Mapping the Persistence and Evolution of the Quincunx

Fabio Colonnese

doi:10.1007/s00004-020-00527-8

Abstract

The quincunx is a pattern that passes through different ages and cultures of Western world. It spread in the Byzantine era; it flourishes during the Renaissance, either in combination or as an alternative to the Vitruvian proportioning criteria; it suffers from a process of mathematization in the eighteenth century; it arrives at the twentieth century in the form of the so-called “nine-square grid problem” and is further re-evaluated in its historical prospective at the end of the century, in the Post-modern context. This article provides a mapping of its diffusion and inquires its development and evolution through the centuries.

Highlights

The game of tris or tic-tac-toe is widespread throughout the world
Besides the use of the grid as an extensive, abstract system of design proposed by the Turin-based architect Bernardo Vittone in both his treatises, Istruzioni Elementari (1760) and Istruzioni Diverse (1766) (Pérez-Gómez 1983: 109), the influence of Goldmann and his Italienische Lusthauss can be found up to Karl Friedrich Schinkel, in particular in the pavilion built in the park of the Palace of Charlottenburg at Berlin in 1825: designed to evoke the Prince’s stay in Naples, this Italian-style building shows a regular plan based on a 3 × 3 grid of rooms with a staircase in the center, which eventually causes the shifting of one of the internal walls
Alexander Purves states that, “The origin of a particular form is beyond our understanding

Summary

Introduction

The game of tris or tic-tac-toe is widespread throughout the world. In ancient Rome, where people used to practice it onto the marble steps of theatres and arenas, it was named terni lapilli, for it consists in sequencing three pebbles (lapilli in Latin) inside a square grid of nine boxes. After the introduction of the quincunx as an ancient religious typology and its revival in the fifteenth century as both a reference to antiquity and an adaptable layout to sacralize villas, I will first describe the seventeenth-century interpretation of the quincunx as a rational, mathematical 3 × 3 grid eventually embodying the idea of the Italian pleasure house; and inquire into its relationship with the so-called “nine-square grid problem” and the twentiethcentury quincunx applications as a tool of criticism and design.

Results

Conclusion