Pocket-size architectural notebooks and the codification of practical knowledge

Abstract

Based on the study of five small-scale Italian architectural manuscripts, dated between 1470 and 1520, this article uses the practitioners' drawings to examine early modern artistic education, and the means by which architectural knowledge was systematized, developed, shared, and retrieved. To this end, the paper consider the books' contents in terms of differing divisions of architectural knowledge and modes of visualization. The function of the manuscripts' drawings-which include generic models, building diagrams, design "recipes," and exercises in architectural invenzione-varied significantly depending on context, and although no single image served as a "working" plan, all were in some way immediately useful to the practitioner. The drawings may thus be understood as records of architectural practice, and as such, relate to the codification of design-based knowledge and the evolving language of early modern architectural representation.