Leonardo’s Representational Technique for Centrally-Planned Temples

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Leonardo invented a new technique of representation which combines the building plan and a bird’s-eye perspective of the whole into a single system. Bird’s eye perspective may have developed out of cavalier perspective, and instances pre-dating Leonardo can be found, but not used in the same way as he employed it. Though not pre-axonometric, Leonardo took advantage of axonometric representation’s capacity to construct/deconstruct an object into its component parts in order to clarify fitting and functioning. This paper investigates the originality of the technique and special relationship with his research on centrally-planned churches, while examining it in the context of contemporary developments and architects.