A Baroque Architectural Text The Architettura Civile of Guarino Guarini ELISABETH L. FLYNN Longwood College Guarino Guarini (1624-1683), a mathematician, philosopher, architect, and author, was educated by the Theatine Order and spent his adult life as an ordained priest in that order. Of all his occupations, Guarini is best remembered today as an architect, but evidence of his involvement with teaching survives in his major architectural treatise, Architettura Civile [Civil Architecture], published in 1737, fifty-four years after his death. Guarini began teaching philosophy in his native Modena. Exiled by Alfonso d'Este in 1655, he went to Parma and Guastella and then spent an undocumented four years, possibly in Spain or Rome. In 1660 he was in Messina teaching philosophy and mathematics. Two years later, he returned to Modena to visit his dying mother, and from there he went to Paris to teach theology and publish his treatise, Placita Philosophica [Philosophical Principles]. Guarini came back to Turin in 1666 where two years later he was named professor of engineering and mathematics. In 1671, he published Euclides Adauctus [Euclid Augmented]. During the next few years he was busy writing and publishing his Compendia della Sfera Celeste [Epitome of the Celestial Sphere](1675). Guarini published a treatise on fortifications in 1676, and two years later, another treatise on Leges Temporum et Planetarum [Laws of the Times and Planets]. In 1683, the year of his death, he published Coelestis Mathematicae [Of Celestial Mathematics]. The architect Bernardo Vittone edited what for us is the most famous of Guarini's literary works, the Architettura Civile, often simply called Il Trattato [The Treatise]. Remembered today primarily for the plans, sections, and elevations of Guarini's own projects, the Architettura Civile was intended primarily as an instructional outline covering the fundamentals of architectural design. Internal evidence, such as references to contemporary publications, detailed discussions, and careful drawings, indicate that Guarini's masterpiece reflected his life-long study of engineering, geometry, philosophy, and architecture in a book designed and written for architectural students. Architettura Civile consists of five books, encompassing 45 plates containing over 390 geometric drawings, including 35 plates of Guarini's own buildings. These plates, originally published separately in 1686, were incorporated by Vittone in the 1737 edition which became a comprehensive text covering the philosophy and aesthetics of architecture and practical working methods of construction. Each book is divided into chapters with titles and numbered observations with headings. The detailed discussion of both 18 ARRIS 1: 18-28. 1989 FLYNN: GUARINO GUARINI'S ARCHrJEITURA CIVILE 19 LASTRA II. TAAT I. ~ \ ~ • A;r fi~ c • c • (I D A H .D Q • t; .l A a c ~· ~& & • Figure 1 Tavola II: Construction and use of the compass and the square. 20 ARRIS 1. 1989 elementary and advanced geometry and the accompanying plates of specific drawings contribute to an explicit demonstration of philosophy and geometry and their practical application to building. Students are introduced first to the fundamental concepts of the field and then led step-by-step in the practice of architecture. In Book I, OfArchitecture in General and its Principles, Guarini follows Vitruvius by stating that architecture is both an art and a science. The architect must recognize all the arts- sculpture, painting, metallurgy and stonework- and he must know how to use them. Chapter I, "Of the parts of architecture and its various types," parallels Serlio, Palladia, and Vignola by identifying six different architectural types: military, civil (public basilicas, gates, etc), economic (private, especially for city people), rustic (villas for the countryside), hydraulic (dams, waterworks, bridges), and ecclesiastical. "And all these parts of architecture are accompanied by machinery which serves them." Each of these parts has two sections, the formation of the design and its execution which transforms design into art. Chapter II, "Of the arts which serve architecture," Guarini uses Vitruvius and adds to his list of related studies those of practical arithmetic, altimetry, geometry, geodesy, and solid geometry. In Chapter III, "Of the rules of architecture in general," Guarini notes that architecture must depend on mathematics, but his first observation is that architecture above all other things respects convenience (comodita), as the art of building is born of necessity. Even...