifies himself with his town,

its past and its founders.n30 The sight and remebmce

of these items must be done with prudence and wisdom says Filarete, inherently binding this virtuous memory to actions that create a menaingful site for the citizens. As the archtiect, Filarete's relationsip to this civic action is removed. He places himself to the side, with the pnnce and pope at the foundation ceremony; a director and moral conscious of the group, the archtea becomes an assistant, aiding the prince in his own pursuit of establishing a virtuous and solid footing. The interment of the foundation box is a prelude to the resurrectton that occurs later in the treatise, when the crty of Plusiaplis is founded from the watery depths of antiquity.

29

Greene. Light in Troy. 3 1 .

30 Rykwert. Idea of

o Town. 1 89. Rykwert's concern is to "show the town as a total mnemonic

symbol."

rrthltecture and tho bee / foundrtlons

figure 9. Phn of Sforzinda. Ccdex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee / foundations

35

figure 10. Tibuma Serpentaria. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee / excavations

36

- stones "We discwered a rather large ship. Its wood was as sound as if it had been there but a
short time."

'

Excavated k o m the depths of the port of Plusiapolis, an unusually formed boat

emerges pristinely preserved, and also is a wooden tomb (figure 10). Called Tiburna Serpentaria, it is as black as coal, a petrified ark, a necromantic allegory of disinterment and rebirth.L (figure I I ) The formulation of the equation between the knowledge o f antiquity and the literal archaeology of items, a critical propellent of Renaissance imagination. becomes fully realized at the port of Plusiapolis. Filarete shifts our outlook from the burial and safekeeping of the estimable things of architecture t o the excavation of them in order to reveal the opportunities and events that will establish this well-founded city. The exhumed boat contains a wooden chest on its deck that is very heavy and "bound
in such a way thor no one could see hav to open itmn3 The contents, though solemn in nature.

are "noble things" o f gold and precious srones and a small gold casket containing a cup of emerald carved wrth figures. One of these figures, a nymph-like creature, holds a unicorn in one hand and a tiger in her other. Around i are written these letten: ' I , Queen Dm~rarnlsse. t

Treatise. f. 1 57v., 270. Tramto, 585.

2 Leonardo da Vlnci also records a similar event. Notebooks of Leonardo do Vinct, I , trans. E. McCurdy (New York, 1938, 356). This story is also told by Fontius in 1485, about a tomb found on the Via Appla; and rn 1599 the Cardinal o f 5. Cecilia found a body of St. Cecilia divinely preserved. See F. Saxl. "The Classical lnscription in Renaissance Art and Politics."journal of Wahurg and Courtauld Institutes. (London, 1 94 1 ).
3

Treause. f. 1 S7v.. 270. Trattato. 585. rrchltecture and the bee I excavations

send thee this cup from which you wiN be pleased to drink

When you see it, think of thy

~emirarnisse."~ Drinking from the cup of antiqurty is a similar metaphor to 'eating the book." a recommendation given to Ezekial (35)' The allusion to a Biblical metaphor of study in the

same story of an ancient artifact enfoces Filarete's ideology of blending classical and Christian tenents. It returns to the rnellification / digestion process of learning; by filling our stomach w~th the works of the ancients we can satisv our present needs and was used by medieval scholars
as an injunction to rnemorative study.

The understanding that this cup is something seen to

IS

convey its particular narrative is significant as well, forming a recollective impression that distinguished from the ordinary events of life.

The marvelousness of this discovery is celebrated by a ceremonious delivery of t h e

boat by river t o Sforzinda where it is placed on four columns. decorated with gold and positioned in front of the temple. The entire ship and its box becomes a monument to the former kingdom. Freed from rts moorings and uplifted to the sky, i is transformed into a t r n e a n ~ n ~ u l , memory. As an architectural element in Filarete's design, this monument civ~c comprises part of the web of memory devices formed to enable a noble and worthy crty. It is
an immortal treasure, incorruptible and pure, and its arrangement into the city ensures the

~ retention of its e r ~ d i t i o n .Filarete composes a m e m n a l to leave an eternal expression of his Renaissance city, exhibiting its scholarship and preeminence among others. a gesture that

4 Ibid.

5 See Jerome. Commentanurn rn Gekiol, Pavologia cursus completus, series Latino ed. 1.-P. Migne. (Pans. 184 1 -64). A s . Revelation 10:9: "And I went unto the angel. and said unto him. give me the little lo t book. And h e said unto me,take it, and eat i up."
6 See Hugh of St. Victor. "De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum." translated by M. Carruthen, 'Appendix A", The Book of Memory, 26 I.

rrchltocture and the bee / oxcrvations

38

speaks of the character of the city. For the prince Sforza, however, the establishing of a

memon'al t o the past conves his prowess as a ruler. lnduded in this mesh are the words of the prior city's king, transmitted to Filarete via the other excavation at Plusiapolis - the unearthing of the stone box. In crafting his narrative, Filarete creates a story of resurrecbon. During the excavation arrangements for Plusiapolis a stone box is exhumed. It too, caries with it implications of a grave, conmning a likeness of the former king as part of its contents. As an archaeological find,

the disentombment summons together the ancient wisdom and insight Filarete seeks and
breaks it out of I.ts vault, giving the past and present a common place of life. A constructed mnemonic device in the story, its items also impart the knowledge Filarete wishes to explicate

about building.
Digging foundations for a building reveals "a square none . . . almost like a large chestn
It IS written upon with "lettere antichissirnew in Hebrew, Arabic and Greek and the interior

chamber reveals " a small lead box. . . also a large book of all gdd . . .[that] stood on edge. In
the remainder of the hollow here were two vases of the same metal as the book

"'When the

lead box is opened a golden head with a crown full of precious stones is discovered, and the rest of the lead box is filled with colored jewels and a green and red cup, covered in jewels and carved w i an image of the king's head. The placement of these items within the interior ~ lead box lends an aura of weightiness to the king's dominion and the authority of his words as a guide to making a crty are to be revealed in the influential book of gold, a mnemnonic of text
and glosses.

7 Treatise. f.

I l r.- I0 l v.. 1 77-78. 0 Trattoto. 385-86.

architecture and tho be.
/ excavations

- books The book "was made in an unusual manner so that we had considerable difficulty in finding how to open itm8 as in the case of the queen's chest, the case is a challenge to Again, unseal.
I believe this speaks to the nature of the allegories about to be revealed - Filarete

desires to bestow a virtuous, unbroken relay of truths to the crty from this box, becoming like an oracle. Memory, however, is "not just any strongbox or storagechest - it is particularly the one in which books are kept."9 The book itself is a mnemonic model, the place where 'it dca
et facta memorabiliaw are kept: wisdom is stored in the archa of the h e m says Hugh of St. lo

Victor. Traditionally, books were kept in horizontal cupboards o r recesses in the wall and called arca, amarium, or thesauri, and is among the most common of memory metaphors. The arca is also understood as the Ark of the Covenant, which is itself a book, and also the Ark
of Noah - an arca preserving life itself. See figure 1 2, where the Ark of Noah is represented

as a chest with legs and a lid. The rnetzphor collapses and doubles simultaneously. The story Filarete relates of finding the box and book is not an oddity, but immersed within this cultural reliance on memory, and he reinvents the metaphor as an archaeological discovery. There are countless variations on the discovery of books in temples and libraries. Hugo of Santalla discovered an astronomical treatise in a secret area of a library;

' ' Lynn Thorndi ke tells us

about a hermetic book found in a golden ark within a silver chest , tn turn placed within a

Treatise. f. I0 l v.. 178. Trattato. 387.

9 Camhers. The Book of Memory. 43.

'0 Carruthen. The Book of Memory.

I I

W. Earnon. Science and the Seoets of Nature. (Princeton, 1994) 42.

rrchltocture and tho boo / oxcavatlonr

casket of lead; l 2 and a complete copy of Quintilian's lnstitutio oratore was discovered by
Poggio Bracciolini in 14 1 6 in the depths of a monastic tower.

'

'The genre presented

seemingly endless variations on a theme involving the discovery of sacred bocks and the revelation of scientific knowledge."

'

Peter of Ravenna, a writer of a popular Renaissance book on memory, instructs us that

a "well-trained memory is most like a book containing both text and glosses." l 5 The golden book of Plusiapolis transmrts this two-fold memory (figure 1 3). "I ffingZoglia, which meuns in our

vulgar tongue wise, rich, vained in many sciences, leave this veusure in your guardianship, Folonon
and Orbiati. No one will ever be able to touch this treasure until there comes a man wt~o rise will

from a small principate and through his own virtlj acquire o subnontiul kingdom. " l6 The book's form is detailed by Filarete. The largest book he has ever seen, the exterior boards were
th~ck and covered in gold, wrth the Figures of Will and Reason depicted earlier in the treatrse,

on the cover. The interior pages were " eud, one-eighth oncia thick . . . engraved [ w i ~ ]various morality figures ," l 7 all explained in detail to Filarete by the interpreter. He ' s a w and noted

' 2 L. Thorndike. The H s o y of Magic and Gperimentai itr

Science. vol. 2 (New York), 224.

13 P. S . Boskoff. 'Quintilian in the Late Middle Ages." Speculum. (Cambridge, 1952). 76. A s . see lo Yates, The Art of Memory. 56. 1 1 2.
I+

Earnon. Science and the Secrets of Nature. 43.

15 From Carruthen The Book of Memory, 109.

' 6 Treatise. f. 103r.. 18 1 . Trottoto, 393. See also n.2. 393. on the anagram of Folonon and Orblati. possrbly explained as "Filelfo, Antonin, and Libro"

17 Treatise. f. 109r., 190. Trattoto, 412.

archltocturo and tho boo / oxcrvrtions

corefully everything and mode drMngs of the oppeuronce of all [the] buildings. "

'

There seems

to be a general confusion over the drawing of the golden book in the treatise, wrth 'Memoria

lngegno lntelleto" o n its cover, as i is generally identified as the 'found book', but the drawing, t
placed earlier in the treatise, corresponds to the 'buried book' of Sforzinda. We can assume that these books are similar in Fiiarete's mind, though, given the fact that he develops their essences as one unit - a made book and a found book, both containing the measures and

modes of building. There is, of course, also a third b k , the treatise rtself, which undoubtedly
Filarete hoped would be preserved as nobly as the two inside the

The engraved

pages of the golden book also resurrect the classical memory metaphor of wax tablets: "he wrote down what he wanted to remember in certain places in his possession by means of The images, just as i f h e were lnscribingletter~onwaw."~~ renofFilarete3 own book, his treatise, depends upon the exhumed book for the remainder of Plusiapolis' designs. I t guides him with foresight and scholanhip - revealing some truth of the ancient crty impressed upon these pages, hoping to orient man with his architecture. Is it this foresight he hopes to endow
to t e prince, helping him obtain a strong, virtuous status as ruler? h

Filarete's intention stated at the beginnmg of the treatise entails the teachmg of the 'modes and meusuresnof architecture.

'

H e creates a complex composition developed from

these episodic stories and condenses them into mnemonic images such as these. The

'9 Reason and Will are originally designed as a painting to go in the king's council hall. Treause. f. 69v, 120. Tratzuto. 265- See 'ie /virtuen chapter f r more on h i s image, figure 24. vc o

20 Cicero. De oratore. II. ixxxviii, 360. 2 1 Treatise. f. I r..

3 . Trottoto, 3 . 'intendere modi et misure dello edificare."

architecture and the bae / excavrtionr

scholarship p e n to Filarete from this book is what he hopes to translate into buildings that will enable a virtuous citizen. The overall effect is a communrty comprised of all the 'parts' that Filarete determines will enable a 'noble' and eternal crty. "What people remember is not 'objects'; but inventionally valuable images, consciously set into heuristic schemes. These ~mages result from external and internal sensory traces 'translated' by imagination.w22

22

Carruthen. 'I nventional Mnemonics" 1 06.

architecture and the bee / oxcavrtions

figure I I .

of a Rorrran girl. Ashmle MS., f. 16 Iv.

-<

figure 1 2. Noah's Ark. in the shape of a wooden storage chest. From 'The Ashbumham Pentateuch.'

architecture and the bee / excavations

44

figure 1 3 . Golden book, inscribed "Memrxia lngegno lntelleto." Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee / excavations

45

figure 1 5 . House of Vc and Virtue. Codex Magliabecchknus. re

In introducing the House of Vice and Virtue to the king, Filarete describes it with a variety of metaphors that need to be traced in order to grasp the breadth of Filarete's mentions. "La miu fantasian he names it, admitting that he thought of the scheme some time ago, and indicating the importance he places on this building by calling it 'mine'. He solicits the

'

t king by asking to be allowed t o describe i in the manner of a d ' s House of Sun and of Envy.
Statius' House of Mars, and Vergil's House of Vergil's The Aeneid. chapter VI, begins

with the story of Daedalus, his escape from the labyrinth and his building of a golden temple

atop a hill; The chapter ends wrth the portrayal of the two gates of Sleep. "One is of Horn /
And spirits of Truth find easy exit there, /The other is perfectly wrought of glisten~ng Ivory, /

But from it the Shades send false dreams up t o the world.") The construction of these two
is cho~ces the basis of the building's ideology.

The House of Vice and Virtue is also portrayed by filarete as a mountain: "Oru diro la forma dello edificio come I'ho pensutu, bench6 io I'ubiu dinunzi in disegno fatta uguisu d'uno montagnan4 The description of the figures of Virtue and Vice atop the House are named as a
I Trottoto.

f. 142 v.. 531. Trattato, 53 I .

2 The Italian for 'sleep' is

'sonno", as

it is written in the Tranato. However, Spencer translates rt as

'dreams', which is "sogno".

3 Verg~l. The Aeneid, Vl , lines 893-99, p. 1 45. P. Dickinson, trans. (New York. 1 96 1 ).

f. 143 v., 535. Spencer's translation. Treatise. 247: "Now I will tell you what I have thought about the form of the building, even though I said previously I had designed i in the form of a t mountain."
4 Tramto.

archltacturo and tho baa I v k o & vlrtuo

47

mountain too. A noted by Grassi, this description of the statues is an allegory of the whole s building, which is in turn, presented as a microcosm of the world.5 The building is where the seven liberal arts are to be taught, a place where anyone can pursue knowledge and virtue. At the end of the progression through seven components of learning, one arrives at the apex,

at seven bridges, where the student a n ugoto a very pleusm t, beuurrful and deligf-trfulplace.w6
The purpose of erecting this structure is the acquisition of virtue and knowledge, that which makes man happy in this life and the life hereafter. "There are two things in man through
which he acquires r m m . Generally [he acquires it] only through one, but sometimes by both, although the one by which he acquires p q e a fame is unique. This is virtue. This is what makes
man happy ."7 Though no more is mentioned about this beautiful place at the apex, its vague

placement atop the House of Virtue, coupled with the building's description as a mountain is a suggestwe association that has not been previously explored. In considering the full breadth of this metaphor, the cohesiveness of Filarete's House of Vice and Virtue comes to light. The building is a spiritual edifice, and envelops Filarete's instructional, sociological, memoratwe and ethical concerns in one scheme. The various elements we have traced in the Tranato and
Filarete's career are collected and recollected into a singly composed idea of architecture.

- la mia fantasia @awama generally translated as imagrnativa (in Latin), or phonetically, as fantasia is
-

5 Tramto. n. I .

534. 246. T r a mto, 532.

6 Treatise. f. 1 42v.. 7 Ibid.

architecture and the bee / vice 1 virtue

(in Greek). 'The imagination makes images, but memory both puts them away and hauls them out again, not as 'random objects" but as parts of a constructim, a network, a web, a texture of

association^."^

Memory is an 'inventional facultyn9and there is a translation wlfh

each recollection. When Filarete calls his designs for the House of Vice and Virtue "/a mia
fantasia" there is an awareness of this transformative process. It is an opening remark to his

attempts at making clear the idea of the building with words and drawings, and is a cognizance of the many faceted existence o f architecture and this network of correlations. The fantasia compose Filarete's character, as a demonstntion of his love for ethical construction. While preparing for the king to arrive so he can explain his designs for Sforzinda, Filarete writes: ' l o che stavo 'suatto e a fantasticare e r n i s ~ r a r e . " 'He is inventing and ~ measuring, in a back arid forth process of imagining, fantasizing and turning it over, ordering and marking off the architecture in a regular fdshion. filarete is giving a hierarchy to the built world - an "orderly arrangement [that] is a clarity of knowledge."

''

H e lets the king take

what he has worked on t o look over and read and the rest of the day is spent working and

'fol/owir~g fmcy. " or. "seguire la mio fantasia." my

'

The explanation of his design for the Houses o f Vice and Virtue In Plusiapolis is also
--

8 Carruthers. "Inventional Mnemonics" 1 06.

1 Trottoto. f. 46 v., 180. Treatise, 80. 0

Hugh of St. Victor. "De Tribus Maximis Ci~umstantiisGestomm." trans. M. Carruthers, I The n Book of Memory, Appendix A. 26 1 .
1I

12 T r a m t o .

f. 46 r., 18 1 . Treatrse. 8 1 .

architacture and the bee I vice & virtue

introduced as ' b miu fantasia. 'l3 Filarete begins by suggesting, u a l /me to describe it with ~ words." He explains he will tell us the whole design and then darify it, point by point. The explication method shifts from a general physical overview of the structure, to rts theoretical and philosophical ideas, followed by a specific discussion of the statues of virtue and vice. He then says. 'I et me arrange the building" l 4 and clarify everything. The drawings of the building's elevation are referenced next, leading us t o understand that "arranging", or ' v i ordinin :he building is an ordering of it through the drawing - a step back to observe and elucidate the design. He then gives us a description of the interior rooms and t+en tinally. the plan. Martm Kemp touches on this process: 'fontusia for Fiiarete is an all-pervasive factor. embracing every face1 in the conception of a work of an or architecture." Filarete's mnsforrnauve deschption

of a project, his fantasia, mirrors the transmutation the invention makes through the memory and its actualization, and importantly locating this as the role of the architect. Returning t o the notion of memory as an inventional process, invenzione is the unearthing of truth as described by Cicero: 'invention is the discovery of things true o r
s p r ~ b a b l e . " 'A the primary source on mnemonics in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. ~

Cicero's discussion of invenzione and memory feeds this design process. For our fifteenth century architect, we can begin to see the full circle relationship between funtus~a, memory. invention and ethics. If memory is an inventional process and invention is a search for truth,
13 Trattato. f. 142v.. 53 I. Treatise, 245.
14

Treatise. f. 1 43 r., 247. Tratroto. 534: "Egli P forse 11 meglio ch'io

vi

ordinr questo ed$ao, pot ognr

cow

V I ch~ariro incierne."

o 15 M. Kemp. "From Mimesis t Fantasia."

16 Cicero. D e invenzione.

370-

1.7.

rrchltecture and the be.

/ vice & virtu.

memory readily becomes an ethical act, and performs as the binding element of one's imagination. This had not escaped the work of St. Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus who denoted memory as a part of Prudence, one of the four cardinal virtues. The fantasia of Filarete, however, reinvents memory and virtue in regards t o architecture. Rather than a static system, the mnemonic mechanism breathes. The mode of practice for Filarete is not yet tempered by our own modern predilection for positivistic operations such as the prescriptive blueprints of plan & section, offer~ng procedure a unreferenced to human conditions and values. With its discursive interpretation, the

descr~ ption of Filarete's building occurs in a hermeneutical and poetical manner. "The concern here is with ethics, the wall-builder's character, not with reproduction . . . [but] with recollectJon, not with rote." l7

- the mountain The physical description given by Filarete is a difficult to follow trail of measurements
and Filarete himself acknowledges the building is better understood by the drawings. Regarding figure 14, an elevation drawing shows the rectangular base and a circular tower rising above. O f all the drawings, this one can be interpreted most closely to resemble Filarete's idea of the building as mountain. A monumental and oversized structure, the building is firmly planted before us as an axis mundi - the meeting of earth, heaven and hell. Pointing towards a celestial c q , the House of Vice and Vlrtue in the form of a mountain leads us upward in body and spirit, associating this place of education with a temple. This building-

--

17 Carmthers.

"The Poet as Master Builder." 89 I.

archltetture and tha baa / vice & virtue

mountain is an earthly manifestation of the uty of God that is 'localized among us in sacred urban enclosures, primarily the temple and palace, within whose highly wrought premises we fulfill our capacities for craft and art, finding the completion in ritual and worship of our capacity

for politics, that is. the life of men in cities." l 8

The symbol of the mountain as a place of connection t o heaven is a common idea.

Distinct and powerful in its ability to have survived the Flood, it is perhaps the one place that still contains all that has existed since the expulsion from Eden, and remained untouched. This mountain acts as the center of its own world, its own city, epitomizing the Renaissance microcosmic-macrocosmic understanding of the world.
Not only is the entire building a

mountain. but the apex, surmounted by the figure of Virtue also stands upon a "mountain." The House of Virtue becomes the site to ascend to heaven. Mount Zion was traditionally thought to be only eighteen miles from heavenI9 and the summit of the House of Mrtue is an attainable pursuit for the crty of Plusiapolis as an earth-bound reconstruction of the gate to heaven. A similar construct in essence was the ziggurat - a "symbolic image of the Cosmos, rts seven stages represented the seven stages represented the seven planetary spheres; by ascending them, the priest athned to the summit of the ~ n i v e n e . " ~ ~

This center, this "place in question being a 'sacred space', consecrated by a hierophany, o r ritually constructed [. . . is] a sacred mythic geography."2' Carruthers calls this

18 W. A. McClung. The Architemre of Earthly

Paradise. (Berkeley. 1983), 1 4.

'9 R. Patai, Man and Temple in Ancient l e ~ ~ Myth and Ritrtal. sh

(London. 1947). 1 3 1 .

20 M. Eliade. Cosmos and History: the myth of the eternal return. 42. 2 1 M. Eiiade. Images and Symbols.

39.
archltocturo and the bee / vlce & virtu@

kind of ritually constructed place in the imagination 'machines for making encyclopedic fiction:

churches, monastery buildings of every sort, castles, towers (or strongholds),

amp hitheaten. mu Upon ascent t the entrance of Filarete's building, one approaches two o
doors - Po-

What Areti and Porta ~ h a c h i a . ~ ~ awaits inside exists as this encyclopedic

experience, a book of memory and knowledge fills and comprises the interior. The stair inside Porta Areti is seven braccia high and these words are written above the doorway: 'Difficulty
with joyn and "this is the poth to acquire virtue with dflculty .n24 The stairs for Vice are steep

and have no treads. Above its doorway it is written "pleasure with pain " and "here enters the

troop ofp/euwrre-seekers who will later repent in fief.

n25

The beginning of the treatise sets the complexrty of Filarete's metaphors in motion with the naming of Adam as the first architect (figure 1 5):
" i t is to believed that when Adam w s driven out of Paradise,
it

was raining.

Since he had nothing else at hand to cover [himselfl, he put his hands over his head to protect himself from the rain. Adam had made a roof of his hands

22 Camrthers. 'Poet as Master Builder. ' 882.

23 P o r n Ared: Gate of Virtue and Porto Chachia: Gate of Vice.

2 4 Treatise. f. 143 v.. 247. See also Trartato, 535: "fatica con gaudio" and 'questo e la vra ad ondare acquistare la virtir con fatica."

2 5 Ibid.

"Piacere con tristizia" and "qui entrate, brigom, che goderete e poi con di spracere 11

piagnerete."

architecture and the bee I vice & virtue

[and

it

seems to me thut he wos the first to invent habitution. "26

Filarete also references Vitruvius in this explanation of the origin of architecture. Vltruvius claims the first building to be done by men who lived in the forests, making huts and grottos as they could.27 Filarete takes this one step further, by coupling architecture not only to

Christianrty, but directly to the Fall of man and his ensuing need to constantly remake himself in
what

is now an incomplete world. 'As emblem of the condition of falien o r degenerated

h u m nature, architecture is evidence that compatibilrty with nature - the natural world, and human nature properly understood - has been lost."28 Once expelled, Adam makes architecture in an attempt to regain the earthly paradise. In contrast, while stdl in Eden, Adam
only "pursues the one acceptable craft of gardening.n29 While this a reference to Adam in

Milton's Paradise Lost', it raises a relevant issue discussed by Joseph Rykwert in On Adam's House in Paradise. Upon reading Genesis and conjecturing on what else must have been in Eden if there was a garden - wine, cups, plates and cupboards

Rykwert wonden about the

7mplied housenthat must have existed.30 For Filarete this house did not need to exln until

The Italian is as follows: 'Chi fuse d pnmo che facesse case e abrtoz~one 2 6 Treause. f. 4v.. p. 10. certo non abbiamo, ma e do oedere che subrto che Adamo fu cacciato do1 Paradisio, e p~ovendoe non avendo alvo pru p r e r t ricovero, si mrsse ie mani in capo per difkndem- dall'acque. . . . Si che, s cosi fu. e verrwmrle che e Adarno fulle 11 pnmo." (Tramto, 23-24)
27 Vrtruvtus. The Ten Books on Architecture. Book II, chapter I . While the origin of archrtecture stm~larly comes from a specific need - protection from rain - the origin of architecture for Vitruvtus IS the discovery of fire, drawing men together into a social. communal setting, and noting ther upright stature. "gazlng upon the splendour of the starry firmament. and also in being able to do with ease whatever they chose wrth thelr hands and fingers. they began in that first assemble to construct shekers." 38.
28

McCiung. Architecture of Paradise. 48.

30 J. Rykwert. On Adam's House in Paradise.

architecture and the bee / v l t 8 & virtue

after the expulsion. In Genesis 2 : 1 5, i is written "the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden t of Eden to till it and keep it.")' However, upon the expulsion, this tilling of the soil becomes a burden. T o till the soil is an analogy for the constant remaking o f oneself: "Therefore the

Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was
taken. "32 Thorns and thistles, however, are all man is cursed t o be able to extract from the ground and this metaphorical remaking of oneself also becomes connected t o alchemical processes. Adam and Noah were commonly portrayed as alchemists in fifteenth century ~ t o r i e s . Adam knew the full nature and properties of the world prior to the Fall, and ~~ alchemy represents an attempt to dev the now fragmented, imperfect state of man and obtain a wholeness of spirrt and Architecture, for Filarete, is born to protect man from the newly hostile world, and becomes the remaking of our new center, our attempt at recreating Eden and in alchemical terms, as a resurrection of our intact being. This earth-bound, man-made center of rebirth becomes the House of Vlce and Vrtue in the treatise. Knowledge, obtarned under unethical c~rcurnstances Eden, becomes the path to man's salvation, and the path to a complete ir: existence for the citizens o f Sforrinda and Plusiapolis. Under the conditions that it is
remembered well and properly, knowledge allows one to reach the mountain top and reside

31

Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version.

&

Genesis 17- 18 says "Cuned is the ground because of you; i tor1 you shall n eat of rt all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you."
33

32 Ibid. Genesis 3:23.

G.Roberts. The Minor of Alchemy.

(London. 1994). 20.

34 See T. Burckhardt, Alchemy: sa-mce of

the cosmos, science of the soul.

architecture and the bee 1 vice & virtue

wrth Virtue.

-thearkAnother use of the mountain - as - center symbolism comes wrth Hugh of St. Victor, in his work De Arco Noe Mystic* ( 1 129-30).~' H e describes a drawing (now lost, if it ever

existed) of the ark of Noah sited at the center of a map of the world. This ark contains the
personification of vices and virtues, representing the four stages of Hugh's "mystic questn,or path to wisdom. While there are other aspects of this schema to be discussed later, of interest
to us presently is the sequential nature of the imagery and the form of the ark itself. The

construction of this dnwing has been shown to be an extension o f the tmditional art of It transforms the art of the ancient rhetorician in a manner which personalizes it to Hugh's religious training.37 Wisdom becomes the object of the art of rnemor/ rather than rhetoric, and the use o f the vices and virtues in conjunction with a memory device

f foreshadows the later medieval emphasis o Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas on
memory as a Christian attribute. Remembering well, is 'to impress wisdom on the mind [and] to pankipate in the goodness, immortalrty and incormptibilrty of ~ s d o m . w38 The four stages of the quest desctibed by Hugh each have three degrees or steps. These steps are each represented by a ladder and atop the ark is the final stage of "unionn,

35 Zinn. "MandalaSymbolism" History of Religion. (Chicago, 1973). n. 1 I .

36

See G -Zinn's scholarship in 'Hugh of St. Viaor an t h e Art of Memory"

Victor and the Art o Memory." f

37 Zinn. "Hugh of %nt

38 /bid. 2 16.

architecture and the bee / vice & virtu.

with its three degrees of temperance, prudence and fortitude. 39 Hugh's audenn would have

t committed this drawing to memory and proceeded t o use i in their pursuit of a virtuous and
studious life. It is a method for the novices to lead themselves properly through the stages of ~~ learning and the use of symbols act as 'agents of t r a n s f ~ r m a t i o n . "This symbol of the ark. notes Zinn, is made in the form of a truncated pyramid.4' The ark becomes connected to

two significant mountains: Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zon.

The relationship of Filwete's scheme to this upward progression of learning will be discussed further in the next section. As mentioned previously, Filarete describes the figure of Vrtue at the building's summit as a mountain. "I make two urdes like mountains . . . I throw an

arch from one of the mountains to the other, through which one can go to the top of Virtue [ a n q
the mountains are made like stairsn,and from these mountains a spring issues forth like Helicon
on Mount ~ a r n a s s u s . ~ ~ association with Mt. Sinai integrates the story of Moses and his The ascent to the mountain top to hear the voice of God - a metaphor of magnitude for the relrgious novice who wishes to achieve greatness. As well, Mt. Zion is the site of the rwnification of all nations after the fragmentation of mankind from the Fall. Hugh says the

39 Temperance is dep~cted Hugh as the Hebrews at the foot of Mount Sinai: prudence as Moses' by ascent t o the mountaintop: and fortitude as Moses' entrance into the cloud of darkness at the summit to recelve God's word. From Znn. 'Hugh of St. Victor and the Art of Memory." 230.
40

lbid.

' 1 De Arw Noe Mystico, IV, PL 176:686 Af3. Hugh refers to i by saylng, "This IS the mcuntam of the t house of the Lord established in the top of the mountain, unto which all natlons flow, and go up from the ark's four comers as from the four quarters of the earth," "Mandala Symbolism," n. 13. See also lwah 14: 13. The truncated pyramid - mountain image of the ark is also present in Ghiberti's bronze doon ~nFlorence, where Noah's ark is represented as a mounmn.

42 Treutise. f. 145 v., 250. See also Trattuto, 542. specifidy, note 3, where it is mentioned that Helicon is considered to be the spring of the Muses and Apollo, and Mt. Pamassus the spring of Aganlppe and Ippocrene, the church of the Musses and Castalia, sacred to the god Pan and the Nymphs.

archltoctur~ and the boo I v i m & virtu.

57

contemplative quest i like 'a building, a house,a dwelling for ~ o d .43 In Filarete, we see the s " quest for virtue also acting as the spiritual mountain center of reunification. What we find in the treatise, though, is not a mediemi contemplation of Gcd solely through an iconographic d n w h g kept in the memory. The citizens of Plusiapolis are not religious novices dedicated to a life of solitary study, but are instead, pursuing this in an interactive site of merchants, craftsmen, and public ceremonies. Rather than an inward retrear, the Renaissance city splays open the hermetic cell. Ivan Illich expands this

contemplative role o f the medieval ark-schema: "Hugh's moral and spiritual Ark of Noah is more than a mnemotechnic palace with biblical features. The ark stands for a social entity, a process that begins with creation and continues to the end of time.'44 I think this

representation of the ark as a broad-reaching entrty may exist in the mind of the medieval scholar, but with the late quattrocento architect, i escapes this boundary and with Filarete's t design transmutes into an actualized, physical existence. It allows for a social ritual through its culmination. There is an intent for Filarete's drawing to be constructed, and for the ascent to

the mountain top to be actualized as a public rite. The schema is, rather than solely reflective,
one experienced wholly with the body in virtuous study and ethical action. This is a pivotal difference in regards to how the use of memory and virtue adapted and in this case, was engaged through the experience of the built edificea4' There are other uses of the

43 Zinn. "Mandala."
4-1 I.

334.

Illich. In the Vineyard of the Text 46.

5 lllich says of Hugh: "From 1 1 SO on. new artificial finding devices provide some of the key ' metaphors according to which the mechanics of memory and the metaphors for its training are devised. . . . All this gives to Hugh's two mnemontechnic treatises . . . exceptional importance." In the Vineyard of the Text. 45.

archltocturo and the boo / vice 6 virtue

58

mnemonic 'ark' metaphor already discussed in the chapter on excavations that apply here as well. In a microcosmic relationship, the

arca is a memory device t o hold books, and the

building-mountain enclosing vice and virtue is a larger representation o f the arca. It too, is a memory book open for discovery. 'Through wisdom is a house built; and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches."46 And for Plusiapolis, through the punuit of its path shall the crty achieve a virtuous and eternal position.

'Only persons can justly claim to be architects who from boyhood have mounted by the steps of their studies and, being tmhed generally in the knowledge of arts and sciences. have reached the temple of architecture at the top.n47The acquisition of this knowledge. wisdom (sopientia),is a process of discovery in the treatise. The inhabitant of Plusiapolis is able

to approach these steps and work at reaching the mountain summit and observe the heavens.
This is where we again reach the issue of designing a mnemonic structure, a memory scheme withm the intellect versus the actualized building of this edifice in the crty. I believe this is the innomtive and imaginative faculties of Filarete at work, acting upon both aspects of writing a text on architecture - that i will be read and remembered as an instructional work, and also t hoped that the programs devised will be built. The House of Vice and Virtue intends to allow

t h e city to obtain and remember wisdom by an actual physical enactment of study. The

6 Proverbs 24 : 3-4. '

47 V i i u s .

On Architecture.

Intro., I , I 1 .

architecture and the boo / vlcm & virtu0

freedom of ideas allowed by the narrative d a o u format in designing this scheme is indicative ilge of they way in which "humanism sees in the ars memoriae an important weapon for social success, t o ensure, by means of an infallible memory, advantage over This is what is

at stake for the architect Filarete. N o t only must his noble character be realized, but the city's success depends upon his designs. Not merely whimsical digressions, the proposed structures bear the awesome responsibilities of entire kingdom. The initial approach to the house of study is through a single door,dwarfed by the immensity and blankness of the facade of the house and centered on
I-&

base.

To reach it,

one must mount nine steps. Regarding the plan (figure l6), and following Filarete's words, after entering the building, the pa*cipant finds
"three other doors, euch of ~ h i d Imds into the other. Then he enters a doister ;n r which there will be a room with eight doors h i d , all endose it. This room will contain three rooms and each of them will be subdivided into three other rcnms.
In these there will be drfferent places and rooms. One can exit only by another

[door] and he then passes along a steep way, that is a stair, that enters into another room sqarated jhm the others. "49

After digressing to descriptions of the figures of Vice and Virtue, the descent into the house of Vice, and an explanation of the formation of the plan, Filarete returns again to these three doors. There is a
"door in the middle with two others on either side, made as stated above. The first order of this fim square is ten braccia high at the entrance to Porta Areti. When one has entered, he finds a stair which ascends to the first level of this square. When one has mounted this stair, he finds a square place on cdumns like

* Couliano. Gus and Magic in the Renaissance, 33

49 Treatise. f. l42v.. 245. T r a m t o ,

From Yates. The Art of Memory. I t 2.

532.
rrchltacture and the bee 1 vice & vlrtue

a loggiu. A t the head of this stair there is a door through which one enters to

ascend to the top of this building. Thrargh this same loggia one goes on through a

portico that Ieuds to the places and rooms where all branches ofknowledge are to
be taught. ' 0 5
The house is open to everyone to learn and proceed towards obtaining a doctorate. All the
room of teaching are gone through before reaching the summit. Atop the already mentioned

stair, one passes through "twenty-three d o m six braccia apart. Afier one has passed all these

doon he finds eight more eight bracuu apart. Then he F s fkmore ten braccia apart. Then he d finds three. I 2 bracua apart. ""
This series of rooms brings one completely around the

perimeter of the rectangular base of the building, to the front again, where "then he finds e$ another square loggia. Here is a stair that mounts to the top of this square, that is to the h& t of

20 bractio, and to the next poor."S2 On the plan drawing, these rooms are labelled A
through Z (figure 1 6).
+

In analyzing Filarete's sequentially ordered and rising system of circulation within the body of this mountain-building, 1 arrive at the work of Raymon Lull ( 1 235- 1 3 I 6). Yates writes that his ideas "continued into the Renaissance and combine with the classical art in some new synthesis whereby memory should reach still funher heights of insight and Lull's

So Treatise. f. 1 44 v., 248. See a s , Trottoto, 538. "...una porto nel mezzo con oltre due all lo envatu d'esso prima porta, le quali alla w'militvdine antedem sono f m e . E q u e m prime quadro e alto rl prrmo suo ordine dieu braccia, dove che per la detta p o r n Areti s'entra; ed envato, sr vuova unc scala la p o l e saglre a questo pr~moquadro, o vero a questo primo piano di questo quadro; e salito questa scala, 51 uuova uno luogo quadro, 11 quale e in colonne, come dire una loggia. E diritto di questo scala s e una porta. per la quale s'enua i per ondare alla sornmitl7 di questo editiuo; e per questa medesima loggia si va olve per uno portico va 0111 luoghr e stanre dove h e le scienze s'hanno a leggere ..."
1

Treatise. f. / 4 4 . . 249. T r a mto.

538. See also

. n. 3. 538.

5 2 Ibid.

53 The Art of Memory.

1 73. archltacturr and tho boa I vice 6 virtue

system of memory is essentially based upon the goodness of God and what he believed to be
inherently universal about the divine's attrib~tes.'~The art he devised is of a tri-partite structure, a reflection of the Trinrty and built of three hcets designed t o find and know truth, train the will to love truth, and ultimately to remember truth.'' O f particular interest is Yates' discussion of Luilism and his introduction of movement ~ n t o memory arts by the use of recollection with two important tropes: his inventive, the revolving alphabet-based wheels and the imagery of the ladder. These methods do not entail static figures to be memorized in sku, as with the classical structures.56 See figures 17 and 18
as examples of the development of the ladder to heaven imagery used by Lull. The trope of

the ladder is the configuration of creation and each step is named in Lull's system. wnh figures representing the elements of the world in an hierarch~cal structure. stan are. for example, on the step codurn, stones and trees on the lower, earthly steps. One ascends this ladder into the heavens, carrying one of Lull's wheel devices (figure 19). The final destination is the House of Wsdom. Yates saF of this system:
" I t is fundamental for the approach to the Lullian Art to realise that i t is an a n

ascend; e t descendend.

Bearing the geometrical figures o f the Art [the

wheels], inscribed with their letter notations, the 'artists' ascends and descends on the ladder of being, measuring out the same proportions on each level. The geometry of the elemental structure of the world of nature combines wrth the divine structure of its issue out of the Divine Names to form the universal
Art which can be used o n all subjects because the mind works through it with

5-l lbid. 55

174.

Ibid. 1 74.

56 See the next secbon o n 'rooms' and the structure o the classical art-of-memory technique. f

archltoctura and the boa I vico L virtuo

62

a logic which is patterned on the u n i v e r ~ e . " ~

The learning process to reach the House of Wisdom in Lull's art extends outward into the worid below, through all levels of the earthly experience. At the obtainment of knowledge, one enten the house of God,the heavenly walled fortress, through the gate of the tower and resides there, protected under its roof. In The Book of Memory, Carruthers reiterates Yates' conclusions on Lull by succinctly
saying, uiull's art was designed to be both a key to universal knowledge and a memory

The system devised by Lull was one that does not fit neatly into the method put forth by the classical writen, with set IOU and images. His tropes of ladders and alphabetic constructions, however, round out the tradition's breadth of influence in the Renaissance and are another illustration of what I believe to be part of the humanist world of Filarete. He used common symbols and figures that appear to readily fall into Filarete's narrative and attempt to relate to both king and citizen. The rising up of man through the procuring of wisdom is a microcosmic portrayal of the heavens and "his redemption, his rising up to the divinrty, must include the
ascension

of all things.

. . . N o t only man rises up t o God . . .[But]

the universe is redeemed

within man and through

- moms The revolving wheels and moving systems of memory were established modes of learning techniques in the medieval classroom monastic prayer tutelage traditions. While
57 Yates. The Art of Memory. 1 8 1 .

58 Carruthen. The Book of Memory.

59

253.

E. Cassirer.

The Logic of rhe Humanities. (New Haven. 1 960) 40.

archltecturo and the bee / vlce & virtue

Carruthers places these memory techniques into her own categories of diagrammatic schemes and meditational devices, Filarete's transformation of mnemonic technique does not
fit neatly anywhere. The notion of a master, tutoring or reading to the novice for training

t pertains directly to the treatise, as i was proposed to be read aloud to the king. The dialogue
throughout is of instructional nature, a description of the larger socio-philosophical issues and the smaller scale story-making of everyday details and events. This theme culminates in the fabrication of the House of V'ce and Virtue, with its rooms of lecturingmasters. The labeling o f the rooms of audy wrth the twenty-three letters of the alphabet (figure

16) does not seem to correspond t o any divisional hierarchy of instruction, but perhaps
operates as a mnemonic device related in essence to the use of animals and the alphabet.
Each room could designate a compendium of knowledge, associated to its corresponding

letter. The letter; used by Lull in his wheels (figures 20, 2 1 ) form his basic concepts on the 'dignities of God," utilizing a sort of logic based on triadic structures of creation.60 Through these one can reach the Trinity and each part of the system relate a different meaning, according to which step of the ladder you are on? Filarete does not construct this level of

detail or complexity, but by designating a room of learning to each letter, he imparts an

encyclopedic book-metaphor t o the building. In this scheme, after progressing through the perimeter rooms, the student proceeds inward to the circular tower which is divided into seven parts. There is a portico on the first level and each of the seven rooms of the seven liberal arts rises one story.

60 'fates.

The Art of Memory. 179.

61 Yates. The Art of Memory. 179. For example, the letter "0"refers to the bonitas found in an angel, man. imagination. animals. vegetables, virtues. etc.

archltocturo and tho boo / vlco & virtue

64

"The fkt comes at the top ofthis square a the height of twenty bracua. It is t
divided into seven prinapal parts. The first is an endrdingport!co through wf~id,m e can go all around this division. It is three bructiu wide and 1 2 hi@.
is vaulted

. . . All of this

. . .[Anq

the fim room has o door above which is curved a figure

dreaed in lined robes ofvarious colors. This is done as a symbol of Logic. In this room are carved the inventors of this art as well as all those who were excellent in this disupline. From this room there is a m i r that rises to another floor. It is in the same form us this little drawing.

. . . In the some way there is a door wer ulfiich

another robed figure is carved with a book in her hand. This is Rhetoric. All rhese

rooms continue in the same order, form and dimensions, level by level up to the summit, with figvres over the doors eoch a symbol ofits science. "62

The ordered, regular formation of these rooms echoes the classical art of memory which

evolved as a way to imprint places

loci - on the mind in order to retain the ideas to be

discussed by the rhetorician. Architecture is established as artificial memory's site of operation,

In wnici7 constructed images are placed. The author of Ad Heremiurn recommends that t h e
loci be places of moderate size, ar a regular interval from one another, perhaps thirty feet or

so. As well, Quintilian clarifies the "rules for places: "Places are chosen, and marked wrth the utmost possible variety, as a spacious house divided into a number of rooms. Everythingof note therein is diligently imprinted on the mind, in order that thought may be able to run through all
the pans without let or hindrance.

. . . What I have spoken of as being done

in a house can also be done in public buildings, o r on a long journey, or in

going through a C I C / . ' ~ ~

62 Treatise. f. 1 4 5 . .

249. Trattato. 540.

63

lnstitutio oratorio, X I , ii. 1 7-22.

architecture and the bee 1 vlce L virtue

The other aspect of the art depends on the construction of memorable images to recall the specific ideas and precepts: choose 'images which are active, sharply defined, unusual and

. . . have the power of . . . penetrating the psyche."64

The author of the Ad

Herennium does not provide any lengthy details nor examples of images but expects the

nudent will develop their own. The same expectation occurs in Filarete's rooms cf the lib e d arts. With his memory rooms we are told each door is marked by a figure symbolizmg that

particular liberal art. Within each room are contained the images of inventon and
distinguished teachers of the discipline. What takes place in each room is not explained, and it
IS

left to our imagination as to whether a professor is present there to instruct, or if there are

books to study. The suggestion is each student enters the room alone, with the portraits to guide him, with an perception that the soul never thinks without a mental image. 6 5 and they
stamp upon his memory the knowledge needed to graduate further, climbing upward to the
summit. The images act as agents of our transformation from learning. Each morsel allow the

participant to delve deeper inward to antoher stage of knowledge.

As already mentioned, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas, in t h e r

commentaries on Aristotle's De memoria et reminiscentia, connect memory to virtue, a part of

Prudence, modifying the traditional association of memory to rhetoric. Albertus writes:

"Memory can be a moral habit when it is used to remember pas! things with a prudent looking forward to the future."66 in striking similarity to Filarete's emblem of Wlll and Reason (figure

- -- -

--

.-

64

Ad Herenmum. 11. Ixxxv~i. 358.

6s Anstotle. De Anirna. 427. 1 8-22.

66 Yates.

The Art of Memory. 62. quoted from de Bono.

archltocturo and tho bee / vice & virtue

22), Prudence has been described as a 'lady with three eyes . . . to remind her of things past.
present and future?' Prudence allows man t o derive universal knowledge through the

senses by means of studying the particulars, a relationship which is facilitated by the memory. However, the citizen of Plusiapolis pursues knowledge with a tenacrty facilitated by all the virtues, both the four cardinal virtues and the three theological. It is more to the realm o f the prince that prudence applies, as Filarete tells us on his self-portrait medal (figure 7).
A factor in the development of the virtuous memory for Cicero is solitude, so as to

preserve the sharpness and power of images. Aquinas refers to this, but changes the term to

sollicitudo, memory that requires devotional study of an emotional nature. Ethical action
~nherently 'womsome', being fraught wtth serious contemplation, and Carruthers argues that is this alteration of the word is intentional in relating mrnorative study t o the monastic life. 68 The solitude and concentration required for study also alludes t o monastic cells. Besides being the

site of medieval study, they evolve as other metaphors for memory.

Cella refers to a

storeroom in memory designs and ce//ae are stalls and nesting cells for birds, as well as books' storage place in libraries.69 The section drawing of the House of Vlce and Vtrtue (figure 23) reveals a similar structure comprised of many cells, densely packed in the ark-building. The image recalls the smaller scaled honeycomb in the tree of Filarete's self-portrait medal (figure

7 ) , a cut away trunk full of goodness. We return to the metaphor of bees, memory and

67 Ibid. 67.
68 Carruthers. The BookofMemory. 173. Sollicitudo transtate to "worry" in English. and the idea that the mind "vexeswthe emotions to make and store memory images,
IS

related to

69 Hugh o f St. Victor uses the metaphor and in his Didoscalicon, wrrtes: "The foundaoon and principles of sacred learning i history, from which, like honey from the honeycomb, the truth of allegory i s s extracted." 1 38.

architecture and the bee / vice & virtue

67

building, illustnted by their honeycomb of knowledge made of ce'lae, where the divine food is created and ingested.

"Direct your course hither to wisdom, and seek her ways, which are
ways of surpassing peace and plenty. Whatever seems conspicuous in the

affairs of men . . . is nevertheless approached by a difficult and toilsome pathway. It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness; but if you desire to scale this peak, which lies far above the range of Fortune, you will indeed look down from above upon all that men regard as most loft-y.n70

At the culmination of this transformative journey, the student reaches the summit of the

mountain, ready to cross over into the most central moment of the building. After moving round the perimeter and slowly upward and inward through the rooms, one arnves at an open floor circumscribed by a portico of figure-columns (figure 24). It is divided into seven sections that form seven bridges (figure 25). Each one of these has one of the seven virtues
carved above rts entrance. "They are arranged in such a w y that it is necessary to pass over all

of them to get to the circle in the rnidd~e."~' the summit of the most inner circle there is an At

open space with figures of the nine muses.72 'Above these I make o cupoh in the form of a

70

Seneca. Epistuale Morales. 285.

250. Tramto. 54 1

71 Treatise. f. 145v..

72 The nine muses are the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (the daughter of heaven and earth). Each IS ldentrfied wrth one of the arts: Calliope, epic poetry; Ciio, heroic poetry (her symbol IS often an open chest of books): Erato, love poetry; Euterpe, music; Melpomene, tragedy: Polyhymnia. sacred poetry and hymns: Terpsichore, choral song and dance: Thalia. comedy; Urania, astronomy.

arthltetturo and the boo / vlce & virtue

68

diamond. Above this I put the figure ofVime made o f b r ~ n z e . " ~ ~ 26) The figure of Vlnue (figure

atop Filarete's microcosmic diamond-mountain is a double of the entire building. The mirrored mountains are like stairs, he says, so you can walk up them as a ritual representation of the process the student has just performed. 'No one should be permitted to come here who
has not acquired the aforementioned arts.n74While there are three exceptions to this rule -

foreigners, those not trained that are accompanied by a doctorate, and special celebrations this edict
IS

taken quite seriously. It is the place of personal reward for the noble deeds of

srudy - where the student arrives at the 'very pleasant, beuuvful, and delightful pbce. w75
After passing over the seven bridges - passages through the seven virtues - we arrive
at the apex, where all seven virtues are represented into one tigure. Vlrtue is an emblem that

embodies all things worthy and memorable. It is an "armed figure. His head would be like the
hand he holds a dote vee and in the left a laurel. He stands erect on a diamond sun. In the rigf~t and from the base ofthis diamond there issues o mellifluous liquw. Fame ps] above his head." 76

Filarete places virtue atop his diamond perch as a symbolic structure that fulfills a sort of 'double role of representation and interpretation."n It represents all the virtues melded il no

one body and stands for Filarete's theories on virtue as the highest achievement of man. As

73 Treatise. f. 1 4Sv., 250. Trattato. 54 1

74

lbid.
246. Trattato, 532.

75 Treutise. f. 1 42v.,
76 Treatise.

f. 143r.. 247. Trottoto, 533.

77 P. Daly. Emblem Theory. (Liechtenstein.

1979). 68.
/ vice & virtue

rrchitettun and the be.

well, standing as a symbol above the city, it is left t o interpretation.78 It can identify for each inhabitant of the city, and each student that has passed upward t o the mountain, their own construct of personal imagination and memory. We must remember that it expresses the desired essence of the crty to outsiders and possibly, i seems sure Filarete must have thought, t to those that might unearth this crty someday. It embodies the eternal struggle - an armed figure - of Renaissance mankind to recover Eden. Afberti writes: "Virtue maintained with constancy and strength far outshines all that is subject t o fortune's sway, all that is transitory and destructible."79 These thoughts illustrate Filarete's general philosophy on architecture and his interest in being nobly remembered.

'One orrives at Virtue by unvod paths and after great labon.

The figure is a strong

personification and has been already connected t o the story of Hercules at the Crossroads, a Christian athlete holding symbols of victory and fruitfulness, and ~ ~ o l l oComplete wrth . ~ armor and wings, Virtue almost floats above the earth, balanced assuredly atop the diamond. He synthesizes not only these historical figures and all virtues into one form, but manages to
capture the nobilrty and dignrty that is accessible and pursued by the Renaissance through their

own synthesis - o r mellification - of the riches excavated and awakened in man. The figure of fame flying above Wrtue is surrounded by winged senses - four eyes, two

78 See V. L. Volkrnans, "Ars Memorativa." which shows images from a G e m memory

conssting of standing figures that hold various objects in a similar mode of Virtue. 79 Della Famrglia., 148.
80 Treatise. f.

manse

69r.. 1 1 9 . Trattuto. 264.

8 1 See E. Panofsky, Hercules am Scheidewge und andere antike Bildstoffe in der Neuren Kunst. 1 930: T. Mommsen, "Petrarch and the Story o f the Choice o f Hercules," journal of the Wurburg and Courtould lnstitutes. 1953; and j. Spencer. Treutise, n. I. 246.

archftocturo and tho boa / vie.

& virtu.

70

ears, a mouth and a nose. These senses are precisely the gathering tools necessary to reach
this pinnacle as explained by Albertus in obtaining universal knowledge. The attainment

occurs through our experience that culls together the nectars and digests them into the sweet fluid of virtir. The piece of land that the emblem is sited upon appear; earlier in the treatise

with the drawi.ng of Reason and Will (figure 22) and implies to me a Paradise in its use atop the
House of Vice and Virtue. Filarete describes Will as a nude woman, "with one foot on a wheel,
wrngs on her feet and shoulders, and her heud fuN of eyes. In one hand she [will hdd] a bolance

wth one side lower than the other and with the other hand she ~ lappear to seize the world. n82 /
She is literally tied t o Reason, with five strings that correspond to each of the five senses. "She
s ~ t s a heart; in one hand she holds balanced scales and in the other reins.. . . On her feet she on
WE

lead slrppers. "83 Will uses the senses to collect and fly about, storing elements from the

world, while Reason acts as an ordering structure. The heart that she sits upon is also a mnemonic trope, related to the phrase "learn by heartn and the Latin r e ~ o r d o r i .in ~ ~ her hands, the world is kept balanced and pure. At the House of Vice and Virtue, this allegory of collection, recollection and ordering becomes architecture.

2rotto

think we ought to show the things pertaining to both Vice and Wme, . . .For rhis reason

"I

8e " Carruthen, The Book of Memory. 48-49. According to Varro. the second-century B.C. E. grammarian, the word derives from revocare, t o "call back", and cor, "heart"; i evolved into the Italian t rrcordoni. rrchltmctura and the bae / vita & virtue

71

anyone wfw unu them would be urged to fdlw virtue and to shun and moid vice.w85 When Filarete creates the lower half of the House of Vice and Virtue, it is with a peculiar irony. Actually building and instituting a program pertaining t o sin and corruption is a questionable act. Yet, its presence is crucial to the success and monumental consequence of the path to virtue. The critical element of sight in the societal mechanism proposed by Filarete, I believe, expresses the role that mnemonics assumes throughout his ideas. The images described are the 'memorial notes'that are 'moralised into beautiful or hideous h u m n figures as 'corporeal similitudes' of spiritual intentions of gaming Heaven or avoiding ~ e 1 1 . " ~ ~ The figure of Vice, a naked satyr, sits on a wheel with seven spokes in Filarete's

a -h ~nvention."In one hand he holds a plate of things to et and drink and in the other a boord w t
three dice on it. As a fountain of sweet Iiquor emerges from the diamond, so seven n ' v m of mud

and filth issue from this and make o pod of filth in which a pig lies.

This assemblage of sin sits

within a subterranean grotto at the foot of the mountain. While virtue is a low, difficultgoal, vice
IS

easily entered. The House of Vice, counterpoint to Virtue, buries itself underground,

that creating a worldly Hell. The components of activrty here is a list of emblematic dev~ces follow in theme the inventors and professors of the liberal arts, but with more specificity. Gacchus rides a tiger under a vine, holding a glass and grapes. He is naked, with goat horns and yet, "beautiful in a feminine way" - a seducer of unscrupulous behavior. Priapus, ugly, bearded and malformed, holds a sickle in one hand and in "the other he [holds] over his sign. It

8s Treutise. f. 86 Yates.

69r., 1 19. Trattato. 265.

The Art of Memory. 77.

246. Trottoto. 534.
arthltecture and tho boa 1 vice & virtue

87 Treatise. f. 1 43r..

uppeared he menaced the wumen with the latter and the men with his s~dde. n88 Venus is also
present, as is her son Cupid. These figures even speak, giving suggestions o n how to conduct oneself wrth decadence, using the 'instrumnt of Priapusnand hedonism of Bacchus. In understanding the issues at stake for Filarete we must see the presence o vice in his f designs as it pertains to both king and oty. Rather than actualizing an unrealimc 'ideal' aty, Filarete embraces the full scope of the 'fallen' body of mankind. I t appeals also to the occassions in which a prince must act in opposition t o virtue, apable "of changing readilly, according as the winds and changes of fortune bid him.n89 Perhaps the most relevant issue in the cons~deration memory and Filarete is the way he creates this festival of vice to remind of the citizens and readers of the alternative to virtue. The images evolve the ideas o n the what the various places in Hell are, and creates them into emblematic IOU.

The remembering of

Heaven and Hell becomes a part of memory treatises in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, frequently with diagrams on their c o n ~ t r u c t i o n ~ ~ 27). The scenes are distinct and (figure controlled in a manner that coincides with the classical art prescribed in Ad Herennium and Cicero. "The keenest of all our senses is the sense of sight, and that consequently perceptions received by the ears of by reflexion can be most easily retained if they are also conveyed to

88 Treatise. f. 148r, 253-54. Tramto, 550.

89

N. Machiavelli. The Prince. 87.

90 Yates. The A r t of Memory., see pp. 60, 94-5, 108- 1 I , I 1 5- 16, 122. This scheme was utilized by Boncompagno da Signa, working in Bologna at 1235 : W e must assiduously remember the tnvisible joys of Paradise and the eternal torments of Hell"; and Jacopus Publicius, whose work Oratoriae artis epitome was published in Venice 1482. writes: "simple and spiritual intentions slip easily from the memory unless joined to a corporeal similitude"; also Cosmas Rossellius, publishifig in Venice, 1579 his work Thesaurus amficiosae memoriae, with memory place diagrams of Paradise and Hell.

arthltocturo and tho boo / vlco & virtue

73

our minds by the mediation of the eyes."9' The images fed to the mind are to be active similitudes. "as striking as p s iblen,a precept conveyed to the Middle Ages and Renaissance through the Ad Herennium, and echoed by Filarete's inventional concepts. Those who 'didnguish' themelves are mrked wth corresponding ornamentation: the wearing of a vase of wine and cup, or a priapic symbol strung around their neck, and then led through the territory s o everyone could see them, There is a civic ritual to Filarete's scheme, involving the people who c h m e to descend into the depths of vice that unfolds the active image into the material world.

- rituals When Filarete creates his drawings for the treatise, laying out the lineu, he begins the

own sort of memory device, a diagram to keep in his mind and etch on the building with h ~ s

earth.92 The building's ensuant construction is given over to the cky, and evolves into a site of
meaning and memory for the citizens. The complete impartingof the architecture occurs w t h the rituals and aaivrty of the crty, as exemplified by the ceremnies invoked with the House of
Virtue. The students of virtue are rewarded and marked in a public display. Their character
is composed within the House of Virtue and in turn, begins to compose the city. Filarete

professes, "God wished that man, just as he was made in His image, should make something

similar EO himself. In this way [man] participates in God by makingsomething in his image through

91

Cicero. De Oratore. 11, I h i i . 357.

92 See

Carruthers. 'The Poet as Master Builder."

rrchltectura and tha bee I vlco & virtue

the use given intellect.m93

The completion o f study in the House o f Virtue involves a cermonious examination to

determine if the student is worthy of the degree. 'They would place him in a room of the first art with a garland of laurel upon his head. He passed

firn through all

the places where he had

studied and left the garland nailed up there with his name. H e left it in1 one and

then went up to

the first room in the M e abwe the square. . . . Here they put another laurel on him to the sound
of ;nstruments. "94 After another examination, they take the garland from his head and put it on

the figure of the liberal art in that room. Proceeding upward through each room wrth a similar
procedure, they arrive at the figure of Virtue and '~4th noble words they took the garland from

his head and put it

on the head ofvirtue. It was left there all day. Then ofter they had gone

around it once to the sound of music and rejoiidng, they descended n9S accompanying him home
wrth a parade of celebrations. Honor is given t those acquiring 'virtue porn the exerase ofthejr o

person and of their spirit in this manner."

93

Treatise. f. Sv., I I . Trattuto. 26.

94 Treatise. f. 147r.. 252. Tramto, 546-47.

9 5 Ibid.

architecture and the bee 1 vice L virtue

figure 1 5 . Adam as the first architect. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee / vice

virtue

76

figure 1 6 . Plan of House of Virtue. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee / vice - virtue

77

fig ure 1 7. The ladder of Virtue. Herrad of Landsberg. Hwtus Deliaarum, ed. A. Straub and G . Keller.

architecture and the bee / vice

virtue

78

figure 18. Rarmn Lull wRh the Ladders of his Art. 14th century mniature. Kartsruhe Library. Cod. St.
Peters 92-

architecture and t h e bee / vice

virtue

79

figure

19. The Ladder of Ascent and Descent. from R a m o n Lull's L k r de a x e n s u et descensu mtelieaurs.

ed. of Valenca. f

5 12.

architecture and the bee / vice - virtue

80

figure

20. 2 I . Combtnat~on wheels. from Ramon Lull's Ars Brevrs.

architecture and the bee / vice - virtue

8 1

figure 22. Reason and Will. Codex Magkabecchianus.

architecture and the bee / vice

virtue

82

figure

'23. House ofvie and Virtue. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee / vice - virtue

83

figure

2 4. Caryatid fgures atop House o Virtue. Codex Magiiabecchianus. f

architecture and t h e bee / vice

virtue

84

figure 2 5 . Plan of House of Vrtue. Codex Maglrabecchianus.

architecture and the bee / vice - virtue

85

figure 2 6 . Ftgure of Virtue. Codex Magllabecchianus.

architecture and the bee / vice

virtue

86

figure 27. Cosmas Rossellius. Memory images o Hell and Heaven. f

architecture and the bee / vice

virtue

87

figure 28. Emblem 149. "The Mercy of the Prime" from Alciato's Bodc ofhblems.

architecture and the bee / conclusion

88

Man's desire in the Renaissance t o create and search our harmony through the bulk world becomes an attempt t o reproduce a celestial concordance, an ordering o f the essential substance of life. Filarete's attempt to lay its groundwork within the written story appears t o depend upon an understanding of mnemonic tropes to create the new cry. It enables man to discover this accord by remaking himself "through the use of his God-pen in reflect. "
The

architect is the master-builder, and architecture the mnemonic structure designed "not as a device for repetition, but as a collecting and recollecting mechanism with which to construct one's own education."' like the bee culls and then distends the cells of rts home with liquid

Filarete, as an architect, is the body in which the rnellification occurs. The wisdom from the golden book passes through his imagination and is remade for the prince and his citizens in a translated form. It is the architect's position to instill in the gathered pollen the capabilrty for an independent life; she acts as filter and catalyst. The relevance of striving to unearth the foundations of Filarete's treatise as a mmorative structure lies with the essence of
a mnemonic model's operation. Continual reinterpretation and retelling over time of the cues

provides the framework of memoria. The cells of Filarete's House of Vice and Virtue are literally passed through - during the initial solitary pursuit of knowledge and the ensuant

Carruthers. T h e Poet as Master Builder." 887.

Virgil. Fourth Georgic.
archltocturo and tho boo / conclurion

comrnunty ritual of bestowing honor t o the student. The golden booys), too, are read and reread; translated from Greek to Italian; and interpreted from words and images to buildings. It is the herrneneutic quality of stones and life that iets a meaningful interaction take place, and
this
IS

the issue at stake in making architecture. Filarete's methods and modes of colleaing and

retrieving in his fantasia and imagination stands out as a potent metaphor in our burgeoned twentieth century storehouse of data. The architect has become lost in the immensrty or our present condition. Rather than being able to exist as the philosopher - magician, transfiguring the world into a fertile construct, she is left fightingt o even provide an empty diagram.

t Filarete's cities have been called utopic, but i is not an architecture of ' n ~ - ~ l a c e ; "i is t
our current situation instead that speeds recklessly towards the sea of nowhere - cities where 'evaluations. opinions and attitudes replace the certainty of shared c o n v i ~ t i o n . " ~ While it seems our intellect is constantly called upon to narrow and specialize in response to the expanding social responsibilities, the Renaissance architect Filarete planned with the ethics of a hunting bee collecting vaned nectars. His designs are plans of action for the prince and sketches of civic institutions for the citizens, providing both wiih a specific, meaningful order.
The hierarchy Filarete devises is rnotimted by his perception of virtlj. M v a t e d by the central

building of vice and virtue, the city contains the varying qualities of virtue as it pertains to architecture. The three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity; and the four cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, fortitude and temperance form one body-building in the treatise to symbolize the universal nature of architecture.

3 See T. More's Utopia. an island of 'nowhere'.

D. Libeskind. "Symbol and Interpretation." Between Zero and Infinity. (Rizzoli. 198 1). 27.
architocturo and t m b m / conclusion h o

90

There is a painting by Piero della Francesca, ANegorica/ Triumphs (ca. 1472)' that presents Federico da Montefetto and his wife Battista Sforza riding towards one another in carriages; Battista is depicted with the theological virtues and Federico with the cardinal virtues. The segmentation of virtue in this painting demonstrates the two parties to whom Filarete also must address himself: the king and the people, each with their particular virtuous achievements and hiemrchies to consider. The virtue of Sforza, like Federico, depends on the strength of being a soldier and his prudent, yet swift acquisition and ruling o f his new

The crty allows Sforza to show himself as merciful, humane and just, and as well, able to 'show
himself [as] a lover o f virtue and honor all who excel in any one of the arts."' The theological virtues of faith, hope and chanty seem to speak of the qualities desired by an inhabitant of the

cry, pursuing it in one way with the acquisition of an intellectual virtue at the House of Virtue.
In a medieval mindset, this theoretical quest is enacted through scholmc study, creating an

abstract realty. The citizen of Plusiapolis, however, must locate the means to obtain this

goodness through public rituals. They pursue this knowledge by experiencing the path through the architecture, and its storage of academic material. Ultimately though, it seems that greater than the scholarly aspirations, the inhabrtant is made complete and fulfilled by forming a public, ceremonious representation of the pursuit. It is through the eyes of the others that he

/ she becomes whole, versus the private redemption through the eyes of a medieval God.

da Montef&lto and Bam'm Sfom . Uffizi. Florence. See A. Cole,Virtue and Magnficence. 1 3. for an image of the painting.
5 From the Diptych wth Portraits of Federico
6 The crty of Sforzinda was calculated t o only

take ten days t o build, with 12.000 max>ns alone laymg

2500 bricks a day!

7 Machiavelli. The Prince.

1 10.
rrthltattura and the boa / conclueion 91

Architecture arrives at a position of providing a societal order, a concrete theater of

memory and participation that indudes both the virtuous ideals of life and its pehaps necessary

vices. The Renaissance city unveils the abstract scholastic schema of medieval man and gives
birth to a site that is dependent upon an ethicdl thickness of memory and action. Our own

condition, however, has broken open the a r m of hermetic knowledge into a quantifiable operation, reducing architecture to a homogenous body of indifference. Filarete's Ideal program of a fulfilled, animated culture that is activated by architecture is a detached. alien ~dea
to our present political and private situation. We are quickly slipping into a world where even

the modem museum becomes obsolete and the vast libraries of knowledge too are

~ncreasingly accessed without leaving our homes. I do not condemn this condition; the challenge of this added complextty that tends to reduce knowledge to information, is one we
must embrace in order to create architecture that extends beyond a pragmatic equauon.

The meditative, gestational process of architecture that guided Filarete is a metaphoric procedure that I believe expresses the potent capacity of the architect, but has been sublimated by our instrumentation of imagination, and overlooks the very issue that Filarete, as "lover of virtuen, is concerned - an ethical order of architecture that still recognizes the fragmented nature of woman / man and the need to remake our center. Filarete's unearthing of the ancient relics and golden book reaches out to the past to reconcile and reform the present earthly orders. Our late twentieth century memorative unearthing is of course, not so straightforward. The complexrty of architecture can be approached with a hermeneutic course of action that mobilizes the imagination to discover truth; the 'task of architecture is that

archltecturo and the boa / conclusion

of interpretation."

It is a matter of revealing and concealing gathered stories in a manner

that differs not so much from the shuttling action of the bee. The cities of Sforzinda and

PIusiapolis are immersed within a culture of remembering and inventing anew from the
exhumed past. The hope for our own society is that architecture can thus emerge as an

interpretative site, concerned wrth society's character and ethos, where all that is publicly and privately compiled, mellifies into a complex wholeness, feeding u s spiritually and politically as
we pass through I& doors and inhabit the world.

--

8 K. Harries. The Ethical Function ofArchitecture. (MlT Press. 1997). 4.

architecture and the bee / conciumion

arehltocturo and tho boa 1 rppondix

arthltocturo

and the boo 1 bibliography

96

Albem. L. B. Della Famiglia. R N. Watkins, trans. (Columba: South Carolina Universrty Press) 1969.

- On the Art of Building in Ten Books. J . Rykwert. N. Leach and R Tavenor, trans. (Boston, MIT Press)
1988. Anstotle. Poetics. P.

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