The book with which I will become even better friends is titled “Dell’architettura. Dialogi di Ermenegildo Pini C.R.B”. Ermenegildo (1739-1825) is also the author of the book. He was a studied philosopher, geologist and mathematician who was very interested in and geological phenomena and to proof them in a scientific as well as in a religious way. By already mentioning the dialogue in the title is clearly saying, that Pini discusses architecture with different viewpoints. For me these would be the scientific and the religious one and where they could intersect or have the same foundations. However, he uses recitations of conventions made by different Italian colleges which he also includes in his work.His work consists of mostly continuous text and only two chapters. The chapters both discuss different parts on buildings. The first one is about the dome (la cupole) and is about 60 pages long.
In the second dialogue he then goes more into detail and writes about the “fortificazione”, the fortification. I understood this in a way of analyzing the structure and framework which are finally used to construct such a dome in a safe and stable way. The text often is interrupted by mathematical formulas and in the end also sketches which in my understanding show his conclusion of how this dome should be constructed. Remarkable is that there are only four pages with drawings and sketches even though more visualizations of his thoughts could be used more often and would make the work maybe more accessible for non-mathematicians.The work itself includes 109 pages.