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“Il modo di disegnare queste scale è cosa trita”:
Note on the History of the ‘Double Spiral’ Staircase
Romano Nanni
T
HE ISSUE involving the origins and execution of the Château de Chambord now has a proud modern bibliography of
more than a century of history1. In the latter half of the twentieth
century, after the turning-point in Leonardo studies and French
architecture represented by Ludwig Heydenreich’s contribution
in 19522 , thanks above all to French historians and, in particular,
to the momentum provided by André Chastel3 – except for the
fundamental contribution made by Carlo Pedretti in relation to
the royal residence planned for Romorantin4 – we have become
aware of Leonardo’s sources of inspiration and the directions taken
by his successive projects, based on his early ideas. In many instances, his choices were made in the field, tackling the various
problems in accordance with the requirements of the moment,
as difficulties cropped up. As a general rule, and limiting ourselves
to the structural establishment of the edifice, we know that the
building of Chambord occurred in several phases, and that selections and alterations took place: the wooden model by Domenico
da Cortona, with its centered plan, probably illustrates an initial
conception. Next came the shift of the large ceremonial staircase
to the center of the building, which resulted in its typology being
modified. This was followed, last of all, by a change in the orientation of the large north tower (verified by excavations in the
foundations) in relation to the original swastika-shaped foundation plan5. Today, new working hypotheses are being formulated
about Leonardo’s possible legacy concerning the terraces of the
keep6. In the context of ever-shifting studies, French historiog-
1
Cf. Jean Guillaume, “La genèse de Chambord. Réflexions sur un siècle
d’historiographie”, in Revue de l’Art, 149, 2005, pp. 33-43.
2
Ludwig Heydenreich, “Leonardo da Vinci, Architect of Francis I”, in The Burlington Magazine, vol. XCIV, n. 595, October 1952, pp. 277-285.
3
See the evidence and indications on the subject from Jean Guillaume, “La
genèse de Chambord. Réflexions sur un siècle d’historiographie”, in Revue de
l’Art, 149, 2005, p. 53, note 64.
4
With regard to the bibliography on Romorantin, please refer to the contribution by Pascal Brioist in this same catalogue.
5
I shall merely mention, in addition to the article already referred to in note
1: Jean Guillaume, “Lèonard de Vinci, Dominique de Cortone et l’escalier du
modèle en bois de Chambord”, in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. LXXI, 1968, pp. 93108; Jean Guillaume, “Lèonard de Vinci et l’architecture française. I. Le problème
de Chambord”, in Revue de l’Art, 25, 1974, pp. 71-84; Jean Guillaume, “Léonard et
l’architecture”, in Léonard de Vinci ingénieur et architecte, Montreal, 1987, pp. 207286; Monique Chatenet, Chambord, Paris, 2001; Jean-Sylvain Caillou – Dominic
Hofbauer, Chambord: le project perdu de 1519, Tours, 2007. The more recent article
by Sabine Frommel, “Leonardo da Vinci und die Typologie des Zentralisierten
Wohnhaus”, in Mitteilung des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 50, 2006 [2007],
pp. 257-300, is more concerned with the planimetric base of Chambord.
6
Cf. Patrick Ponsot, “Les terrasses du Donjon de Chambord: un projet de
Léonard de Vinci?”, in Bulletin Monumental, 165-3, 2007, pp. 249-261.
raphy is increasingly persuasive with regard to the significance of
the contribution of Leonardo da Vinci’s ideas to Chambord, even
if several lines of inspiration must be taken into consideration.
The research carried out by Jean Guillaume has demonstrated, in
particular, that the large monumental double spiral staircase set at
the center of the Chambord keep might be the outcome of the
merger of two basic avenues of ideas. The first involves Leonardo’s
novel research developed at the time of Manuscript B, held at the
Institut de France (roughly around the years 1487-1489), relating
to the double, quadruple, and multiple spiral staircase, placed at
the center of large towers – research closely linked with studies of
military architecture, themselves possibly inspired by the intuitions
of certain predecessors7. The second has to do with the French
tradition, its characteristic factors already observable in Blois castle,
especially in the open stairwell built like an autonomous corpus8 .
The weight of this tradition seems to have been recently reappraised in Jean Guillaume’s research on the virtual reconstruction of Bonnivet castle9. Here we actually find a large single-spiral
staircase, inherited not only from Blois, but also from the castle
at Châteaudun, and possibly from the priory of Saint-Ouen at
Chémaze10. The not inconsiderable merit of these studies is that
they encourage us to construct a progressive scenario involving
exchanges of broader and freer ideas between Italian and French
sources. From this viewpoint, it may be helpful to go back to
known sources, in order to once again contextualize each trace,
and attribute their historical value. In her recent contribution,
Margaret Daly Davis has highlighted the important circulation
of the treatises of Piero della Francesca, and in particular his De
Prospectiva Pingendi, much of which remained unpublished until
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as his significant
influence on techniques for surveying ancient forms of architecture and more generally on the evolution of architectural drawing.
Daly Davis has also attempted an initial mapping of this influence,
from Sebastiano Serlio to Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, by way of
7
Such as the example of Antonio Averlino, known as il Filarete, Trattato di architettura, Milan, 1972, II, pp. 539-541 and ill. 110 (f. 145 r).
8
Jean Guillaume, “Lèonard de Vinci et l’architecture française. I. Le problème
de Chambord”, in Revue de l’Art, 25, 1974, p. 75, 78, 79; Jean Guillaume, “Léonard
et l’architecture”, in Léonard de Vinci ingénieur et architecte, Montreal, 1987, pp. 262264, 266, 277-278, 283-284; Monique Chatenet, Chambord, Paris, 2001, p. 96.
9
Jean Guillaume, Le Château de Bonnivet. Entre Blois et Chambord : le chainon
manquant de la première Renaissance, Paris, 2006.
10
Already in “Léonard et l’architecture” (in Léonard de Vinci ingénieur et architecte,
Montreal, 1987), pp. 277-278, Guillaume had emphasized Leonardo’s interest in
types of spiral staircase in household form, part of local French customs.
[169]
Daniele Barbaro. She has also shed light on the account by Egnatio
Danti in her commented edition of Vignola’s rules of perspective,
whereby it is necessary to go back to Piero della Francesca to find
the authorship of the method of “perspectival” representation of
“double spiral” staircases, as found at Chambord11. I will try here to
develop a brief overview of an investigation focusing on the attribution supported by Danti12 . It will be as well to include here the
written text which wound up the volume by giving two examples
of “double spiral” staircases, accompanied by wood cuts:
Delle quali la prima è la segnata a Z, e è simile al pozzo di Orvieto, eccetto che questa è fatta con li scalini, e quello è senza, cavato nel tufo per via di scarpello. Di così fatte scale se ne
veggono gl’esempi appreso degl’antichi, e delle scale chiuse che
girono attorno una colonna: e quest’aperte son molto commode
ne’ mezi de gl’edificij, dove non si può haver lume da lati, e ci
bisogna torlo di sopra; come ha fato il Buonarroti nelle quattro
scale che fece nella fabbrica di San Pietro, le quali dall’apertura di sopra hanno tant’aria che sono luminosissime. Di simili se
ne veggonno antiche qui in Roma ne’ portici di Pompeio. Ma
quelle doppie, se bene hoggi non habbiamo esempio nessuno de
gl’antichi, sono non dimeno molto comode, da poter fare nel medesimo sito due, tre, ò quattro scale una sopra l’altra, che vadino
a diversi appartamenti d’un palazo, senza che un vegga l’altro: e
se si fanno del tutto aperte, si vedranno insieme, e andranno ragionando; né si potranno mai toccare, & ogn’uno arriverà al suo
appartamento particolare. Simile a queste è la scala che si vede in
questo disegno, e di simili ne sono molte in Francia, tra le quali è
celebre quella che Re Francesco fece in suo palazzo a Sciamburg.
Il modo di disegnare queste scale è cosa trita per la via ordinaria, si come da Pietro dal Borgo, e da Giovan Casin Francese è
particolarmente insegnato ; dove dimostrano, che fatta che s’è la
pianta, come è la pianta Z, se ne fa un profilo da una banda, e con
esso, e con la pianta si trovano tutti li termini delli scalini, e cominciando dalli primi che sono nel principio delle due scale alli
due punti A, B, si segnano tutti un dietro all’altro. Si potranno
11
On the ambiguity concerning the authorship of the Chambord project, once
attributed to Vignola, cf. Jean Guillaume, “Lèonard de Vinci et l’architecture française. I. Le problème de Chambord”, in Revue de l’Art, 25, 1974, p. 82, note 2.
12
But we should not forget that Giorgio Vasari had already, in his Lives of the
Artists of 1550 and of 1568, glorified on several occasions the extraordinary skills of
Piero in his perspectival representation of solid bodies Cf. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite
de’ pui eccellenti pittori, scultori e architectori, 1550 and 1568 editions by R. Bettarini ,
commentary by P. Barocchi, Florence 1971, III. I, p. 264.
170
Drawing of the double Z spiral staircase, in Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola,
Le due regole della prospettiva practica [..] con i comentarij del R.P.M Egnatio
Danti, Rome, 1583, p. 143
anche queste scale disegnare con le Sag[o]me, con le quali questi
due disegni son fatti, pigliando per la Sag[o]ma eretta il profilo
di esse scale, e per la diagonale quella che da li punti diagonali
cavati dalla pianta si formerà, si come di sopra delle sag[o]me dei
Piedistalli, e delle colonne, e pilastri s’è detto.
Il disegno X, è di quelle scale aperte, che si reggono senza aver
nel mezzo posamento nessuno, essendo gli scalini fermati con la
testa nel muro, e messi talmente l’un sopra l’altro, che un regge
l’altro, e gli stessi scalini fanno volta alla scala : delle quali n’è
fatta una tonda e scempia, molto bella e alta, nella fabbrica di
San Pietro, che va da alto a basso, con li scalini di trevertino,
da Iacopo della Porta prestantissimo architetto di detta fabbrica.
Un altra simile scala scempia aperta nel mezo con li scalini di
Drawing of the double Z spiral staircase, in Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola,
Le due regole della prospettiva practica [..] con i comentarij del R.P.M Egnatio
Danti, Rome, 1583, p. 144
Drawings of models for the spiral staircase, in Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola,
Le due regole della prospettiva practica [..] con i comentarij del R.P.M Egnatio
Danti, Rome, 1583, p. 145
trevertino, che fanno scalino, e volta, s’è fatta in forma ovata per
salire da Belvedere alla Galleria fatta fare da N. S. Papa Gregorio
xiij nel Vaticano, da Ottaviano Mascherini, che è riuscita molto
bella, alla cui simiglianza ne fa al presente un altra nel palazzo
che per S. santità fabbrica a Monte Cavallo, la quale è aperta; e
ovata, ma si regge in su le colonne, simile a quella fatta da Bramante in Belvedere. Ma a questa ovata ci è più difficoltà, che non
ebbe Bramante in quella tonda, atteso che nella circolare tutte le
linee vanno al punto, e centro del mezo : che nella ovale vanno
a diversi punti. Questa si disegnerà in prospettiva nel modo che
della precedente s’è detto, tanto aperta come serrata : e si puo
fare ancora che giri attorno a una colonna, e sia aperta di fuori ;
delle quali n’ho visto un disegno molto ben fatto da Piero del
Borgo, sicome in tutte le sue cose era diligentissimo e accuratissimo disegnatore.13
In the pages just quoted, Danto seems to have more meticulous
information on Chambord than was shown by the passage from
Palladio on the spiral staircase that is usually quoted14 . The histori-
13
Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Le due regole della prospettiva pratica di M. Iacomo
Barozzi da Vignola, con i comentarij del R.P.M. Egnatio Danti dell’ordine dei Predicatori
Matematico dello Studio di Bologna, Rome, 1583, pp. 143-144.
14
Andrea Palladio, I quattro libri dell’architettura, Venice, 1570, L. I, Cap XXVIII,
on which please refer to Jean Guillaume, “Lèonard de Vinci et l’architecture française. I. Le problème de Chambord”, in Revue de l’Art, 25, 1974, pp. 79-80; and
Monique Chatenet, Chambord, Paris, 2001, pp. 108-110.
171
cal references he offers, such as the one to the Bramante stairway
for the Belvedere at the Vatican15 , and the specific indications he
provides on the motivations behind the construction of different
typologies of “spiral” staircases, which subsequently became widespread ideas (by dint of their usefulness in providing light in buildings with a central plan, and their possibility of different points
of access), actually raise a certain number of questions about the
criticism of the historiography, which still remain to be resolved.
For the moment, however, since we do not have any drawings
of “double spiral” staircases by the artist from Sansepolcro, let us
rather ask ourselves whether the reference to Piero della Francesca was indeed the plausible archetype of a particular technique
of representation and conception. Nowadays it is generally agreed
that Piero, in his De Prospectiva Pingendi, had formulated his method of construction of solids in central perspective, on the basis of
a refined tecdhnique providing for the alignment of plans, elevations and sections. This technique of representation is also used in
the Libellus de quinque corporibus regolaribus16 , and clearly leans in
favour of the double octagonal projection codified in subsequent
centuries, in particular in the work of Monge in the nineteenth
century17. The theme of spiral staircases, on the other hand, refers
to that of cylindrical spirals. We know that spirals were a constant
illustrative motif in Piero’s painting. Suffice it to think especially
of the numerous spiral scrolls of the compound Ionic capitals of
15
The reference to Bramante poses, in addition to the matter of his relations
with Leonardo, the other question of his relation to the heredity of Piero, on
which cf. now Francesco Di Teodoro, “Vitruvio, Piero della Francesca, Raffaello: note sulla teoria del disegno di architettura nel Rinascimento”, in Annali
di architettura, 14, 2002, p. 46. But the theme of the spiral staircase commissioned
from Bramante by Giulio II on his return from lengthy exile in the Loire Valley
also calls for in-depth exploration of the possible French influences. In general
on Bramante, Franco Borsi, Bramante, Milan, 2008; on the spiral staircase in the
Belvedere, Christoph Luitpold Frommel, “Giulio II, Bramante e il Belvedere”, in
L’Europa e l’arte italiana, edited by Max Seidel, Venice, 2000, pp. 211-219; Christoph Luitpold Frommel,“La città come opera d’arte: Bramante e Raffaello (15001520)”, in Storia dell’arte italiana. Il primo Cinquecento, edited by Arnaldo Bruschi,
Milan, 2002, pp. 82-87.
16
Cf. The analysis by Francesco Paolo Di Teodoro in Piero della Francesca, Libellus de quinque corporibus regularibus, accompanied by the vernacular version by
Luca Pacioli, Florence, 1995, vol. II, pp. 172-173.
17
Cf. inter alios Marie-Françoise Clergeau, “Du ‘De Perspectiva Pingendi’ et la
peinture de Piero: quel lien?”, in Piero della Francesca tra arte e scienza, edited by
M. Dalai Emiliani and V. Curzi,Venice, 1996, pp. 65-76; Kirsti Andersen, The Geometry of an Art: The History of Mathematical Theory of Perspective, New York, 2007;
Francesco Paolo Di Teodoro, Raffaello, Baldassar Castiglione e la lettera a Leone X,
Bologna, 1994; new edition with the addition of two essays by Raphael, 2003, pp.
29-31, 225-228; Filippo Camerota, “Renaissance Descriptive Geometry: the codification of drawings methods”, in Picturing Machines 1400-1700, ed. by Wolfgang
Lefèbvre, MIT, 2004, p. 179.
172
his works (for example in the Arezzo Annunciation), those of the
croziers of bishops and saints (like the crystal crozier of St. Augustine), and the apparent spirals in the depictions of hairstyles
(that of Battista Sforza, for example). Invariably involved, however,
are flat spirals – even if in certain cases they are perspectivally
represented, as in the seductive example of the capitals, thanks
to a preparatory study to be found in De Prospectiva Pingendi –
and not three-dimensionsal cylcindrical spirals. Now, flat spirals
are precisely the only ones bequeathed to us by Archimedes in
his treatise Circa elicas, a work that can be read today in its version in the Manuscript Ricc. Lat. 106 attributed to Piero’s hand18 .
The illustrations demonstrated the serious difficulties encountered
by Piero – unlike his successor Leonardo – to grasp the physical
and mechanical applications of the construction of spirals19. On
the other hand, we cannot really rule out the possibility that the
technique for executing plan and elevation drawings had been
supported by Piero – bearing in mind his familiarity with transformational ratios between flat and solid figures. Perhaps he was
experimenting with a shift from flat spirals to cylindrical spirals, in
view of their perspectival projection. Let us remember that in his
treatment of regular and irregular solids in the Libellus, Piero had
managed, at a brilliant level, to understand geometry: the determination of the volume of intersection of two cylinders intersecting each other perpendicularly, and the connected determination
of the concave surface of a ribbed vault which he subsequently
used in De Prospectiva Pingendi for the perspectival drawing of a
chapel20. Let us nevertheless carefully examine the text and above
all the drawings of Danti, which, in reality, do not give us a linear
perspectival view: the axis of the cylinder in which the staircases
are incorporated is an octagonal projection of the diameter of
the plan situated below it. The tiers are sections of circles which
rise gradually at regular intervals: this construction seems, overall,
somewhat empirical; it is based in effect on the use of a gauge (as is
still used today on construction sites), and is somewhat akin to the
process of constructing wooden models, described and illustrated
18
On Ricc. Lat. 106 cf. James R. Banker, “A manuscript of the work of Archimedes in the hand of Piero della Francesca”, in The Burlington Magazine, 147, 1224,
2005, pp. 165-169; L’archimede di Piero. Contributi di presentazione alla realizzazione
facsimilare del Riccardiano 106, edited by Roberto Marescalchi and Matteo Martelli,
Sansepolcro, 2007.
19
Cf. in more detail Romano Nanni, “Piero, Archimedes and the ‘pratica di
geometria’ ”, publication forthcoming in the volume The Artist as Reader, edited
by Claus Zittel et al., Leiden, Brill, Intersections vol. 16.
20
Marshall Clagett, Archimedes in the Middle Age, vol. 3, The fate of the Medieval
Archimedes 1330-1565, Philadelphia, 1978, Part III, pp. 407-415.
Urbino,
Palazzo Ducale,
Tower of La Data
(foreground, right)
by the Bolognese father21. A similar approach seems quite compatible with Piero’s most elaborate constructions, such as the irregular
solid with 72 bases, in a double octagonal projection, and with a
central perspective, present in the Libellus, then in De Prospectiva
Pingendi, to be used for the representation of a cupola22 .
But the traces of the Sansepolcro artist may also lead to something
21
Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Vignola, Le due regole della prospettiva pratica di M.
Iacomo Barozzi da Vignola, con i comentarij del R.P.M. Egnatio Danti dell’ordine dei
Predicatori Matematico dello Studio di Bologna, Rome, 1583, pp. 143-144: “Hora volendosi fare un modello delle prefate scale doppie, si opererà in questa maniera.
Si faranno gli scalini di legno doppij, come qui si vede lo scalino A,B, e volendosi
fare aperta la scala, se le lasserà l’apertura circolare nel mezo C, e poi si comporranno li detti scalini, come in questi quattro posti qui in disegno si vede fatto, e
faranno due scale, che l’una comincerà a salire al punto D, e l’altra al punto E,
e quanto più il diametro della scala sarà grande, e gli scalini saranno più lunghi,
tanto la scala verrà più alta, e sfogata. Ma se vorremo, che la scala sia tripla, o quadrupla, cioè che siano nel medesimo sito tre o quattro scale, faremo che gli scalini
siano a tre a tre, o a quattro a quattro, nel modo che qui si veggono in disegno, e
haremo in uno stesso sito due scale, o tre o quattro, e ciascuna harà la sua entrata
particolare, e uscirà nel suo appartamento, essendo ogni scala da se libera senza esser sottoposta all’altre, che è cosa invero di grandissima commodità e bellezza”.
22
Piero della Francesca, Libellus de quinque corporibus regularibus, accompanied by
the vernacular version by Luca Pacioli, Florence, 1995, vol. I, pp. 121-125; vol. II, pp.
171-175. Piero della Francesca, De Prospectiva Pingendi, edited by G. Nicco-Fasola,
Florence, 2005, pp. 202-208, figs LXXIII-LXXVI.
more significant: as it happens, to the stables at the Palazzo Ducale
in Urbino (in the La Data tower) with their great tower boasting a
central spiral ramp, devised and described by Francesco di Giorgio
in the two versions of the second treatise on architecture, the Siennese codex S.IV.4 and the Magliabechianus manuscript II.I.141:
Dopo questa voglio descrivere una stalla la quale io ho ordinata al
mio illustrissimo duca di Urbino, [quasi finita in tutto,] …Ultimo
in uno torrone appresso di quelle è una scala a lumaca per la quale
si può ire a cavallo, solo per lo signore riservata, per la quale el signore può senza essere visto vedere tutta la stalla e quello che fanno
tutti li famegli e maestro di stalla23 .
So this ramp in the great tower could be ridden up and down on
horseback (we should therefore imagine it without steps), and was
reserved for the duke: but is it plausible that such a major structure
should have been built simply to keep an eye on the stable staff?
Are we not rather in the presence of factors demonstrating the
23
Francesco Di Giorgio Martini, Trattati di architettura, ingegneria e arte militare,
edited by Corrado Maltese, Milan, 1967, vol. II, pp. 339-340.
173
Urbino, Palazzo Ducale: tower of La Data (view of the internal spiral
stairway)
Urbino, Palazzo Ducale: tower of La Data (view of the internal spiral
stairway)
Urbino, Palazzo Ducale: tower of La Data, fire vents at the bottom of the tower
[174]
reluctance – altogether classic at the time – of the architect Di
Giorgio Martini with regard to possible military uses of the great
tower? In fact, historical studies and recent painstaking investigations have highlighted the fact that the edifice also played a defensive role, and that the ramp could help provide explosive experts
with access to fire vents for cannons24. The dating of the Codex
S.IV.4, the first version of the second treatise by Di Giorgio Martini, is disputed: there is one proposition which puts the beginning of its writing in 1487 and its second revision in 1489, and it
is thought to have been completed subsequently in 149125. Other
more recent hypotheses date it in the years 1496-9726. In any event,
we already find a drawing of a large tower with a central spiral
staircase on fol. 82 r of the Opusculum of Francesco di Giorgio, a
manuscript written towards the latter half of the 1470s, and dedicated to Duke Federico d’Urbino27. The third and final phase of
the works at the site of the Palazzo Ducale (started between 1455
and 1468), including the erection of La Data and the large tower,
coincides with the presence of Francesco di Giorgio in Urbino
between 1476-77 and 1485, and perhaps from time to time up until
1488-8928. The urbanistic plan of the complex probably dates back
to Duke Federico, who died in 148229. Piero della Francesco lived
in Urbino from 1469 (when the palace site supervisor was still
Luciano Laurana) to about 1475, as guest, first of all, of Giovanni
Santi, Raphael’s father, and then of the court30. On several occa-
24
Cf. La Data (jardin d’abondance) de Francesco Di Giorgio Martini, proceedings of
the day of study, Urbino, 27 September 1986, edited by Marta Bruscia, Urbino,
1990, p. 28.
25
Corrado Maltese, “Introduzione”, in Francesco Di Giorgio Martini, Trattati di
architettura, ingegneria e arte militare, by C. Maltese, Milan, 1967, pp. LII-LIII.
26
Marco Biffi, “Introduzione”, in Francesco Di Giorgio Martini, La traduzione
del De Architectura di Vitruvio, Pisa, 2002, pp. XLVI, CXXXI.
27
According to Corrado Maltese, L’Opusculum may have been written in about
1472-77. Cf. his “Introduzione” to Francesco Di Giorgio Martini, Trattati di architettura, ingegneria e arte militare, by C. Maltese, Milan, 1967, pp. XXIX-XXX
and XLII; according to Giustina Scaglia, on the other hand, it would have been
written in the years 1470-75. Cf. her Francesco di Giorgio. Checklist and history of
Manuscripts and Drawings in Autographs and Copied from ca. 1470 to 1687 and Reviewed Copies (1764-1839), Bethlehem, London and Toronto, 1992, p. 25 and passim;
according to Marco Biffi, finally, it was written between 1474 and 1482. Cf. his
“Introduzione” to Francesco di Giorgio Martini, La traduzione del De Architectura
di Vitruvio, Pisa, 2002, p. XXXVI.
28
Francesco Paolo Fiore, “Il Palazzo Ducale di Urbino”, in Francesco di Giorgio
architetto, edited by F.P. Fiore and M. Tafuri, Milan, 1993, pp. 169-172; and Flavia
Cantatore, “Biografia cronologica di Francesco di Giorgio architetto”, in Francesco di Giorgio architetto, edited by F.P. Fiore and M. Tafuri, Milan, 1993, pp. 412-413.
29
Cf. La Data (jardin d’abondance) de Francesco Di Giorgio Martini, proceedings
of the day of study, Urbino, 27 September 1986, edited by Marta Bruscia,
Urbino, 1990, pp. 23-24.
30
Eugenio Battisti, Piero della Francesca, new edition revised and updated with
sions, however, he stayed in Urbino again during the 1480s, and
thus kept close links with the duke. In the mid-1480s, he dedicated
to Guidobaldo his Libellus, which, for many long years, remained
in the Urbino library, along with De Prospectiva Pingendi. So it
is not hard to imagine the cultural exchanges which took place
between Piero and Francesco di Giorgio Martini around ancient
reliefs and architectural drawings. These ideas, along with their
documents and manuscripts also circulated through the work of
Luca Pacioli. But let us once again direct our attention to the
“double spiral” staircase (thus defined in the text) of Manuscript
B, f. 69 r, by Leonardo. This sketch is part of a context where
other rough sketches of staircases were drawn, serving to study the
separate distribution of the access points to civil buildings (f. 68 v)
and (above all) to military edifices (f. 47 r). This is perhaps a good
time to make the observation that the drawing of Manuscript B,
unlike the other two, shows continuous ramps, without steps, incorporated within a closed cylindrical section, like a stair well enclosed between walls, which coil within a central corpus, in which
we hardly understand how the light is distributed. The closeness
of the drawing to that of the large corner tower of an ancient
fortification, which studies the disposition and form of the door
and window frames, suggests that this was a “double spiral” made
inside a well, with no visual functions affecting the surrounding
rooms, whose role was probably to ensure a fluid organization of
movements, preventing interference between the staff responsible
for the fire vents31. It may be thought that at the moment of the
composition of Manuscript B, when, in 1490, shortly thereafter,
Bramante, Di Giorgio, and Leonardo were in Milan and Pavia32,
the model of the great tower of Urbino with its central staircase
and, indeed, the ideas associated with this structure, would then
have been in circulation.They would also have been known about
in Naples, where, later on, we find Fra’ Giovanni Giocondo, Domenico da Cortona, and Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Fra’ Giocondo and Domenico da Cortona then followed Charles VII to
Amboise (this latter also meeting Giuliano da Sangallo in Lyon in
1496, in France because he was part of the entourage of Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere) 33 . Whatever the case may be, it is likely
the scientific coordination of Marisa Dalai Emiliani, Milan, 1992, vol. II, pp.
605-607.
31
Cf. Pietro C. Marani, L’architettura fortificata negli studi di Leonardo da Vinci, Florence, 1984, pp. 115-117.
32
For a re-examination of the chronologies, cf. Gianni Carlo Sciolla, Leonardo a
Pavia, XXXV Lettura Vinciana,Vinci-Florence, 1996.
33
It is however in no way my intention to here re-open the issue of the contri-
175
Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Opusculum de achitectura, London, British Library, f. 82 r: plan of the tower with
central spiral staircase
[176]
Leonardo da Vinci, Manuscript B, Paris, Institut de France, f. 69 r: studies of fortifications
[177]
Urbino, Palazzo Ducale: tower of La Data, plan (in: La Data (garden of plenty) by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, proceedings of the day
of study, Urbino, 27 September 1986, by M. Bruiscia, Urbino, 1990)
that Leonardo’s imagination had given rise to the idea of a “double or quadruple spiral” staircase. Nevertheless, and quite the
reverse of what people have at times written, it is not possible to
affirm that Leonardo alone could come up with the ultimate solution for Chambord, by way of his daring imagination of staircases in the middle of the towers. Actually, the basic model for
a spiral staircase set at the center of a tower belonged to a wider
heritage and people other than Leonardo had had the idea before him, which is possibly what is referred to by Danti’s reflections, and is attested to by already existing works. In addition,
the idea of the central spiral staircase came not only from studies
of fortifications, but also from research on types of mixed-function architecture, civil and military alike, in particular on those
large towers especially suited to glorifying the link between the
encompassing character of the main architectural form and the
spiral corpus. What is more, by linking all this with the typol-
ogy of the Urbino towers, it is indeed possible to single out the
importance of the French contribution to the “open well” spiral
staircase. However, we must in any event come back to the figure of Leonardo, who appears like the “channel” for the encounter between new ideas and the architecture of regional cultures.
On 14 March 1516, Guillaume II Gouffier, lord of Bonnivet, who
at the end of that year became king Francis I’s admiral, wrote to
the French ambassador in Rome, asking him to “request Master
Leonardo to come to the king, for the said lord awaits him with
great devotion and doth assure him earnestly that he will be
welcome both by the King and by the King’s mother”34 . This
was the same Bonnivet who, between 1516 and 1517 (when works
started at Romorantin) 35 , inaugurated the construction site for
his own castle36. And on many an occasion he crossed paths with
the man from Vinci37.
bution by Fra Giovanni Giocondo and Domenico da Cortona to the project of
the Tour des Minimes at Amboise castle, it too with a spiral ramp similar to that
in the Urbino tower, facilitating access for horses and carriages from the city to
the castle’s terrace. Cf. Vincenzo Fontana, Fra’ Giovanni Giocondo architetto 1433c.1515, Vicenza, 1988; see in particular p. 38, the discussion of the contributions of
Paul Virty and François Gebelin in relation to this argument.
34
178
Cf. the letter published in its entirety in this catalogue on pages 29-33.
As emerges from the new research by Pascal Brioist.
36
Jean Guillaume, Le Château de Bonnivet. Entre Blois et Chambord: le chaînon
manquant de la première Renaissance, Paris, 2006, p. 22.
37
Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo da Vinci. The Royal Palace of Romorantin, Cambridge
(Mass.), 1972, p. 320.
35
APPENDIX
The King’s Staircase
by Domenico da Cortona
T
HE LEONARDO (da Vinci) museum is presenting as a preview at
the Château du Clos-Lucé an attempt at a digital reconstruction of
a wooden maquette corresponding to a project attributed to Domenico
da Cortona for Francis I, possibly in 1517 or thereabouts [1] and found
by André Félibien in 1681 in a house in Blois. This digital reconstruction – still being improved upon – proposes, for a series of new research
(undertaken with the assistance of Emanuela Ferretti and David Turini),
to explore in greater depth, from
a viewpoint of historical architectural philology, the character
of the project, the alternatives to
the final project which it possibly
showed, its different areas of incoherence (which might also be due
to the reconstruction by Félibien),
and to enable the general public
to become acquainted with it.
A section of the digital recon1 André Félibien, first Chambord
struction
is devoted to the main
project
staircase in the castle project, a
staircase with two parallel ramps
offering direct and monumental
access to the first floor, ramps separated by a corridor giving access to
the ground floor. On the first floor,
in the opposite direction, a third
flight leads to the second floor.
This diagram with two flights +
one flight appears in the description by André Félibien:
The number of rooms, and
their distribution is very akin
2 Windsor, RL 12592
to what one sees executed at
Chamborg, apart from the
staircase of the model which is quite different from that of Chamborg; for it is encountered at the very entrance to the building and
when one has crossed a vestibule, which has two passages or areas
of galleries on the Chasteau side. This is a double staircase as far
as the first floor, that is, there are two ramps, one to the right and
the other to the left, and, because one enters the vestibule through
three doors, one in the middle and the other two on the sides, the
ramps are opposite the side doors, and the middle acts as a passage
that leads to the lower apartments, where there are three.
3 CA, f. 220 r-c [592 r] (Pedretti 1962)
4, CA, f. 220 v-a [592 v] (Pedretti 1962)
[179]
5 Jean Guillaume, Reconstruction of the staircase
from the wooden model designed by André Félibien
6 Ms. L, f. 19 v
There are similar lodgings on the upper floor; but to climb from
the second floor to the third, the staircase has just one flight which
rises in the middle of the passages, which serve to communicate
with the lodgings which are on the front side1.
The overlapping studies of Jean Guillaume2 and Carlo Pedretti3 have shed
light on the presence of axonometric sketches, in plan form and as linear
perspectival drawings in several of Leonardo’s drawings which correspond to Félibien’s description: the sheet Windsor RL 12592 from the
years 1506-1508 [2], where there is also mention of “ultime scale”, is very
important in this respect, as are other drawings on the sheets CA 592 r-v,
dated about 15054 [3-4]. Jean Guillaume, linking a suggestion made by
Leonardo on sheet RL 12592 and the Cortona plan [1] has reconstructed
a very plausible view of the staircase in question [5]. A suggestion by
Leonardo in Ms. L, fol. 19 v [6], c. 1497-1502, pointed out by Carlo Pedretti, may indicate the possibility that in the case of the Palazzo Ducale in
Urbino this staircase structure might have corresponded, on the contrary,
to a diagram with one flight + two5 . Based on these studies, our research
has identified in a drawing by Francesco di Giorgio Martini (Codex
Magliabechianus II.I.141, f. 24 v, c. 1497-1500) [7] a structural
model of this type of staircase. The drawing is part of a sheet
of the codex that is very frequently identified with one of
the possible sources of inspiration for the cross-shaped plan
of Chambord; it should also be said that these drawings have
serious analogies – apart from the towers – with the plan
by Domenico da Cortona. We should point out, in addition, that this sort of drawing by the Siennese architect is included in a section of his treatise dedicated to the “Maisons
des Princes” or “Houses of Princes”. These houses – wrote
Francesco di Giorgio in sheets 24 r-v of the codex – must
be made up of two floors and a ground floor; the floor for
public and religious activities, for the prince’s private apartments – the
king’s floor, therefore – had to be the first level. Francesco di Giorgio
Martini – among other authors and sources – seems to be one of the
most important figures to define the formation of a language designed
to convey architectural solutions between the late fifteenth century and
the early sixteenth century, a language involving Leonardo da Vinci just
as much as Domenico da Cortona, which circulated between Italy and
France in the early years of the Renaissance.
The following series of photograms, taken from the dynamic digital reconstruction on view in the exhibition, shows the possibilities of converging propositions and suggestions to which I have referred.
1
André Félibien, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des maisons royales et bastiments
de France, 1861, published for the first time on the basis of the manuscript at the
Bibliothèque Nationale by A. De Montaiglon, Paris, J. Baur, Librairie de la Société, 1874, pp. 27-29.
2
Jean Guillaume, “Léonard de Vinci, Dominique de Cortone et l’escalier du
modèle en bois de Chambord”, in Gazette des Beaux Arts, vol. LXXI, 1968, pp. 93-108.
3
In particular chapter V, The House of Charles d’Amboise, in his research The
Royal Palace at Romorantin, Cambridge (Mass.), 1972, pp. 41-52, and see also the
long footnote 9, p. 294.
4
See Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo architetto, Milan, 1978, pp. 141-145; I greatly thank
Carlo Pedretti for this suggestion.
5
See Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo architetto, Milan, 1978, p. 172
180
7 Francesco di Giorgio, Codex Magliabechianus, II.I.141, f. 24 v
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
Digital Analysis by Alexander Neuwahl © 2009
[181]

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