Villard de Honnecourt, Archimedes, and Chartres

Abstract

THE techniques of Gothic masonry construction can best be studied in two ways. The monuments themselves unquestionably provide the best evidence of the procedures that were actually employed, although accurate measured drawings, the sine qua non of this approach, are difficult and costly to make, and they fail to reveal anything beneath the surface of a building, precisely where masons' setting-out marks are most likely to be concealed. One cannot wish that more Gothic churches will be destroyed so historians of architecture may prowl among the ruins, looking for indications as to how they were erected. The second approach comprises the study of the rare texts and documents that have been preserved from the Middle Ages. Foremost among these is the manual of the thirteenthcentury Picard architect, Villard de Honnecourt, which contains a set of diagrams of masonry techniques drawn and annotated by an anonymous follower known as Master 2, about 1250.1 These diagrams sometimes seem very hypothetical, however, and many still hold secrets for the modern reader. Three in particular-the keystones del tiirc and del quint point, and the so-called Archimedes spiral (p. 40 c-2, d, e in fig. 8) -have never been satisfactorily explained. The last one has the dubious honor of being the single diagram Master 2 did not annotate, but by extraordinary good fortune, similar spirals have been preserved on the bed-face of a capital from Chartres Cathedral.2 It is therefore possible to compare the manuscript figure with one that seems actually to have been employed in the construction of a Gothic monument.