Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Pages tanned. Nice older book in good condition. binding loose. Softcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> Alberti in his Ten Books on Architecture declares that the aesthetic appearance building consists of two elements: Beauty and Ornament. He defines Beauty as “the harmony and concord of all the parts achieved in such a manner that nothing could be added or taken away or altered except for the worse.”1 Ornament is “a kind of additional brightness and improvement to Beauty. Beauty is something lovely which is proper and innate and diffused throughout the whole whilst Ornament is something added and fastened on rather than proper and innate.”2 Beauty is thus according to Alberti a harmony inherent in the building a harmony which as he subsequently explains can be detected by rational means. Its chief characteristic is the classical idea of maintaining a uniform system of proportion throughout all parts of a building. The key to the correct application of proportion is Pythagoras’ system of musical harmony. Alberti concludes from Pythagoras’ saying “Nature is sure to act consistently and with a constant analogy in all her operations” that “the numbers by means of which the agreement of sounds affects our ears with delight are the very same which please our eyes and our minds.”5 Ornament is an embellishment of the building in the widest sense of the word from the stones used for the walls to the candlesticks in the building. (LL)