INTRODUCTION
According to conventional wisdom, the Villa Emo at Fanzolo could never
have been based on Golden proportions. I could not believe this myself—not,
that is, until I saw the entire mathematical scheme for Palladio's elegant
Renaissance buildings, which sit on a flat, fertile plain in Treviso, in northern
Italy [Fletcher 2000].
In "Palladio's Villa Emo:The Golden Proportion Hypothesis Rebutted"
[March 2001], Lionel March argues that the Golden Section, or extreme and
mean ratio, is nowhere to be found in the Villa Emo as described in I quattro
libri dell'archittetura. Palladio, he says, "has given the actual measurements"
and they simply do not add to a scheme of Golden proportions. He is
absolutely right. The extreme and mean ratio is not observed in the Emo
plan as it was published. But the villa Palladio described in that publication is
not the villa he built and that survives today.
The discrepancy between the two versions was known as early as the 1770s.
That was when Bertotti Scamozzi published Le fabbriche e i disegni di
Andrea Palladio, in which he struggled to reconcile numerous inconsistencies
between built and published versions of Palladio's works [Scamozzi 1976: 75-
76]. Alas, Scamozzi's measurements were not as accurate as we would have
liked. Fortunately, a more definitive survey was performed in 1967 by the
architects Mario Zocconi and Andrzej Pereswiet Soltan for the Centro
Internazionale di Studi di Architettura "Andrea Palladio" (C.I.S.A.)
[Rilievi 1972; Favero 1972: 29-32 and scale drawings a-m].
Many believe Palladio's published plans present idealized versions of his
buildings, permitting him to make adjustments for the special conditions of
specific sites. But perhaps, in some instances, different versions provided
options for design and proportional schemes. For example, the published plan
for the Villa Emo presents a conventional set of stairs that leads to a south-
facing portico. In fact, a unique, elongated ramp was built. Members of the
Emo family today believe it served as both an entryway and a threshing floor
to meet the villa's agricultural needs. Does it correct the building's proportions
to substitute the ramp with shorter conventional stairs? The Emo family thinks
not, and perhaps Palladio did not think so, either, for a corrected set of
measurements is not indicated.
Different measures are specified, however, for the plan of rooms on the main
floor of the central block, and these are the stuff of musical and mathematical
harmonies, as Lionel March so brilliantly demonstrates. The discrepancy is
subtle, perhaps too subtle to reflect real versus ideal conditions, but sufficient
to suggest a different mathematical interpretation.
BUILT AND PUBLISHED MEASURED COMPARED
Overall length and width of the main floor plan
Compare the built and published versions of the main floor plan, beginning
with overall length and width, as published, in Vicentine feet (the Vicentine
foot corresponds to 34.75 centimeters [Favero, p. 18]). (Figure 1)
Lionel March calculates total length by adding individual measures along a
north-south axis of length, including the lengths of three individual rooms and
the thickness of four walls. For the moment, the thickness of any given wall is
called x.
Total length = x + 27 + x + 12 + x + 16 + x = 55 + 4x.
Total width is calculated in similar fashion:
Total width = x + 16 + x + 27 + x + 16 + x = 59 + 4x.
Taking x = 1 as an initial choice for the wall thickness, following March,
results in the ratio of total length to total width of 59:63, or 1:1.067.
How does this compare with the ratio of overall length to width in the villa's
plan, as it was built (Figure 2)? According to the C.I.S.A. survey, total length
and total width are 20.56 meters and 22.35 meters, respectively. Therefore, the
ratio of length to width is 20.56:22.35, or 1:1.087. A subtle difference from
the 1:1.067 ratio of the published plan, but one that may be viewed at a
glance.
Since the published plan does not provide a measure for the thickness of
walls, we cannot assume it is equal to 1. But applying a variation of Lionel
March's method, we can determine what the thickness must be for the
published plan to match the built plan's 1:1.087 ratio of length to width. In
other words: (55 + 4x) : (59 + 4x) :: 1:1.087. To satisfy the proportion, the
thickness of a wall x must be approximately equal to -2.2557 feet. Not quite as
impossible as the negative wall thickness of over five feet required for a
Golden Mean scheme to match the plan's published measures, but impossible
nevertheless.
Overall length and width of the geometric scheme
Did I quattro libri "correct" the measures of the villa as built, or was a
different proportional scheme presented? Consider the proposed geometric
scheme of Golden proportions, which is based on a rectangle that results from
inscribing a double square within a circle (Figure 3). The length of the
rectangle equals the long edge of the double square. The width equals the
diameter of the circle. The ratio of length to width is , or approximately
1:1.118. This 1:1.118 ratio is not the same as the 1:1.087 ratio of the overall
plan, as built. A rectangle of ratio 1:1.118 may be accomplished, however, by
subtracting 27 cm. of thickness each from the north- and south-facing exterior
walls.[1] Once this adjustment is made, extreme and mean divisions align
with one face or another of the remaining interior walls (Figure 4 and Figure
5).[2]
Length and width of individual rooms
To further illuminate the difference between the two plans, compare the
dimensions of individual rooms. In meters, the central hall in the published
plan is 9.38 x 9.38, but the hall that was built measures 9.44 x 9.33. The
northeast and northwest bedrooms, as published, are each 9.38 m. x 5.56 m.,
whereas the rooms as built measure 9.44 m. x 5.66 m. The small southeast and
southwest rooms, as published, are each 5.56 m. x 5.56 m., while the rooms as
built measure 5.62 m. x 5.62 m. Excluding the thickness of the walls, the total
width of the central block, as published, is 20.50 meters. The same, as built, is
20.66 meters [Favero 1972: 31].
This does not mean that the inside measurements of the rooms as built convey
extreme and mean ratios, either within themselves or in relation to others. But
when the thickness of walls is factored to one side or another, a scheme
emerges in which the overall rectangle divides continuously in Golden
proportion.
Given the evidence of the plan as it was built, perhaps Lionel March will
reconsider whether "the visually gratifying result is so very wrong when tested
by the numbers."
HISTORICAL PRECEDENT
The question remains: If Palladio designed with extreme and mean ratios,
why didn't he publish a relevant construction in I quattro libri? Lionel March
argues that Palladio never published a construction that produced the extreme
and mean ratio. He grants that Alberti described an exact construction for a
decagon and that in the 1540s, Serlio illustrated Dürer's exact construction for
a pentagon. But as late as 1569, Barbaro presented only Dürer's approximate
construction, even though an exact construction is required to produce the
Golden Mean. And while Pacioli spiritualized the Divine Proportion and
Kepler connected it to planetary motions, the extreme and mean ratio lay
dormant essentially until the nineteenth century, when it was born again as the
Golden Section.
Lionel March further cites the ancient theatres, which are based, Vitruvius
tells us, on arrangements of squares and triangles and their inherent
and proportions. Pentagons, however, are nowhere to be found. Never
mind that the two sections of Epidaurus's theatron contain 21 and 34 rows and
merely approximate a true extreme and mean division. Iwouldn't consider it,
either, were it not for a study by German scholars Gerkan and Müller-Wiener
[1961: Pl. 3] that relates the theatre's skene, orchestra and theatron through a
regular pentagon and its inscribed and circumscribing circles.[3]
Let's face it. From as early as Euclid through the Renaissance and beyond, the
extreme and mean ratio was not unknown. Beside the examples already cited,
as early as 1726, well before the nineteenth century, mathematicians, builders
and architects published exact geometric constructions based on the Golden
ratio. Peter Nicholson, Batty Langley and others illustrated its use for
architects and builders [Nicholson 1827: Pl. 13 and problem XXII; Langley
1726: Pl. I, fig. XXVII and p. 41]. Mathematicians such as Sébastien Le Clerc
demonstrated numerous constructions in elementary texts [Le Clerc 1742:
112-113, 180-181]. In at least one instance, Ephriam Chambers linked the
extreme and mean ratio to the pentagon's exact construction [Chambers 1738:
opp. 142].
None of this proves that Palladio favored the extreme and mean ratio. He did
not publish an exact construction, but neither did he produce a book on
geometry comparable to Serlio's Book I. Had he written such a book, might it
contain an extreme and mean construction? Unfortunately, we probably will
never know.
It is true that the extreme and mean division does not rank among Palladio's
ratios for shapes for rooms. All but one, in fact, are comprised of ratios in
whole numbers.[4] But these address individual rooms, not the plan as a
whole, nor the rooms as they relate to one another.[5] The beauty of the
Golden ratio, as it adorns the Villa Emo, is that it distinguishes the plan as a
whole and persists through every level of subdivision. "Proportion" is defined
conventionally as the relationship of parts to one another and to the greater
whole. One would be hard pressed to find a better example.
Finally, Lionel March's most compelling argument is the practical one.
"Buildings" he says, "have to be set out," and triangulation has been the
method of choice "since time immemorial". Certainly, the Pythagorean 3:4:5
triangle is well suited to achieving the right angle, but surveyors may use
triangles for many purposes. Consider the simple right triangle of sides one
and one-half: it does not ensure the right angle, but its hypotenuse leads
directly to the Golden Section.
We base our understanding of the past on precious little evidence and so it is
prudent, from time to time, to revisit what we know with a new and open
mind. Without doubt, the Golden proportion hypothesis is filled with
speculation, for we cannot prove that Palladio applied it with deliberate intent.
And yet, given its persistence throughout the plan of Villa Emo, it may be
time to consider if all the relevant evidence is in.
Lionel March is to be thanked for illuminating the many rich and wonderful
mathematical techniques that grace the Villa Emo, from its 3:4:5 triangles to
elaborate musical harmonies. Is it so hard to imagine that extreme and mean
ratios occupied the Renaissance mind as well?
NOTES
[1] One justification is that the columns along the south wall relate to the ramped entry, with the
reduction repeated on the opposing north wall. return to text
[2] To be precise, the tolerance throughout is within 1 cm., with the exception of a single 9 cm.
deviation. return to text
[3] The circumscribing circle traces the inside face of the theatron, or auditorium; the inscribed circle
traces the inside edge of the orchestra perimeter; and the base of the pentagon locates the front edges of
the paraskenia, or the skene's projected wings [Gerkan and W. Müller-Wiener 1961: Pl. 3].
Vitruvius's brief but evocative description tells but part of the actual story. Roman theatres, he says,
emerged from a twelve-fold arrangement of four triangles, while the theatres of Greece followed a
twelve-fold arrangement comprised of three squares. Both geometries are inscribed within the orchestra
circle and locate elements of the different stage buildings. They also distinguish the half-round
Roman theatron from the Greek auditorium's fuller expanse through eight of the circle's twelve divisions
[Vitruvius 1999: 68-70, 247-248].
In fact, the Hellenistic Epidaurus appears to have adapted elements of both geometries to the situation at
hand. The orchestra perimeter may be divided into twelve equal arcs, locating the apexes for a regular
pattern of three inscribed squares. Eight of the twelve apexes roughly define the extent of the theatron,
but the geometry isn't precise until axes taken from the center through the first and eighth apexes meet the
outer edge of the lowest auditorium level. The remaining four apexes define the size of the skene, in the
sense that axes taken from the center through the ninth and twelfth apexes mark the inside corners of
the paraskenia. Meanwhile, the base of an equilateral triangle that is circumscribed by the orchestra circle
locates the theatron at its innermost edge [Fletcher 1991: 100-103]. return to text
[4] The one exception is a room in the ratio of 1: root-2 [Palladio 1997: 59]. return to text
[5] A simple whole number ratio may suffice for an individual room to express grace and harmony. But
Jay Hambidge [1967] explains that incommensurable ratios such as the Golden Section permit a
"dynamic symmetry" in which the same ratio persists through endless levels of subdivision. return to text
