To explore AskAlice I started simple and searched up the author of my book (Cours d’architecture – Augustin D’Avile). For the topic I have chosen architect and as Alice’s brain I went with Xenotheka Library. However, the results were not really helpful because the only informative thing I found out is that he and his companion Antoine Desgodetz went to Rome in 1674 with the mission of measuring the principal Roman monuments. On their way south they were kidnapped by pirates and had to be ransomed by the crown before they could start work.
As the subject of the book is about the five orders of Vignole and his comments, illustrations and descriptions of his most beautiful buildings and also the ones of Michelangelo. I decided to search up Vignola with the same settings as before. But I’ve not found any information about the architect Vignola and his work, the best I have found is how he is mentioned in a comparison. It’s a text from the book Modern Architectural Theory – Mallgrave and is about the architect Briseaux who admires and revives the theories of Vignola, Alberti and Palladio and insists on an absolute or essential beauty found in nature, that is, the constant of harmonic ratios naturally in accord with human constitutions. Briseuax was praising the efforts of Blondel, because he had the same outlook as him, and at the same time Briseaux attacked Perrault in his book for blaming him for the later decline of academic theory and for creating an “epoch of decadence in French architecture.” I find this part interesting because the author of my book is also from France and went to Italy to learn everything about architecture and later went back to France to practice what he learned in Italy.
My next step was to search up columns with the topic Vignola. I found a section from the book Late Gothic Architecture – Bork, where it talks about the geometry of the columns. Here Leonardo Da Vinci and Vitruvius are mentioned and their theories regarding the geometry of the column. Vitruvius developed proportion laws for building elements with many specific and highly precise rules arranged into a formidably complex set of subcases and categories. For example, Recommended column heights and spacings between columns, for example, are described as multiples of the column diameters. This text reminded me of the pictures in my book, which I chose for task 1, where you can see the different geometric shapes visualized and also the different columns compared. You can see how much you have dealt with this far-reaching subject and have analyzed things and each in his own way.