Abstract
The significance of the Liuro de Perspectiva (Book of Perspective), attributed to António Rodrigues, lies mainly in the introduction of an innovative perspective rule designed to solve questions raised by the propagation of inaccuracies and insufficiencies of previous methods. However, the author’s scientific limitations prevented him from fully understanding the enormous potential of his geometrically accurate construction. Decoding and verifying the validity of this peculiar perspective rule leads to the center of the debate surrounding the origins of perspectiva artificialis. Rodrigues’s work demonstrates a striking fidelity to central perspective, especially obvious in one centrally-planned composition with ad quadratum and ad circulum geometry. Rodrigues’s own Onze Mil Virgens Chapel, built some time before 1565 in Alcácer do Sal is a prime example of these concepts.
First published as: João Pedro Xavier , “The Book of Perspective of António Rodrigues’s Architectural Treatise from 1576”, pp. 63–78 in Nexus VII: Architecture and Mathematics, Kim Williams, ed. Turin: Kim Williams Books, 2008
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Notes
- 1.
This school was shut down and transferred to Madrid by Filipe II, giving rise to the “Academia Real Mathematica” directed by Juan de Herrera . Later, this sovereign, by then Filipe I of Portugal, ordered its reinstitution in Lisbon, in 1594, with Filippo Terzi (c. 1520–1597) and João Baptista Lavanha (1550–1624) as its directors.
- 2.
An extended analysis of the Book of Perspective can be found in Xavier (2006).
- 3.
The second rule appears in proposition 34 and it is said to be the same rule used by Serlio : “Sebastianus Serlio bolognese in his “Book of Perspective” has foreshortened all the figures with this rule” (Rodrigues 1576: fol. 47v).
- 4.
Rodrigues extends the orthogonal sides of the square to the central vanishing point (PS) but he doesn’t take advantage of it in the construction.
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Xavier, J.P. (2015). Perspective in António Rodrigues’s Tratado de Arquitectura . In: Williams, K., Ostwald, M. (eds) Architecture and Mathematics from Antiquity to the Future. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00143-2_5
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