From Gothic to Renaissance Stereotomy: The Design Methods of Philibert de l'Orme and Alonso de Vandelvira

Abstract

Stereotomy is the art of cutting solids precisely so their parts fit together tightly. Although stereotomic problems arise in all masonry or wood construction in which a whole must be made of various parts, calculations are needed only for precise compound-angle or curved cuts. Cutting simple rectangular blocks demands no special knowledge, and even complex cuts often can be determined empirically by approximation and fitting, in the way traditional carpenters or ancient Greek and Inca masons adjusted joints by sanding down or trimming points of contact until matching surfaces were obtained.' Simple arches introduce a trivial complication: voussoirs require adding adjustable angle protractors, or bevels, to masons' tool kits. Even the sloping barrel vaults of the Hellenistic temple of Apollo at Didyma could have been constructed without resort to geometric theory. Complex curves based on conic sections appear in structures only after the Roman development of intersecting groin vaults. Treatises such as the Conics by Apollonius of Perga or its lost predecessor, the Four Books on Conics by Euclid, could have provided a conceptual background for this architectural innovation, although in fact they probably were superfluous. Roman builders avoided stereotomic computations of vault groins by the use of mass concrete and brick that