Text and image organization in Bernardino Radis “Vari disegni de architettura ornati de porte”
First of all, there is an astonishing lack of text in my book. Bernardino Radi only wrote one page to accompany his illustrations of architectural ornament on doors. There is a header which is probably three times the size of the normal font. After that, there is a block of text. The first letter of the two paragraphs is as big as the letters used in the headline. Then there is his signature at the end of the page. The font is bigger than what we are used to, to ensure good readability and the margins seem to make sure of that too.
On all the other pages there is only one illustration and then a blank page for space, so there is only one drawing on two pages. This is true for the whole book as there are only drawings after the text that comes across as a bit of an introduction for the pictures. The illustration takes the whole page space. It is always accompanied by a small line of text that seems to serve as a watermark for Radi.
The images are neither numbered nor referenced and seem like a loose reflection of Radis ideas.
The images occupy almost the whole book which is a lot when compared to the text which takes up about 50 pages and the blank space which is also about 50 pages. Radi really seems to have wanted to put the focus on his illustrations. They are drawn with a lot of attention to detail.
The book probably served as a kind of inspiration for the uninspired architect as it only projects Bernardino Radis own ideas and is not in any way an academic rendition of the orders or other architectural “rules”.
Gregorio gave me another book for scanning, because my book wasn’t recognized correctly. The New book is called “A Manual of Historic Ornaments” by R. Glazier.