Photograph: EAHN

Photograph: EAHN

Photograph: EAHN

Book Review

Vincenzo Scamozzi

The Idea of a Universal Architecture

Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura Press, 2003-

III: Villas and Country Estates
Edited by Koen Ottenheym, Henk Scheepmaker, Patti Garvin and Wolbert Vroom
Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura, 2003, 304 pp., many illus. (some color), € 79.50
ISBN: 9076863091

VI: The Architectural Orders and their Application
Edited by Patti Garvin, Koen Ottenheym, and Wolbert Vroom
Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura, 2008, 362 pp., many illus. (some color), € 89.50

ISBN-13: 9789076863153, ISBN-10: 9076863156

PDF version
Architectural historians who do not read Italian will certainly welcome the appearance of the second installment of this admirable project to translate the six books of Vincenzo Scamozzi’s L'idea dell'Architettura Universale, published in Venice in 1615. The first volume to appear in this projected series of Dutch and English versions was Book III dedicated to Villas and Country Estates in 2003, the year of the monographic exhibition dedicated to this Vicentine architect and intellectual and held at the Museo Palladio in his hometown.*  In that catalogue (p.469) I discussed the single complete translation into English of Scamozzi’s work: an anonymous manuscript of circa 1680 held at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, expressing the hope that it might be transcribed and published, notwithstanding the difficulties of the contemporary language and the practical problem of the manuscript’s current overly tight binding rendering the part of the text in the crevice almost unreadable.

That project probably can be set aside safely now as the appearance of this second volume suggests that the publisher will proceed with the translation of all six books, slowly but surely. That the text should be simultaneously translated into both Dutch and English by a group of scholars working in Holland is particularly appropriate, even nostalgic, as it follows the same itinerary as the master’s original treatise translated into Dutch in numerous versions from 1640 onwards, hence spawning a number of subsequent translations into English made from these Dutch versions rather than the Italian original. This was the subject of a study undertaken by the author and Arnold Witte of the University of Amsterdam back in the 1990s, which is too often cited in its subsequent Dutch translation rather than original English version, consequently not receiving much attention.**   Our original article essentially confirmed that Scamozzi’s long text was radically abbreviated when published in Dutch, so as to become a practical building manual rather than remaining a deluxe architectural treatise, and this then characterized the volumes subsequently published in English translation. Thus apart from the unpublished Soane manuscript, no proper, full translation of the Vicentine’s treatise has ever been available in English – in contrast to the plethora of translations of Palladio’s Quattro Libri. This is the context and background that makes these handsome volumes particularly welcome, both for the scholarly community and those who love fine books.

Like the magnificent volumes of 1615, here no expense has been spared on these tall folio volumes resembling the originals, and inside one finds the text printed with an elegant typeface on good thick paper. That Scamozzi here finally receives his dues is worth emphasizing as his importance has not only been much overlooked but indeed his life and works were often denigrated until the 1980s.  So many visitors have made the pilgrimage to see Palladio’s Villa Pisani at Lonigo but not Scamozzi’s nearby Villa Rocca Pisani, despite the estimation of the latter’s masterwork by some very well-known scholars as being superior even to Palladio’s own Villa Rotonda-Capra.  Indeed, only following the success of the recent exhibition and catalogue have Scamozzi’s fortunes looked up, or rather returned to where they were when Inigo Jones met the aged master in Vicenza in 1614. Although he talked too much about himself and not enough about Palladio, Jones took a copy of Scamozzi’s 1615 treatise back with him to England and read and annotated it widely. This copy survives at Worcester College, Oxford and several comments reveal Jones’s appreciation of specific parts of Scamozzi’s work. Now many more readers can make up their own minds. Perhaps the only criticism that can be levelled at the works under consideration here is that while the inclusion of quite a number of full-page color photographs in Book III of 2003 made sense as they related to the text, the inclusion of photographs of Dutch palaces in Book VI of 2008 is quite misleading given that Scamozzi’s treatise has been shown to have had little influence on this architecture. However, if that is the price one has to pay for the significant investment evidently supporting this scholarly endeavor – to make the book attractive also to non-specialists – it is worth it, as these volumes make available for the first time in Dutch and English two of the six important and influential installments of Scamozzi’s work.

Andrew Hopkins
Università degli Studi dell’Aquila

*See Franco Barbieri and Guido Beltramini, eds., Vincenzo Scamozzi 1548-1616, Venice: Marsilio, 2003.  Catalogue of the exhibition held at the Museo Palladio, Vicenza.

** Andrew Hopkins and Arnold Witte, “From deluxe architectural book to builder’s manual: the Dutch editions of Scamozzi’s L’Idea della Architettura Universale,” Quærendo 26, no. 2 (1996): 274-302.  For another contribution to this context now see also: Arnold Witte, “Architectuur in vertaling: italiaanse en nederlandse bouwtradities in de zeventiende eeuw,” in “Rondom Vita di casa,” special issue, Incontri 21, no. 2 (2006): 151-160.