Architectural treatises are often written by architects for architects. These texts discuss what constitutes good architecture, and provide the reader with a script for how to build properly. Architectural historians used these architectural treatises, such as the texts by Vitruvius or Alberti, as a lens to interpret architectural designs and understand motivations for building. During the Middle Ages, no such architectural treatise was produced, and therefore, this period is often omitted in survey books on architectural theory (see for example: Kruft 1994, 5). However, the lack of architectural treatises signifies by no means that people did not think about what good and proper architecture was, and the texts about it are often found in unexpected places. There are, for example, several theological works, such as the ones written by Abbot Suger, Bernard of Clairvaux and William Durandus that provide a theoretical foundation for architectural design choices of church buildings. What makes these mediaeval texts different from the well-known architectural treatises by Vitruvius and Alberti is that they are not written by architectural practitioners, nor are they written for architects; instead, they are written by and for important patrons of architecture. And as such they provide an insight into what rich commissioners were looking for in architectural design.
Besides these theological works that treat architectural patronage, there is another, much neglected genre that provides a literary space for more theoretical reflections on proper building methods. This little explored genre by architectural historians are ethical and moral treatises. In this short blogpost, I intend to discuss the genre of moral treatises and wish to show the potential of these texts as scripts and guidelines for architectural production. I will talk about two examples of this genre and explain what they have to offer for our understanding of later mediaeval architecture.
Aristotle’s Ethica Nicomacheia was beyond any doubt the moral treatise with the most impact on later mediaeval ethical thinking. Around 1247, all books of Aristotle’s Ethics were translated from Greek into Latin by Robert Grosseteste for the first time. Soon, the text became a standard part of the Artes curriculum at mediaeval universities, which meant that everyone who attended university would have had a thorough knowledge of the text. There is one virtue in Aristotle’s Ethics that has become especially tied to architectural production and that is the virtue magnificentia. Magnificentia or magnificence was according to Aristotle a virtue concerned with the decorum surrounding large expenditure. Expenditure was virtuous if the amount spent would fit the occasion, the recipient, and the status and wealth of the spender. Aristotle mentions that a magnificent man can spend on religion, on the common good, and even on some private matters as long as it benefits the community as a whole. However, Aristotle also mentions that a magnificent man should live in a house that fits his standing (Broadie 2011, 146-147).
The many ethical treatises, written in the century after the first translation of Aristotle’s Ethics into Latin, try to make the relation between magnificentia and architecture more tangible, often by explaining what in their eyes makes a building virtuous. In these texts, authors conceptualised what constituted magnificentia. For instance, Giles of Rome, who wrote between 1277 and 1281 his De regimine principum, is the first author who mentions beauty (pulchritudo) as a characteristic of magnificent buildings. For him, beauty and magnificence were in the subtle craftsmanship of the magnificent man’s residence. Giles even mentions that a magnificent building could evoke such admiration in the beholder that their mind was suspended. Even an angry mob would believe after seeing such magnificence that it is impossible to attack the inhabitant of the residence (De Raedt 2023, 9-11). Remarks like this give an insight into how moral virtue was thought to combat evil intents by means of architecture.
Other moral treatises are much less theoretical and more concrete in their recommendations on how to build virtuously. Abbot Engelbert of Admont (ca. 1250-1331) finalised between 1306 and 1313 a Speculum Virtutum (a mirror of virtues) in which he discusses Aristotle’s conception of magnificentia (for an edition see: Ubl 2004). In his text, Engelbert connects specific buildings to expressions of magnificentia such as churches and public roads. Engelbert is even more specific and goes on to list some buildings that radiate the everlasting magnificence of its patron. He mentions Roman emperor Constantine who became an exemplary magnificent man through his patronage of the Saint Peter church in Rome and the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran. However, his most magnificent act might have been building Constantinople, a second Rome, with its magnificent Hagia Sophia. According to Engelbert, the magnificence of an expense is in large part in the positive and lasting impact it has on successors, which gives us an interesting insight in what qualities mediaeval patrons looked for in buildings.
In other works on moral virtues, authors list more contemporary buildings as epitomes of magnificent building. In a text called Liber de informatione principum from around 1300, an anonymous author takes the opportunity to reflect upon the patronage of saint Louis the IX, king of France. He tells his audience that building the Sainte Chapelle as a place where the whole world could venerate the newly acquired relics of the passion is an excellent example of magnificent patronage (BnF Français 1950). Guillaume Fillastre, a fifteenth-century advisor at the Burgundian court, elaborates in his Histoire de la Toison d’or on the virtues magnanimity and magnificence. As part of his text he frames buildings financed by king Charles V of France as magnificent, such as the château Vincennes, the château Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the Bastille Saint-Antoine and the château de Creil (BnF, NAF 21627). These examples show that it was the patron who rendered the building magnificent, and as such the virtuousness of the patron was part of the perception and experience of a building in the Late Medieval period.
Whether the guidelines and examples these commentaries offer were adhered to when patrons instigated a building project is a topic of further investigation. Art and architectural historians researching the Italian renaissance have shown that in fifteenth-century Tuscany magnificentia was often associated with exuberant architectural patronage projects (Jenkins 1970), and that it was used to justify construction activities. Therefore, it is certain that at least in fifteenth-century Italy, this virtue played a role in architectural production. However, if this was also the case north of the Alps, and whether these mentions of magnificent buildings correspond with the notions of magnificentia, mentioned in moral works, are issues that will be addressed in my PhD thesis on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century understandings and uses of the concept magnificentia in Antwerp, Rouen and Nurnberg.
Bibliography
Broadie, Sarah, and Christopher Rowe. 2011. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics; Translation, Introduction, and Commentary. Oxford University Press.
Jenkins, A. D. Fraser. 1970. “Cosimo de' Medici's Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33: 162-170.
Kruft, Hanno-Walter. 1994. A History of Architectural Theory; From Vitruvius to the Present. Princeton Architectural Press.
De Raedt, Nele. 2023. “Magnificence, Dignity, and the Sociopolotical Function of Architectural Ornament: Cortesi’s Dscussion of the Cardinal’s Architectural Patronage.” Renaissance Quarterly 76(1): 1-38.
Ubl, Karl. 2004. MGH; Staatsschriften des späteren Mittelalters I; Die Schriften des Alexander von Roes und des Engelbert von Admont; Teil 2: Engelbert von Admont, Speculum virtutum. Hahnsche Buchhandlung.
After having studied Art History and Medieval History at the universities Cambridge (UK), Leiden (The Netherlands), and St Andrews (Scotland), Mats Dijkdrent pursued a PhD in Architectural History at the catholic university of Louvain (Belgium). His research, funded by the FNRS, focuses on the political and artistic uses and manifestations of magnificence in texts, performances and architecture in 15th- and 16th-century Antwerp, Rouen and Nürnberg. As part of his PhD, Mats held amongst others research stays at the Centre Jean Pépin in Paris (part of the Ecole Normal Supérieur and the CNRS), at the Université de Rouen Normandie, and at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg.
Email: matsd1@live.nl
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