Graphical Tools for an Epistemological Shift. The Contribution of Protoaxonometrical Drawing to the Development of Stonecutting Treatises

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the graphical methods employed in the stonecutting treatises from that of De l'Orme, published during the sixteenth century, to De La Rue's Traité de la coupe des pierres, published in 1728. We will deal with the graphical means that made possible an epistemological shift between treatises of the sixteenth century, written for practising stonecutting masons in a period where the subject was covered by a veil of secrecy, which in some specific cases included a very intuitive form of representation, "protoaxonometries", and eighteenth-century treatises, which show a clear scientific and pedagogical approach to the geometrical problems posed by stonecutting. © 2011 Kim Williams Books, Turin.