(PDF) Order and Ideal Geometry in the Pi

02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 520 Order and Ideal Geometry in the Piazza del Duomo, Parma areli marina University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign F or much of the last century, architectural historians tures, including a freestanding baptistry, a bell tower, and an have presented the energetic urban design activities episcopal palace (Figure 1).4 The harmony of this piazza’s of the Italian Renaissance as a great revival of prac- buildings and the coherence of its plan are the direct conse- tices dormant since the decline of the Roman empire. The quences of a century-long project in which a series of period between the ﬁfth and the ﬁfteenth centuries was builders and administrators collaborated in the creation of characterized as a proverbial urbanistic dark age, even as the new medieval civic square. Parma’s patrons and builders scholars of painting, sculpture, and architecture proved the achieved this remarkable transformation in unlikely circum- enduring vitality of medieval material culture.1 In the last stances. In this mid-size city, as in the rest of northern Italy, twenty years, a growing group of scholars has shown that— the thirteenth century was marked by continual civil disor- far from awaiting the ingenuity of Filippo Brunelleschi, der, sporadic famine, military and diplomatic confrontations Pope Nicholas V, Leon Battista Alberti, or Michelangelo— with international powers, and frequent intercity warfare. precocious planners in fourteenth-century central Italy had Yet, as I demonstrate in this study, far from being an accident already transformed urban centers according to geometri- amid this tumultuous history, the Piazza del Duomo of cally idealizing designs.2 Although the new principles that Parma is one of the earliest examples of rational planning in resulted in the pictorial revolution of Renaissance art may medieval Italy, antedating the better-known urbanistic rev- have been introduced by artists in central Italy, credit for olutions of Tuscany by over a century. Furthermore, the the revival of urbanism should go to the patrons and build- principles underlying its design are distinct from, though ing masters of northern Italy’s Lombard plain. The politi- related to, the processes and patterns identiﬁed by Marvin cal and artistic leaders of pioneering communes such as Trachtenberg and David Friedman in their studies of four- Bologna, Cremona, and Parma radically refashioned their teenth-century central Italy.5 city centers in the course of the thirteenth century, gener- ations before the patrons of Florence’s Piazza della Signoria or Siena’s Campo were born.3 Parma in the Middle Ages One of the signal manifestations of this urban rebirth is The Lombard plain in the High Middle Ages differed the redevelopment of the cathedral precinct of Parma markedly from the late medieval, Tuscan environment more between 1196 and 1296. During this century, one powerful familiar to Anglophone art historians. Since Philip Jones’s segment of Parmesan society created a magniﬁcent cathe- trenchant article, published in 1978, on the “legend of the dral square framed by four imposing new or renovated struc- bourgeoisie,” most historians have accepted that the engine 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 521 Figure 1 Piazza del Duomo, Parma, aerial view from the northwest driving political and economic change in twelfth- and thir- mercantile republic; power in medieval Parma was held teenth-century northern Italy was not some imaginary bur- closely by a small band of aristocrats whose authority geoning merchant class, but rather the increasingly derived from military might and who drew their revenues independent and afﬂuent landed nobility. However, the ele- from the region’s profuse agricultural resources.6 gant model proposed by Henri Pirenne, in which political The greatest problem of late medieval society in north- and social privilege are acquired by international merchants ern Italy was not the ﬂux of trade but rather the achieve- who then transform the cities, continues to haunt the art ment of sustainable order and security. As the city-states of historical literature on Italian urbanism. While this model the Po River valley gained their independence from the is valid for some northern European cities and perhaps even Holy Roman emperor, and as the temporal claims of the a few of the Tuscan and maritime cities of Italy, it does not papacy weakened in the face of the empire’s challenges, the ﬁt Parma’s circumstances nor, indeed, those of the dense links to the authority that had legitimated the habitual juris- network of cities of the Lombard plain. Parma was never a dictions and privileges of many members of the northern O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 521 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 522 Italian elites eroded. In Parma, the bishop had since 1037 The Episcopal Precinct up to the Twelfth held the title of count from the emperor; he was not only Century the de facto ruler of the Parmesan territory, but its de jure ruler as well. However, the privileges granted the commu- Today, the Piazza del Duomo in Parma looks much as it did nal associations of nobles by Emperor Frederick I in the fourteenth century (see Figure 1). Its square shape, the Barbarossa at the Peace of Constance in 1183 called into symmetrical arrangement of its buildings, the harmonious question the temporal jurisdiction granted the bishop by repetition of materials and motifs—all were contrived by its prior emperors, and this resulted in a protracted jockeying thirteenth-century planners. A series of minor, postmedieval for power among several Parmesan clans.7 interventions to the streets and buildings surrounding the Throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, fac- piazza has not changed its essential character. Although Allied tions within Parma’s noble oligarchy manipulated the cathe- bombs damaged a third of the city center and demolished dral chapter and the emerging communal government to buildings on the piazza’s northern edge in the spring of 1944, wage private struggles for control of the city and its resources. they spared (some say miraculously) the medieval cathedral, The faction that controlled the bishopric and cathedral chap- campanile, baptistry, and bishop’s palace.11 ter tried hard to retain the power that remained in its hands. Although the site looked very different at the end of The faction that led the communal association gradually the twelfth century, Parma’s patrons and builders did not arrogated many of the duties and privileges of the bishop. begin with a blank slate. Despite Paul the Deacon’s well- Hindsight allows us to see that the power of Parma’s bishops known statement to the contrary, the urban infrastructure of was waning irredeemably by the late twelfth century. Bishops the Roman world had not entirely vanished from the penin- would not thenceforth be able to retrieve their secular sula’s cities by the eighth century.12 Parma had been one of authority from lay hands. Nonetheless, clerics were often several Roman colonies along the Via Emilia, the consular exempt from the jurisdiction of the new lay government insti- road that traversed the Po River plain, linking its fertile tutions, and clerical ofﬁces such as canonries—and especially ﬁelds to the Adriatic ports. It was founded on the east bank the bishopric itself—commanded substantial properties, cas- of the Parma River (a tributary of the Po) in 183 B.C.E. and tles, and incomes. Thus, the church and its institutions resettled in Augustan times. Like other Roman colonies, remained a viable base from which members of the urban Parma had a rectangular fortiﬁcation marking the bound- elite could struggle with their rivals for power over the city aries of the city, an orthogonal street plan oriented to the throughout the thirteenth century. The church faction could cardinal points, and a rectangular forum at the intersection only hold onto its remaining privileges and powers over a of the colony’s cardo maximus (running north-south) and restless and suspicious population, however, if it could prove decumanus maximus (which ran east-west and coincided with that its mode of governance was capable of imposing order on the intramural path of the Via Emilia).13 Like many other the tumult and maintaining the standards that made civil— Italian settlements, Parma retained much of this underly- and therefore, civic—life possible.8 ing urban system. One means by which the church faction competed In the Middle Ages residents of Parma inhabited the against the communal government was by imposing a Roman city core. When the city eventually expanded beyond coherent, regular urbanistic and architectural program on the boundaries of the Roman fortiﬁcations, the colony’s the site of the episcopal precinct.9 This newly ordered orthogonal grid, gates, and major thoroughfares remained square could be understood as a metaphor for the orderly the backdrop against which medieval nodes and landmarks society sought by the bishop and his allies. Thus, the epis- were established, even as minor Roman streets were over- copal square developed over the course of the thirteenth taken by expanding city blocks and diagonal or serpentine century was not only the headquarters for the church fac- paths cut across former Roman insulae.14 The most impor- tion’s leaders, it was also a beacon for their political pro- tant families and institutions clustered opportunistically gram. Existing documentation indicates how carefully the around the major morphological elements of the ancient city elite that controlled the communal government afﬁrmed and the newer Christian institutions: near the city gates, standards of behavior so as to preserve order in its evolving around the cathedral and important monasteries, and along communal compound.10 Documents attesting to the desires the busiest streets. Surviving Roman building materials both of the episcopal elite are rare, but the surviving city fabric pedestrian (bricks) and exalted (sculpted and colored mar- demonstrates how its will to order was imposed architec- bles) were reused by Parma’s medieval inhabitants. turally on the physical city, as both prelude and symbol of The episcopal center of Parma was located next to the its imposition on the citizens. northern perimeter of the city’s Roman walls, on a site known 522 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 523 Figure 2 Detail of a diagram of early medieval Parma, after Marco Pellegri. The large quadrangle cor- responds to Pellegri’s hypothetical placement of the city’s Roman walls. The curtis regia, or royal court, is northeast of Pellegri’s hypothesized northern boundary. A, Roman forum; G, H, I, M, L, city gates; P, bridge as the curtis regia, or royal compound (Figure 2).15 The bish- series of galleries pierced its sandstone-revetted, “Lombard” ops of Parma received the curtis regia from Charles the Bald screen façade. Immediately to the south of the cathedral in 877. It had been the seat of royal or imperial power in the nave stood a heterogeneous cluster of structures, including city since Carolingian times, if not earlier. In 1149, Parma’s the semidetached chapel of Sant’Agata, assorted tomb mon- episcopal precinct included a bishop’s palace, a cathedral, and uments, and the canonical complex.19 a canonry, and had already housed emperors, popes, bishops, The next largest structure on the site was the bishop’s counts, and kings. A new, wider circle of fortiﬁcations built to palace. It stood to the west of the cathedral. Like the accommodate Parma’s expanding population enclosed the church, it was founded in the eleventh century and episcopal complex by 1169 (Figure 3).16 expanded in the twelfth century. In 1195, the palace was a Despite continuing struggles for authority between turreted, L-shaped brick structure (Figure 6). The north bishop and commune, Parmesan politics had reached a pre- wing of today’s palace contains substantial passages of carious balance in 1195, when Emperor Henry VI con- eleventh- and twelfth-century fabric, as do portions of its ﬁrmed the political jurisdiction of the bishop and chapter.17 west wing (Figure 7; note the surviving tower at the palace’s In the episcopal precinct, the reconstruction of the cathe- northwest corner).20 dral—which had been severely damaged by an earthquake The irregularly shaped space between the cathedral in 1117—was nearly complete. The newly ﬁnished church, and the bishop’s palace seems to have been unoccupied after dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption, was the most the sixth century.21 Houses owned by powerful Parmesan imposing structure on the site (Figures 4, 5). Like other aristocrats clustered to the north and south of this clear cathedrals in the region, it was a three-aisled basilica with a space.22 When Bishop Òbizzo Fieschi (r. 1194–1224) came projecting transept and three apses.18 Three portals and a to power, the episcopal compound consisted of a cathedral, O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 523 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 524 Figure 3 The walls of Parma in 1169, after Pellegri. A, episcopal complex; C, Roman forum; D, E, F, G, H, I, city gates Figure 4 Reconstruction diagram of the cathedral piazza, Parma, in 1194 524 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 525 Figure 5 Duomo, Parma, detail of the façade Figure 6 Plan of the bishop’s palace, Parma, after Banzola and Cozzi. North is at the top. Figure 7 Bishop’s palace, Parma, aerial view from the east O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 525 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 526 a canonry, a bishop’s palace, and assorted minor structures, surrounding a clear but amorphous open space and ﬂanked by privately owned structures (see Figure 4).23 The Transformation Begins: The Foundation of the Baptistry In 1196—only one year after Emperor Henry VI’s conﬁr- mation of Bishop Òbizzo’s political authority—the cathe- dral workshop directed by Benedetto Antelami laid the foundations for a new baptistry (Figure 8).24 The baptistry project initiated the century-long transformation of the platea maioris ecclesia, as the open space in the middle of the former curtis regia was known (Figure 9). The baptistry begun by Antelami was made of the typ- ical brick of the Po plain, but faced with the pink and white limestone called rosso di Verona.25 Eight polygonal buttresses form the angles of the baptistry’s irregular octagonal plan. Three of the building’s facets encompass richly sculpted, splayed, Gothicizing portals. The ground stories of the remaining ﬁve facets are composed of blind arches sup- ported by classicizing engaged columns. Above the ground story, the exterior of the baptistry is articulated by four tiers of colonnaded galleries, topped by a blind arcade and a mas- Figure 8 Baptistry, Parma, viewed from the northeast sive cable molding. The baptistry has a peaked roof sur- mounted by a balustrade, pinnacles, and a bellcote. Figure 9 Reconstruction diagram of the cathedral piazza, Parma, in 1196. The dotted line repre- sents the path of the Canale Maggiore, which was uncovered along the Strada al Duomo. 526 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 527 Figure 10 Baptistry, Cremona, as seen from the northeast. The stone revetment was added in the sixteenth century in imitation of the bap- tistry of Parma, when its west and south por- tals were sealed. The octagonal form chosen for the baptistry’s exterior too is an octagonal, vaulted building with polygonal but- had a long history in Italy. The typology originates in early tresses at its exterior corners and internal arcaded galleries Christian martyria and baptistries, but in choosing it Parma’s (Figure 10). When construction of Parma’s baptistry began, planners also were participating in a more recent architec- Cremona was Parma’s close ally; their political lives were tural discourse. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, vari- closely intertwined. Indeed, Parma and nearby Cremona ous communities throughout upper Italy set out to build repeatedly exchanged podestà (executive ofﬁcers of the com- freestanding baptistry structures that rivaled the peninsula’s mune) between 1188 and 1246. The designers of Parma’s prestigious Early Christian and Byzantine examples.26 baptistry seem to have incorporated elements from its Parma’s baptismal building seems closely related to two pred- Florentine and Cremonese predecessors.27 ecessors, the baptisteries of Florence (by 1059) and Cremona Although the baptistries of other cities inspired its form, (begun 1167), as Saverio Lomartire has noted. The baptistries Parma’s planners made sure to associate their new building of Florence and Parma share the octagonal plan of Rome’s with its immediate context. They based the dimensions of Lateran baptistry, the taste for arcading and double-shelled their baptistry on the principal module used in the design of structure seen in the Holy Sepulcher rotunda in Jerusalem, the adjacent cathedral, a unit measuring approximately 12 and the proportional system and overt classicism of the braccia, or 7 meters (Figure 11). (Braccia measurements are Pantheon. Cremona’s baptistry is structurally and decora- rounded to the nearest quarter braccio. For the complex ques- tively less ambitious than its Florentine predecessor, but it tion of Parma’s medieval measurement system, see the appen- O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 527 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 528 Figure 11 Analytical diagram comparing the construction module underlying the design of the Duomo and Baptistry of Parma dix.) Each of the cathedral’s side-aisle bays measures 12 brac- easternmost buttress to the outer edge of the westernmost cia per side.28 The cathedral’s façade was nearly 48 braccia buttress, closely reﬂecting the width of the cathedral nave (27.94 m) wide and 48 braccia (28.67 m) high, four times the (Figure 13). Understood thus, the baptistry of Parma, like 12-braccia module.29 Despite the obvious difﬁculties in trans- the cathedral, is 48 braccia high and 48 braccia wide. ferring the cathedral’s module to a centrally planned struc- (Intriguingly, the same principle underlies the relationship ture, the planners of the baptistry nonetheless adopted it for between the baptistry of Florence and the width of the nave the dimensions of the new building. of Florence cathedral, begun a century later, although in The baptistry’s elevation is based on the 12-braccia Florence the cathedral’s dimensions were derived from module (Figure 12). Like the cathedral, the baptistry is 48 those of the baptistry, rather than the other way around. braccia high (28.03 m to the top of the heavy cable molding Parma’s baptistry also shares this one-to-one relationship surmounting its walls). Each pair of its upper story colon- of height to width with San Giovanni in Florence.)32 nades is 12 braccia (7.05 m) high, while the height of the The builders of Parma’s baptistry based its proportions baptistry’s ground story (to the stringcourse) is 17 braccia and dimensions on those of the cathedral, but what deter- (9.92 m), a measurement arrived at by the common mined its location? Parma’s planners seem to have looked to medieval design practice of rotating by 45 degrees the 12- Cremona for inspiration (Figure 14).33 Cremona’s baptistry braccia square, which served as the base module.30 is located to the southwest of the cathedral, with its central Although the baptistry’s façades vary slightly, they aver- (north) portal perpendicular to the cathedral’s façade, a age 12 braccia (7.0 m) in width as measured between the placement that keeps the platea in front of the church clear inner edges of the corner buttresses.31 Three of the bap- to accommodate ceremonies.34 A similar arrangement was tistry’s eight facets are visible from the center of the piazza: followed in Parma, but it was carefully adjusted to local con- the northeast, north, and northwest façades (see Figure 8). ditions. Like the Cremonese, the Parmesan planners When the northeast and northwest façades are (in the decided to place the new baptistry to the southwest of the mind’s eye) unfolded and aligned with its north façade, they cathedral, with its north portal perpendicular to the cathe- measure 48 braccia (28.10 m) from the outer edge of the dral’s west facade. I propose that a new urbanistic desire 528 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 529 Figure 12 Analytical diagram of the bap- tistry’s elevation, after Bertoluzzi and Sottili Figure 13 Analytical diagram illustrating how the baptistry’s façade design derives from that of the cathedral O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 529 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 530 determined the precise location of the baptistry—the desire to establish clear, geometrically derived relationships between the buildings on the site. Parma’s builders seem to have used the same Euclidean geometry to site the baptistry as they used to establish its plan and dimensions. They located the baptistry so that its north-south axis intersected the central longitudinal axis of the cathedral at a 90-degree angle (Figure 15). They appear to have determined the distance between the buildings by recourse to the cathedral’s base module. The planners seem to have drawn an imaginary line 461⁄4 braccia (26.95 m) long—nearly equaling the c. 48 braccia (28.01 m) height and width of the cathedral façade—originating from the cathe- dral’s west façade and continuing the path of its central lon- Figure 14 Cathedral square, Cremona, detail. As in Parma, the baptistry gitudinal axis. Then they extended a perpendicular line 48 of Cremona is perpendicular to the cathedral’s façade and its north portal braccia (27.94 m) southward from the western endpoint of faces the cathedral square. Its central portal (now sealed) faces west. the ﬁrst line. The baptistry’s north facet was perpendicular to this second imaginary line, which represented the contin- Figure 15 Analytical drawing representing the process used in siting uation of the baptistry’s cross axis. In this manner, the plan- the baptistry, Parma. The dotted line represents the path of the Canale ners called on the authority of the preexisting fabric on the Maggiore. 530 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 531 Figure 16 Analytical drawing representing the baptistry portals. The baptistry’s north portal (A) was the most important urbanistically. The baptistry’s west, central portal (B) was the most important liturgically, since it faced the altar along the building’s east wall. The south portal (C) remained inaccessible until 1262, when the abutting houses were cut back. site to provide the underlying logic for their design process. altar at the east—faced not the platea but a narrow street. The modest eastward displacement of the baptistry relative The baptistry’s north portal was the most important urban- to the ideal 48-braccia distance of the ﬁrst operation is prob- istically, as it faced toward the platea, the cathedral, and the ably due to the need to create a buffer zone between the new bishop’s palace. Liturgical custom and new urbanistic baptistry’s west façade and the canonical precinct. imperatives were thus in conﬂict. The planners’ desire to impose order on the irregular The building’s designers addressed this contradiction platea did not distract them from ensuring that the baptistry iconographically, not urbanistically. They chose the subject building’s design supported its liturgical function. Another of the Last Judgment for the sculpture of the baptistry’s cen- important factor in selecting the baptistry site was the litur- tral, west portal (the building’s most important entrance gical requirement that there be running water for the per- liturgically) (Figures 16, 17). This iconography had become formance of the baptismal rite. The site chosen for the standard for the central doorways of European basilicas by baptistry positioned it atop the Canale Maggiore (indicated the end of the twelfth century, following the French con- by a dotted line in Figures 9 and 15). This narrow, uncov- vention.37 The baptistry’s north, platea portal, by contrast, ered canal—already in existence in Theodoric’s day—con- was decorated with an amalgam of several iconographic ducted water underneath the canonry and the episcopal programs (Figure 18; see Figure 16). On the tympanum, a palace, and provided the baptistry with the necessary source large, central, enthroned Virgin (patroness of Parma) and of “living” water for baptism.35 Child receive the adoration of the Magi to her right, while Liturgical requirements also affected other design deci- to her left, the archangel Gabriel warns Joseph of Herod’s sions. Like their Pisan, Florentine, and Cremonese prede- impending infanticide. On the lintel below, scenes from the cessors, the Parmesans seem to have conceived of their life of John the Baptist are represented, with the Baptism centrally planned baptistry as a church of the more com- of Christ at center left. Thus, the decorative program of the mon, longitudinal, basilican form.36 Liturgical convention north portal (the baptistry’s most important entrance urban- dictated that the baptistry’s altar had to be placed on its east istically) alludes to the building’s civic importance by repre- wall and opposite the building’s central, west portal. In senting the city’s patron saint; simultaneously, its Parma, however, the baptistry building’s west, central por- representation of the Baptist refers to its dedication and tal—the most important liturgically, as it faced the main liturgical function. O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 531 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 532 Figure 17 Baptistry, Parma, detail of the west portal. The tympanum and lintel are decorated with Last Judgment imagery. Figure 18 Baptistry, Parma, detail of the north portal, facing the Piazza del Duomo. Represented on the tympanum is the enthroned Virgin, patron saint of the city of Parma. The lintel conveys the baptistry’s function and dedication, with scenes from the life of Saint John the Baptist, including the baptism of Christ, to the left. 532 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 533 Figure 19 View of the baptistry from the Strada al Duomo, Parma However, the baptistry of Parma—like many basilicas pressed up against the baptistry’s south walls, and that they and like its Florentine and Cremonese prototypes—had three remained there for over ﬁfty years, suggests that this resist- portals. As a consequence of the planners’ decisions, the bap- ance was not easily overcome. tistry’s third, south portal abutted a cluster of privately owned The position of the baptistry, together with its octag- buildings, which impeded access to it (see Figure 16). The onal plan and its ornamentation, rendered it the most dis- solution to this problem awaited a later generation of urban tinctive building visible to persons traveling on the most planners, but its existence reveals resistance to the ﬁrst plan- important access road into the platea, the Strada al Duomo ners’ urban program. After all of their careful calculations, (see Figure 15). One of the baptistry’s eight facets can be the ideal position chosen for the baptistry overlapped a site seen all the way down the street, where the Strada al that had been occupied since Roman times.38 In order to Duomo meets medieval Parma’s most important north- build, the baptistry’s planners needed to acquire and demol- south artery, now named Strada Cavour (Figure 19).40 ish houses that were owned by a branch of the noble Adam As I have demonstrated, far from being a casual choice, family. No documents survive to clarify the circumstances of the site selected for the baptistry of Parma preserved the this acquisition, but the Franciscan chronicler Salimbene de prestigious, open, usable space of the platea. Furthermore, Adam’s report of the affair intimates that his kinsmen were it took advantage of the Canale Maggiore, which provided coerced into giving up their homes.39 That houses still essential running water for the baptistry’s rites. And, ﬁnally, O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 533 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 534 Figure 20 Reconstruction diagram of the cathedral piazza in 1235 it provided an impressive preview of churchly magniﬁcence ent challenges by further transforming the episcopal precinct. to persons traveling toward the episcopal complex from In 1233, he added a dramatic extension to the episcopal the platea’s principal access road, the Strada al Duomo. As palace (Figures 20, 21).42 This construction gave the impos- construction of the baptistry continued throughout the thir- ing, fortresslike earlier building a truly palatial appearance. teenth century, the urbanistic decisions made by the bap- With its new arcaded portico on the ground ﬂoor—sealed in tistry’s planners would have long-lasting effects. the ﬁfteenth century—and a series of three-light windows on its upper stories, the episcopal palace matched the iconogra- phy of rule of Parma’s ﬁrst communal palace and surpassed it Squaring the Piazza del Duomo in size.43 The sandstone façade of the bishop’s palace set it No further evidence survives of any building projects apart from Parma’s usual brick construction and linked it to undertaken on or around the cathedral precinct by Bishop the cathedral, which was also faced in sandstone, while the Òbizzo or the canons for the remainder of his reign. In the rosso di Verona colonnettes in its windows tied it to the bap- ﬁrst decades of the thirteenth century, the focus of tistry as well. Yet Grazie and the cathedral workshop did not Parmesan building activity shifted away from the episcopal stop at enlarging the palace and altering its iconography. By square. The burgeoning communal government reinforced the unusual way in which they expanded the palace, they and expanded the city’s infrastructure and fortiﬁcations. In established the piazza’s square shape. 1221, the commune responded dramatically to the bap- Grazie’s addition has a highly irregular plan (see tistry’s deﬁant expression of episcopal might by initiating Figures 6, 20). It is an asymmetrical structure built against construction of the city’s ﬁrst communal palace a few blocks the east façade of the preexisting bishop’s palace. Rather away from the cathedral. Throughout the thirteenth cen- than making the extension symmetrical and parallel to the tury, both the communal and episcopal factions repeatedly existing east façade of the old palace, the builders aligned used architectural one-upmanship as a complement to the the extension’s new façade with that of the cathedral. As a diplomatic and military tools deployed in their recurrent result, the extension is approximately 191⁄4 braccia (11.22 m) contest for power in Parma.41 deep toward the northeastern end of the old façade, but Like his predecessor Òbizzo, Bishop Grazie (or Gratian) only about 13 braccia (7.53 m) deep where it meets the of Arezzo (r. 1224–36) responded to the commune’s persist- southeastern end of the old façade. Furthermore, the new 534 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 535 Figure 21 Bishop’s palace, Parma, east façade construction extends southward beyond the old façade by during World War II and do not appear at ﬁrst glance to be 191⁄2 braccia (11.46 m or 2 bays), all the way to the Strada al medieval structures, they were rebuilt on the preexisting Duomo, and then turns west toward the bishop’s orchard. foundations and encompass some passages of medieval At its northernmost end, the new construction tapers back masonry. Their original alignment was, at least in part, quite (westward) at an angle against the preexisting fabric.44 close to today’s, as is evinced by the fragment of a medieval While irregular in itself, the new addition regularized the two-light window that is visible within the façade of the piazza. The new façade hid the heterogeneous buildings building now occupying the piazza’s northwest border; it is behind it. As noted above, Grazie’s new fabric for the ﬁrst set back about ﬁve centimeters from the postwar façade. time made the palace’s façade parallel to that of the cathe- The current alignment also seems to coincide with that dral. The midpoint of the new façade was the center of the noted by Sardi in his eighteenth-century atlas of the city. ground-story pier that supports the façade’s ﬁfth and sixth Together, this evidence suggests that the line of buildings to arches (the ﬁfth pier). Although the palace’s façade is not the piazza’s north in the thirteenth century was quite simi- strictly symmetrical—the fenestration of the piano nobile is lar to the present one. not vertically aligned with the arcade below it—this mid- The depth of Grazie’s new façade was determined not point coincides exactly with center of the cathedral façade. only by the desire to make the bishop’s palace façade paral- Thus, the southward expansion of the palace seems to have lel to that of the cathedral but also by the desire to impose been designed to align its façade with that of the cathedral. even greater geometric order in the piazza. The expansion’s The expansion of the bishop’s palace drastically altered unusual footprint resulted in the transformation of the the western boundary of the platea (Figure 22). The breadth asymmetrical space into an almost perfectly square piazza chosen for the new façade of the bishop’s palace (88 3⁄4 brac- with 96 1⁄2 braccia (56.25 m) by 921⁄4 braccia (53.90 m) sides, cia or 51.81 m) nearly equaled the distance between the bap- bounded on the south by the line of the baptistry’s north tistry and the buildings bounding the platea to the north portal, on the west by the east façade of the bishop’s palace (96 1⁄2 braccia or 56.25 m), minus a small margin to facilitate and on the east by the cathedral’s west façade (see Figure circulation. The modern appearance of these buildings on 22). Notably, the cross axes of the newly reduced, square the piazza’s north side merits an explanation. Although the piazza now coincided with the center of the facades of each buildings along the north edge of the piazza were damaged of the three major episcopal buildings, resolving the former O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 535 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 536 Figure 22 Reconstruction diagram indicating the ideal square underlying the design of the cathedral piazza in 1235 problem of the asymmetrical relationship of the bishop’s destroyed unnecessarily, the maximum amount of the open palace to the cathedral façade and the baptistry (Figure space in the piazza was preserved, yet order and symmetry 23).45 These correspondences demonstrate the great likeli- were increased. hood that the planners envisioned a newly regular, square To summarize, the maximum dimensions of the new piazza and attempted to execute it as faithfully as possible square were established when the baptistry was built. The given the constraints of existing buildings and streets. 48-braccia ideal measure used to determine the baptistry’s A buttress marks the northern limit of the piazza façade siting, multiplied by two, became the unit that determined of the bishop’s palace (and the piazza’s northwest corner), the ultimate size of the ideal square. The breadth of the new but the new extension’s fabric doesn’t actually terminate bishop’s palace façade derives from that measurement. Nor there. The palace’s builders connected the new, regular is the elevation of the bishop’s palace arbitrarily determined; piazza façade of the palace with its twelfth-century north it relates to the dimensional system established by the cathe- wing by means of a short diagonal wall (Figure 24 and see dral and continued in the baptistry. For example, the width Figure 22). The builders’ handling of this seemingly minor of the openings of the ground-story loggia, the distance detail highlights the urbanistic strategies that shaped the between the top of the ground-story arcade and the base of piazza. This slanted wall is unquestionably part of the 1233 the piano nobile windows, and the distance between the campaign; its masonry is coursed in with that of the new intrados of the arch and the base of the piano nobile win- façade. Although the upper story of this slanted section of dows all measure 6 braccia (3.5 m). The distance between the new façade was destroyed in the eighteenth century, the molding atop the façade’s arcaded corbel table and the traces of the line along which it met the existing fabric are molding at the base of the piano nobile’s windows equals still legible on the twelfth-century wall. Indeed, the slanted 12 braccia (7.01 m), as does the distance between the top of wall continued the fenestration of the main, east façade of the piano nobile windows and the top of the ground-story the piano nobile; a keen eye can discern the springing of the arcade. archivolt for a ﬁnal three-light window to the north of the Although the piazza “reads” as a perfect square when corner buttress. The extension as a whole reveals some of experienced personally (instead of via my two-dimensional the principles underlying architectural and urbanistic prac- reconstruction plan), it does not achieve geometric perfec- tice in thirteenth-century Parma. No older fabric was tion. It is a virtual, not an actual, square. The church owned 536 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 537 Figure 23 Reconstruction diagram indicating the cross axes underlying the design of the cathedral piazza in 1235 Figure 24 Bishop’s palace, Parma, detail of northeast corner O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 537 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 538 Figure 25 Reconstruction diagram of the cathedral square in 1262. The houses south of the baptistry were cut back to display its south portal and facilitate circulation around the baptistry. the buildings on the eastern, southern and western borders The construction of the baptistry, with its steep vaulting, of the piazza and, therefore, it regularized those sides of the intricate interior elevation, complex architectural sculpture square. When the bishop’s palace project was begun, the cycle, and extensive use of imported stone, dragged on for church did not own the structures on the northern border decades.47 Although the tumultuous middle years of the of the piazza and, thus, had to content itself with a less than thirteenth century did not stop urbanistic activity in perfect northern boundary. That Parma’s planners might Parma—the city’s fortiﬁcations were expanded, streets were not have been able to fully execute the ideal geometry of paved and widened, the commune built more palaces and a the plan does not signify, however, that this geometry was civic tower—no new construction was begun in the Piazza not intentional. As Trachtenberg has shown, this accommo- del Duomo in this period.48 dation of an ideal plan to the real conditions of a site is not There was, however, some new destruction. In 1262— unusual. Even the most famously “ideal” of Renaissance a moment of singular harmony between Parma’s commu- squares, Florence’s Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, is nal and episcopal authorities—the commune enacted a not a perfectly regular rectangle, although it is usually char- statute ordering the expropriation and demolition of sev- acterized as such. Its designers had to inﬂect their plan to eral houses located just south of the baptistry in order to reconcile it to preexisting site conditions.46 “make the work of the baptistry visible, enable access through that [south] doorway, and permit circulation around the baptistry” (Figure 25; see Figure 16).49 The The Mid-Thirteenth Century space created behind the baptistry allowed the sculpture of The extension of the bishop’s palace was completed swiftly. its south portal to be comfortably viewed for the ﬁrst time While its scale and urbanistic ambitions were great, the (Figure 26). Previously, the buildings next to the baptistry means used to express them were relatively simple. Its had pressed so closely upon it that the baptistry’s portal builders used local brick and sandstone, and its architectural sculpture was nearly invisible. The statute precisely pre- decoration was limited: the façade was articulated by the scribes the amount of space demanded—18 pedes—although light-and-shadow effects of the series of arched openings we do not know how, or whether, the irregular space that and the arcaded corbel tables, by the colorful rosso di Verona was exacted corresponds to that ﬁgure.50 The top of the used in the window colonnettes, and the glazed ceramic portal’s elaborately sculpted lunette is 12 braccia (7.03 m) bacini inset above and between the windows (see Figure 21). above the baptistry pavement. Today, the distance between 538 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 539 Figure 26 Baptistry, Parma, detail of the south portal the baptistry and the closest portion of the small building to only its powers and jurisdiction, but also the communal its south is 121⁄4 braccia (7.2 m)—just far enough to give the compound on the site of the former Roman forum, a ten- viewer close to a 45-degree angle of view of the lunette minute walk to the southwest of the cathedral square. In without craning his or her neck. Trachtenberg has demon- addition to erecting houses for communal ofﬁcials such as strated that this angle of view derived from medieval opti- the podestà and the capitano del popolo, a jail, an impressive cal theory and was normative in Florentine trecento bell tower, and even a house for the communal lions, in urbanistic practice.51 While the principle seems not to have 1282 the commune doubled the size of its civic square and been consistently applied in duecento Parma, there is initiated a massive new palace alongside the northern ﬂank nonetheless one more intriguing example. of the newly enlarged site. As that new communal palace approached completion, Òbizzo di Sanvitale, bishop (r. 1258–95) and leader of the The New Campanile parte episcopi, or episcopal faction, retaliated by founding a Throughout the middle decades of the thirteenth century, new campanile alongside the cathedral in 1284 (Figures 27, the communal government had repeatedly expanded not 28).52 Like many of the bell towers built throughout cen- O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 539 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 540 Figure 27 Campanile, Parma Figure 28 Reconstruction diagram of the cathedral square in 1285 tral and northern Italy in the late thirteenth century, the facet of the baptistry. Now, the new campanile dominated bishop’s campanile consists of a square, brick tower pierced this vista. From its position slightly southwest of the cathe- by multiple-light windows, decorated with blind arches and dral’s façade, the bell tower hid the assorted structures arcaded corbel tables, and topped by a small balustrade with between the cathedral and the canonical complex and ﬁlled four corner spires and a large, conical, central spire. 53 It the void between the cathedral and baptistry perceived from resembles the bell towers of Pomposa and San Mercuriale the Strada al Duomo.55 at Forlì. To date, all church-sponsored construction in the At the east end of the Strada al Duomo, a small bridge Piazza del Duomo had been covered with expensive stone over the Canale Maggiore marked the entrance to the revetment, even when supply problems delayed its comple- cathedral square. (The canal is now underground, but in the tion for decades. While the new brick campanile did not early thirteenth century it had not yet been paved over.)56 receive a stone revetment—its brick walls were merely plas- To maximize the tower’s visual effect, its builders seem to tered and painted to look like stone—it is linked to the have used the 831⁄4-braccia (48.65 m) distance between the greater luxury of the stone-clad baptistry and the cathedral bridge and the site of the tower to determine the tower’s by the use of rosso di Verona for its corner buttresses.54 height (831⁄4 braccia to the top of its surmounting The church tower was unquestionably positioned for balustrade), rather than the 12-braccia module of earlier maximum visual impact (Figures 29, 30). The most impor- campaigns on the site. That number was in turn used to tant access road to the episcopal piazza from the rest of the derive other dimensions for the tower. For example, its city was the Strada al Duomo. The view from the Strada al square base measures 143⁄4 braccia (8.61 m) per side, ﬁve Duomo toward the Piazza del Duomo had featured one rotations along a quadrature series from 831⁄4 braccia. The 540 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 541 Figure 29 Reconstruction diagram of the cathedral square representing the cam- panile’s sightlines from the Strada al Duomo in 1285 Figure 30 The campanile as seen from the Strada al Duomo O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 541 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 542 of the baptistry (see Figure 30). Soon, he would have seen the cathedral façade through the open loggia of the bishop’s palace, taken in the extent of the campanile, and crossed the bridge to enter the piazza itself. Upon entering the piazza, the visitor’s journey east would have been blocked by the northward projection of the baptistry, forcing a change of course. The desire to enter the cathedral, or merely to bet- ter admire its façade, among other possible factors, could then draw the visitor to the center of the piazza. From that vantage point, the spectator could have admired the baptistry and its sculpted north portal, as well Figure 31 Analytical drawing representing the ideal 45-degree angle as the cathedral façade, and seen clearly into the expansive of view to the cornice of the campanile, Parma portico of the bishop’s palace. There he would have been approximately 47 braccia (about 27–28 m) away from each of the major episcopal buildings: cathedral, palace and bap- tistry (Figure 32). The baptistry and cathedral façades, each visitor entering the piazza from the Strada al Duomo would 48-braccia high, are very nearly at the conventional 45- have seen the tower at the same ideal 45-degree angle of degree angle of view. The top cornice of the bishop’s palace view that seems to have determined the area slated to be façade is 311⁄2 braccia (18.4 m) high (one-third the width of cleared in order to improve the visibility of and circulation the piazza); it is at a 35-degree angle of view. But the angles around the baptistry in 1262 (Figure 31).57 of view are not the most crucial issue here; the Piazza del The viewer traveling north along Via Cavour would Duomo of Parma does not have, nor was it intended to have been drawn westward up the Strada al Duomo ﬁrst by have, the rigor of Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, which a glimpse of the campanile in the distance (see Figure 19), privileges the perspectival view of a single monument, the and then by the glistening, pink-and-white northwest facet Palazzo Vecchio.58 Figure 32 Reconstruction diagram of the cathedral square representing the axial relationships between its major buildings in 1285 542 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 543 Figure 33 Duomo, campanile, and baptistry, Parma, viewed from the northwest Most signiﬁcant to note, without forcing the reading, orate sculptural decoration were among the ﬁrst examples in are the distinctive proportional relationships between the Italy of a northern European architectural style closely asso- buildings and the piazza’s open space. The relationship of ciated with the French, Burgundian, and imperial courts. the height of the baptistry and the cathedral façades to the Parma’s builders repeatedly used expensive, imported rosso di width of the piazza is 1:2. The ratio between the maximum Verona on all four of the piazza’s major buildings even though height of the bishop’s palace and the width of the piazza is it was sometimes difﬁcult to obtain. The ancient Romans had 1:3. The ratio between the height of the cathedral and the used the pink limestone in their Parmesan architecture, and maximum height of the bishop’s palace is nearly 2:3, and so the Parmesans seem to have self-consciously exploited this on. Even though these three buildings went up in three dis- association. When seen in combination with the orthogonal- tinct phases, their proportional systems are in careful har- ity and monumentality of the site, these elements unmistak- mony across the open space of the piazza. Indeed, the ideal ably embodied the claims to political authority of the piazza’s 96-braccia (56 m) square formed by the piazza can be derived patrons, that their power derived from their Romanizing, by rotating the original 12-braccia square module six times. imperial heritage and noble mores.60 These overall mathematical relationships do not have the trigonometric precision uncovered by Friedman in his investigation of the design of the new towns founded by The Panoramic Piazza Florence in the fourteenth century.59 Nonetheless, they are In addition to its newly regular form and the harmonious so pervasive—extending from structure to structure and reiteration of motifs and materials throughout the site, the across the generations—that they cannot be coincidental. Piazza del Duomo had another distinctive quality relating to Nor was the concerted and repeated use of Romanizing the production of power. A visitor to the site, whether and courtly motifs and materials throughout the piazza acci- standing at one of the best vantage points—atop the Canale dental (Figure 33). The baptistry’s Corinthian capitals, Doric Maggiore bridge or in the exact center of the piazza—or engaged column fragments, and trabeated galleries evoked simply wandering about the square, would have found him- imperial and Roman papal authority, as did the sculpted porch self surrounded by monumental episcopal buildings on supported by stylophore lions added to the cathedral façade in three sides. The piazza and the church-controlled buildings 1281. The massive ground-story arcade of the bishop’s palace establishing its perimeter were deliberately crafted to ﬁll recalled arched Roman monuments and imperial palace archi- the visitor’s vision. These monumental and symbolically tecture, while the elegant three-light windows of its piano charged structures either presented themselves as a nobile invoked the galleries and triforia of prestigious French panoramic three-sided ensemble if viewed from the square’s and German churches, as did the trifore of the cathedral façade north side, or embraced the visitor partly or fully if viewed and bell tower. Indeed, the baptistry’s splayed portals and elab- from any other vantage point within the piazza. O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 543 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 544 Figure 34 Cathedral complex, Pisa This aesthetic of enclosure differs radically from the bet- Despite this fundamental difference, there are four ter-understood urbanistic practices of Tuscany. In cities such as notable similarities between Tuscan and Parmesan urbanis- Pisa, Siena, and Florence, piazza spaces act as buffers between tic practice. As shown above, builders and planners in both individual monuments and the remaining city fabric and as areas created 45-degree angles of view for major buildings stage sets framing the monument for the viewer. Even when or building elements when possible. Second, both also pro- close formal relationships between individual monuments on vided visual cues to signal to viewers approaching the pres- a site exist, such as in Pisa’s Piazza del Duomo, the piazza sur- ence of the piazza from major entrance roads. In the case of rounds the monuments located at its center, rather than being Parma’s Piazza del Duomo, ﬁrst a facet of the baptistry and formed by them (Figure 34).61 The viewer is “outside” in the later the new campanile announced the piazza (and the piazza, looking “in” at the monuments. This effect may be a bishop) to visitors traveling on the Strada al Duomo. In consequence of the Tuscan approach to piazza design. In his Florence, the major roads opening into the Piazza della analysis of the principles guiding Tuscan urbanism, Signoria frame the tower of the communal palace (Figure Trachtenberg proposed a three-stage model. In the ﬁrst stage, 35), and similar mechanisms set off the campanile of newly erected buildings impose a buffer zone of clear space Florence and the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena as seen from around themselves that echoes the plan of the building. In the the entrance roads to the Campo (Figure 36). Third, second stage, the clear space attempts to achieve a regular and builders and planners of the cathedral squares in Parma, geometrically idealizing contour. Finally, one or more privi- Pisa, and Florence repeatedly referred to the authority of leged, perspectival viewpoints of the building from the perime- existing buildings in developing the design and ornamenta- ter of the clear space are established.62 tion of new structures on the site. Finally, both Tuscan and While Parma’s cathedral square certainly aspires to, and Parmesan patrons used their shaping of the cityscape to partly achieves, a geometrically ideal plan, its principal build- manifest their power. The form they gave the major sites ings neither consistently impose buffers around themselves associated with their regimes established the spectator’s nor systematically pursue narrow perspectival viewpoints. relationship with, and submission to, their authority.63 Indeed, Parma’s Piazza del Duomo functions in the opposite Despite these similarities, a fundamental difference way—the monuments work in concert, not individually, to underlies the Tuscan and Parmesan approaches to urban shape the piazza and embrace the spectator within it. design. If the Florentine viewer was manipulated by 544 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 545 Figure 35 Piazza della Signoria, Florence Figure 36 Campo, Siena Florentine urbanistic practice into a speciﬁc, narrow relation- Appendix: On Measurement ship to the symbolic buildings of that city-state, the Parmesan It is very difﬁcult to determine the standard unit of measure used by viewer in the Piazza del Duomo was literally surrounded by builders in Parma in the Middle Ages. The most thorough examination the representative buildings of the church faction. Parma’s of Parma’s historical measurement systems is Vincenzo Banzola, “Le bishop and his allies deployed an architectural representation antiche misure parmigiane e l’introduzione del sistema metrico decimale of their power along the perimeter of the square. The negli Stati Parmensi,” Archivio storico per le province parmensi, 4th ser., vol. panorama of the piazza ﬂooded the spectator’s visual ﬁeld 18 (1966), 139–78. When attempting to determine the units of measure used in medieval Parma, Banzola concluded, after Gaetano De Sanctis, with the physical manifestation of its patron’s sociopolitical that “La metrologia più che una scienza è un incubo” (Metrology is agenda, while serving as a stage for the customary religious more a nightmare than it is a science [139]). I concur. and civic rituals performed on the site. By imposing order on Banzola reports that until the twelfth century, the most com- the disorderly features of the former imperial compound, the mon units of measure referred to in Parmesan sources seem to have church faction was proclaiming both the legitimacy of its been the bobulca (also written bifulca or biolca); it is the distance a claim and its ability to impose order on the city as a collective team of two oxen can plow in one day. During the twelfth century, a as well as a physical body. The orderly, harmonious, and new unit makes its appearance, the pertica, which consisted of either square Piazza del Duomo was an architectural and urbanis- ten or twelve pedes, or feet. Emma Mandelli and Michela Rossi pro- pose that the medieval pedes were none other than the surviving tic metaphor for the orderly rule of the episcopal faction and ancient Roman foot, measuring either .293 or .296 meters; see the harmonious society it would establish. The dense web of Emma Mandelli and Michela Rossi, Percorsi religiosi nel Mugello: pievi formal relationships that bound the encircling buildings to e pivieri (Florence, 1999). each other, to the site, and to the city fabric as a whole also The braccio, or arm, does not appear in Parma’s documentary bound the visitor, and engulfed him in the church faction’s record until 1228. But when it does, what kind of Parmesan braccio is architectural political program. it? How long is it, in modern measure? Modern sources reveal con- siderable variation: in the eighteenth century, a braccio da legno o muro (of wood or wall) measured .545167 meters, a braccio da panno (of cloth) measured .639500 meters, while a braccio da seta (of silk) measured O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 545 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 546 .587750 meters. (Vincenzo Banzola, “Le antiche misure,” 142–46; medieval episcopal buildings, the signiﬁcant proportional relationships metrological manuals report identical ﬁgures.) that underlie my analysis remain valid, as the modern measurements However, these metric numbers, presented to the thousandth of a demonstrate. “Incubo,” indeed. millimeter, are too precise to have been measurable with medieval instru- ments. The long decimals resulted from numerical conversions executed when Parma switched to the metric system in the nineteenth century. To further complicate the question, Valerio Ascani has discovered Notes that it was not uncommon for builders in thirteenth- and fourteenth- I am grateful to the American Academy in Rome and the Kress Foundation for gen- century Italy to use the standard measurements with which they were erously funding this research project. I have presented some of my ﬁndings in sev- trained, rather than switching to those of the town in which they were eral settings. I would like to thank Barbara Deimling, Mark Jarzombek, Carla working. Moreover, one cannot assume that the braccio da muro would Keyvanian, Andrew Ladis, Alick McLean, Debra Pincus, Lisa Reilly, Peter naturally be used for construction; in Tuscany in the fourteenth century, Waldman, the Italian Art Society, the College Art Association, the Society of for example, builders frequently used the Tuscan braccio da panno (Valerio Architectural Historians, and the University of Virginia for providing stimulating Ascani, Il Trecento disegnato. Le basi progettuali dell’architettura gotica in fora for the discussion of diverse aspects of this material, both in and out of the con- Italia [Rome, 1997], 150–56). Finally, established measurements were ference hall. The acute criticisms and observations of David Friedman, Robert G. not necessarily stable over long periods of time; Affò reports that in 1261 La France, Juergen Schulz, and Marvin Trachtenberg have been invaluable at sev- eral stages during the execution of this project. In Parma, Michela Rossi and Cecilia the commune of Parma amended its standard measures (Ireneo Affò, Tedeschi were wonderful collaborators during our survey of the Piazza del Duomo Storia della citta di Parma [Parma, 1792–95], 3:262). There is no reason in 2005 (see n. 30). Paolo Mancini has been generous with both his expertise and his to believe the braccia measurements that were codiﬁed in the eighteenth drawings of the baptistry. I am indebted to Hilary Ballon, Nancy Stieber, and an century were the same as those is use during the twelfth, thirteenth, and anonymous reviewer for their insightful comments on this manuscript. fourteenth centuries. Examining the metal standard inserted in the retrofaçade of the 1. Scholars who characterize the Renaissance as a period of urbanistic rebirth at the cathedral, which measures 3.27 meters in length, proved unrewarding; it expense of the Middle Ages include: Paul Zucker, Town and Square: From the Agora is traditionally believed to date from the medieval period. If it represents to the Village Green (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), 96–97; Carroll William Westfall, In a pertica of 12 pedes, each measures .2725 meters (translatable into 6 brac- This Most Perfect Paradise: Alberti, Nicholas V, and the Invention of Conscious Urban cia of .545 meters); if it represents a pertica of ten pedes, each would meas- Planning in Rome, 1447–55 (University Park, Penn., 1977), ix–xi; Wolfgang Lotz, ure .327 meters. Alas, none of these measurements corresponds precisely “Sixteenth-Century Italian Piazzas,” in James S. Ackerman, W. Chandler Kirwin, to any of the aforementioned “standard” units of measure (as conﬁrmed and Henry A. Millon, eds., Studies in Italian Renaissance Architecture (Cambridge, by Pado Mancini, “Il Battistero di Parma. La Geometria della forma Mass., 1977), 89; Charles R. Mack, Pienza: The Creation of a Renaissance City (Ithaca, costruita” [Ph.D. diss., Università degli Studi di Firenze, 1998], 63–69), 1987), 159. nor are they found with any regularity in any of the piazza’s extant 2. They include David Friedman, Florentine New Towns: Urban Design in the Middle medieval structures. Further, the date of the standard is unknown. Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1988); Paolo Micalizzi, Storia dell’architettura e dell’urban- Therefore, we cannot be certain which unit was the standard istica di Gubbio (Rome, 1988); Marvin Trachtenberg, Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, architectural measurement in this period, nor the precise length of a Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence (Cambridge, England, and New York, 1997). Parmesan foot or braccio in this period. Neither the documents nor the 3. For the rise of the Italian communes, see Philip Jones’s exhaustive synthesis, The retrofaçade’s measurement standard is helpful. Close examination of the Italian City-State: From Commune to Signoria (Oxford, 1997), esp. 103–51; J. K. Hyde, surviving fabric of the buildings ringing the Piazza del Duomo (the best Society and Politics in Medieval Italy: The Evolution of the Civil Life, 1000–1350 preserved medieval century fabric in the city) seems, however, to reveal (London, 1973); Daniel Waley, The Italian City-Republics (New York, 1969); and Paolo Brezzi, I communi cittadini italiani. Origini e primitiva costituzione (secoli X–XIII) some useful correspondences. The design of the cathedral and baptistry (Milan, 1940). (and to a lesser degree, the bishops’ palace) seems to depend on a mod- 4. For a systematic, historically aware examination of the Piazza del Duomo’s spa- ule measuring 7 meters by 7 meters; the organization of their plans and tial form and meaning in the context of late medieval urbanism in Parma, see Areli elevations seem to arise from arithmetic and geometric manipulation of Marina, “The Urbanistic Transformation of Parma in the Age of the Commune, this module. I do not quite know what to make of the fact that the mod- 1196–1347” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 2004). Before that study, the ule happens to coincide exactly to 12 Tuscan braccia da panno (7.003 chronology of the buildings forming the perimeter of the piazza was discussed by meters = .5836 meters x 12)! This measure is close, but not identical, to Marco Pellegri, “Parma medievale. Dai Carolingi agli Sforza,” in Vincenzo Banzola, the Parmesan braccio da seta, which (as codiﬁed in the eighteenth cen- ed., Parma. La città storica (Parma, 1978), 84–148, and Vincenzo Banzola, Il centro tury) measured .5877 meters (12 braccia da seta = 7.05 m). It is also only a storico di Parma. Sue origini e suo sviluppo, Quaderni del Centro Studi Urbanistici di few millimeters short of the smaller Roman foot measures of .293 Parma 2 (Parma, 1967), 21–32, although neither considers the site’s form. Paolo meters (2 Roman feet of .293 m each = .586 m). Using either the .5836- Giandebiaggi and Chiara Vernizzi hypothesize that the dimensions of many north- meter braccio or the shorter .293-Roman foot as a unit of measure results ern Italian episcopal piazzas derive from the diameter of an imaginary circle sur- in elegant whole number measurements for the key design elements in rounding the base of their respective baptistries; they use Parma’s baptistry and the Piazza del Duomo complex. Since the .5836-meter braccio helps me Piazza del Duomo as case studies. See Paolo Giandebiaggi and Chiara Vernizzi, “Il elucidate the proportional relationships embedded in the buildings’ Battistero di Parma. Analisi graﬁca e confronti nella morfologia urbana,” Archivio designs most clearly, I—however reluctantly—use it in my text. It is storico per le province parmensi ser. 4, vol. 48 (1996), 283–89. important to note, however, that regardless of whether I have chosen the 5. See n. 2. correct label for the unit underlying the architectural design of Parma’s 6. Philip Jones, “Economia e società nell’Italia medievale. La leggenda della borgh- 546 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 547 esia,” in Ruggiero Romano and Corrado Vivanti, eds., Storia d’Italia. Dal feudalismo 43 B.C.E. and reestablished under Augustus (Pliny Naturalis Historia 3.116). For two al capitalismo (Turin, 1978), 187–372; Jones, Italian City-State; and Henri Pirenne, slightly different accounts of the urban form of Roman Parma and further bibliog- Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade (Princeton, 1925). raphy, see Pier Luigi Dall’Aglio, “Il disegno urbano di Parma,” in Francesco 7. For the political struggle surrounding the rise of the communes, see Jones, Italian Barocelli, ed., Una città e la storia. Parma attraverso i secoli (Parma, 2000), 89–123, and City-State, 1–103; for the phenomenon in Parma, see Reinhold Schumann, Authority Mirella Marini Calvani, “Parma nell’antichità,” in Vincenzo Banzola, ed., Parma: la and the Commune, Parma 833–1133 (Parma, 1973), 43–44. città storica (Parma, 1978), 18–67. 8. The bishop’s embattled position within the commune is discussed by Maureen C. Schumann reports that in the medieval period, Parma’s cardo maximus extended Miller, The Bishop’s Palace: Architecture and Authority in Medieval Italy (Ithaca, 2000), northward beyond the city’s walls as part of the centuriation of the countryside all 86–169. Parma’s factionalism is a recurring theme of two medieval chronicles, the the way to the Po, where a ferry carried travelers across the river; see Schumann, anonymous Chronicon Parmense (Giuliano Bonazzi, ed., Chronicon Parmense: ab anno Authority, 27. MXXXVIII usque ad annum MCCCXXXVIII, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores: Raccolta 14. Vincenzo Banzola, “Parma Barbarica. Dal tardo antico ai Franchi,” in Banzola, degli storici italiani dal cinquecento al millecinquecento 9.9, ed. Ludovico A. Parma, 71–82; Graziella La Ferla, “Parma nei secoli IX e X. ‘Civitas’ e ‘suburbium’,” Muratori, Giosue Carducci, and Vittorio Fiorini [Città di Castello, 1902], hereafter Storia della città 18 (1981), 5–32. Chronicon Parmense) and the chronicle of Friar Salimbene de Adam, written in the 15. Schumann, Authority, 117, 208–17, 284–93. On the contested location of Parma’s 1280s (Cronica, ed. Giuseppe Scalia, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Roman fortiﬁcations, see Dall’Aglio, “Il disegno urbano,” 89–123, and Graziella La Mediaevalis, 125–125A, 2 vols. [Turnhout, 1998–99]; in English, Joseph L. Baird, Ferla Morselli, “Fonti documentarie e fonti archeologiche. La cattedrale di Parma Giuseppe Baglivi, and John Robert Kane, eds. and trans., The Chronicle of Salimbene ed il suo rapporto con il murus antiquus civitatis,” Archeologia medievale 28 (2003), de Adam, [Binghamton, N.Y., 1986]). In this essay, I quote from the Baird transla- 571–82. tion (hereafter Chronicle of Salimbene). 16. Paolo Conforti, Le mura di Parma. Dalle origini alla soglie del Ducato (1545), 3 The fundamental history of medieval Parma (up to 1346) remains that of Ireneo vols. (Parma: Luigi Battei, 1979), 1:42–45. Affò, Storia della città di Parma, 4 vols. (Parma, 1792–95). The historical introduc- 17. Affò, Storia, 3:12–15; 307–8. tions given by Ronchini to his four volumes of the Parmesan statutes are also use- 18. Ibid., 2:69–72, 130–31, 147–48, 223. The nave’s original ﬂanks and its two minor ful for the medieval period: Amadio Ronchini, Statuta Communis Parmae, apses have long since been engulfed by later construction. For the problem of accu- Monumenta historica ad provincias parmensem et placentinam pertinentia, 4 vols. rately reading the original building project in the light of subsequent modiﬁcations, (Parma, 1855–60), hereafter Statuta, plus the pertinent volume number. For the role see Marco Dezzi Bardeschi, “Il Duomo di Parma. Materiali per un’altra storia,” in of faction in medieval Italy’s political life, see the work of Jacques Heers, esp. Parties Gabriella Guarisco, ed., Il Duomo di Parma: materiali per un’altra storia (Florence, and Political Life in the Medieval West, Europe in the Middle Ages 7 (Amsterdam, 1992), 6–15. 1977). 19. Of these structures, nothing visible remains. Many were destroyed when Via 9. Miller, Bishop’s Palace, 111–13, 115, 145–46. For this practice elsewhere in Italy, Cardinal Ferrari was opened up in 1514 (Giuseppe Sitti, Parma nel nome delle sue see also Miller, “From Episcopal to Communal Palaces: Places and Power in strade [Parma, 1929], 75–76). Parts of the chapel of Sant’ Agata are said to have been Northern Italy (1000–1250),” JSAH 54 (June 1995), 175–85, and Miller, “Vescovi, incorporated into the chapels added to the south ﬂank of the cathedral from the palazzi e lo sviluppo dei centri civici nella civiltà dell’Italia settentrionale, fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Any remaining structures were lost when the 1000–1250,” in Franco Spinelli, ed., Albertano da Brescia. Alle origini del razionalismo canonry was replaced by the Seminario Maggiore in the seventeenth century, itself economico, del umanesimo civile, della grande Europa (Brescia, 1996), 27–42. rebuilt in 1881 (Laudedeo Testi, Cattedrale di Parma [Bergamo, 1934], 33). 10. The rivalry between the communal and episcopal factions dominates the history 20. On the building history of the bishop’s palace, see Nestore Pelicelli, Il Vescovado of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Parma; one of its expressions was protracted archi- di Parma (Parma, 1922); Maria Ortensia Banzola, “Il Palazzo del Vescovado,” Parma tectural competition. See Marina, “Urbanistic Transformation,” esp. 1–23, 143–84. nell’arte 14, no. 2 (1982), 25–51; and Testi, “Palazzo Vescovile,” 325–35. 11. Changes made to the cathedral precinct after 1300 include periodic updates to 21. The limited archaeological investigations conducted in the Piazza del Duomo the bishop’s palace façade, the insertion of a new street to the south of the cathedral have failed to uncover evidence of signiﬁcant buildings there after the sixth century. in the sixteenth century, the addition of private chapels along the cathedral’s ﬂanks, By the time the present cathedral was begun, no other buildings occupied the space the initiation of a never-completed new tower and the replacement of the canonry between the bishop’s palace and the church. The archaeological ﬁndings are sum- with the Seminario Maggiore in the seventeenth century, and the reconstruction of marized by Manuela Catarsi Dall’Aglio and Mirella Marini Calvani in Alfredo the Seminario Maggiore in the nineteenth century. The postmedieval “improve- Bianchi and Manuela Catarsi Dall’Aglio, eds., Il Museo Diocesano di Parma (Parma, ments” to the bishop’s palace façade were removed in (controversial) restoration 2004), 26–39; see also R. Farioli, “Un’inedita fronte d’altare paleocristiano e una campaigns undertaken by Nestore Pelicelli between the world wars. See Laudedeo nuova ipotesi sulla cattedrale di Parma,” Felix Ravenna, 4th ser., fasc. 127–130 (1985), Testi, “Il Palazzo Vescovile di Parma e i suoi restauri,” Aurea Parma 4, no. 6 (1920), 201–15. 325–35; and Alessandro Minardi, “Il Vescovado di Parma dopo gli ultimi restauri,” 22. In his chronicle, Salimbene de Adam states repeatedly that his family and other Crisopoli 3, no. 6 (1935), 553–60. members of the nobility lived along the Piazza del Duomo (Baird, Chronicle of 12. Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum, in Ludwig Bethmann and Georg Salimbene, 9, 11–12, 30, 46, 523; see n. 8). The Adam family home was next to the Waitz, eds., Scriptores rerum langobardicarum et italicarum. Saec. VI.-IX., Monumenta baptistry, on the south side of the piazza (ibid., 590). It seems that in Parma, as else- Germaniae historica (Hanover, 1878), bk. 2, chap. 31, p. 91. The debate over the rel- where in Italy, the most powerful families situated their residential compounds close ative degree of urbanization in Italy from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries is to the local center of power. Their privileged position may have been due to their discussed in Bryan Ward-Perkins and Gian Pietro Brogiolo, eds., The Idea and the status as vassals of the bishop in previous centuries. Ideal of the Town between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, The Transformation 23. Òbizzo, who had been a member of the cathedral chapter for many years, was of the Roman World 4 (Leiden, 1999); Chris Wickham, “L’Italia e l’alto medioevo,” elected bishop by his fellow canons. He was a member of the Parmesan branch of Archeologia medievale 15 (1988), 105–24, 649; and Chris Wickham and Trevor Dean, the powerful Fieschi family, counts of Lavagna (in Liguria) (Affò, Storia, 3:10–11). eds., City and Countryside in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy (London, 1996). His career is traced by Giovanni Maria Allodi, Serie cronologica dei vescovi di Parma 13. According to Livy, the Roman colony of Parma was ﬁrst established in 183 B.C.E. con alcunni cenni sui principali avvenimenti civili (Parma, 1854), 1:315–69, and Nestore (Livy Periochae 39.55). That early settlement was destroyed by Anthony’s soldiers in Pelicelli, I vescovi della chiesa parmense (Parma, 1936). While several documents attest O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 547 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 548 to his energetic expansion of the patrimony of the Parmesan church as well as his Tedeschi of the University of Parma’s school of architecture in May 2005. This is a own, only one extant record connects him directly with architectural patronage: a more precise tool than what was available to contemporary builders, who would lawsuit between him and the abbess of San Alessandro over Òbizzo’s construction have used ropes, chains, and sextants for the purpose. of a chapel on the grounds of the church of Santo Spirito (Pelicelli, Vescovi, 182). 30. Paolo Mancini’s unpublished dissertation contains the most complete, detailed, 24. The baptistry of Parma has attracted more scholarly attention than any other and accurate drawings of the baptistry to date: “Il Battistero di Parma: la geometria Parmesan building. The recent literature includes Gottfried Kerscher, Benedictus della forma costruita” (Ph. D. diss., Università degli Studi di Firenze, 1998). These Antelami oder das Baptisterium von Parma. Kunst und kommunales Selbstverständnis measurements are based on Mancini’s plans and elevations, which are drawn on a (Munich, 1986); Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, Il Battistero di Parma. Il cielo e la terra scale of 1:50. (Parma, 1989), Il Battistero di Parma (Parma, 1990), and Benedetto Antelami (Milan, 31. Starting from the baptistry’s north portal and going clockwise, the baptistry’s 1990); Georges Duby et al., Il Battistero di Parma. La scultura (Milan, 1992); Jacques façades measure 13 braccia (7.6 m), 113⁄4 braccia (6.8 m), 111⁄2 braccia (6.7 m), 10 3⁄4 brac- Le Goff et al., Il Battistero di Parma. La decorazione pittorica (Milan, 1993); Moritz cia (6.3 m), 121⁄4 braccia (7.2 m), 12 braccia (7.1 m), 123⁄4 braccia (7.4 m), and 113⁄4 brac- Woelk, Benedetto Antelami. Die Werke in Parma und Fidenza (Münster, 1995); Chiara cia (6.9 m), respectively, within the inside edges of the corner buttresses. Frugoni, ed., Benedetto Antelami e il Battistero di Parma (Turin, 1995); and Giorgio 32. For this practice in Florence, see Trachtenberg, Dominion, 57 and 297 n. 147 (see Schianchi, ed., Il battistero di Parma. Iconograﬁa, iconologia, fonti letterarie (Milan, 1999). n. 2). The establishment of “dimensional correspondences” between episcopal build- The most important older treatments of the architecture are Michele Lopez, Il ings is not unique to either city, as Trachtenberg demonstrates. The practice was Battistero di Parma (Parma, 1864), which includes the most complete published already in use in the planning of the episcopal complex at Pisa. A fourteenth-cen- architectural drawings of the building; Laudedeo Testi, Le baptistère de Parme. Son tury Sienese building contract documents the practice of conceiving of a building histoire, son architecture, ses sculptures, ses peintures (Florence, 1916); and Pietro Toesca, façade design as a plane and then bending or folding the structure, in this instance Il Battistero di Parma. Architetture e sculture di Benedetto Antelami e seguaci, affreschi dei to accommodate the site; see Franklin Toker, “Gothic Architecture by Remote secoli XIII e XIV (Milan, 1960). Also helpful are the discussions of the baptistry by Control: An Illustrated Building Contract of 1340,” Art Bulletin 67, no. 1 (1985). I Geza de Francovich, Benedetto Antelami, architetto e scultore e l’arte del suo tempo am grateful to David Friedman for bringing this source to my attention. (Milan, 1952), and Arthur Kingsley Porter, Lombard Architecture, vol. 3 (New Haven, 33. Lomartire, “Introduzione,” 233. 1917). All of the controversies relating to the building’s construction history and 34. The baptistry of Cremona originally had three portals; the east and west portals authorship are summarized by Saverio Lomartire, “Introduzione all’architettura del were closed in 1592 (Tassini, Battistero, 16). battistero di Parma,” in Chiara Frugoni, ed., Benedetto Antelami e il Battistero di Parma 35. Traditionally, baptism had to be performed with “living”—that is, running— (Turin, 1995), 145–250. water, rather than stagnant water; see Vincenzo Gatti, “Battesimo, mistero dell’ac- Three medieval sources securely date the beginning of the baptistry’s construc- qua nella storia della salvezza. Le scritture, i padri, la liturgia,” in Andrea Longhi, tion. The ﬁrst is an inscription on the lintel of its north portal, facing the Piazza del ed., L’architettura del battistero (Milan, 2003), 25. Affò, Storia (see n. 8) noted that the Duomo. It reads: “BIS BINIS DEMPTIS/ ANNIS DE MILLE/ DUCENTIS/ INCEPIT DIC- Canale Maggiore provided water for the baptismal font (1:154). The Canale TUS/ OPUS HOC SCULTOR/ BENEDICTUS” (Twice two years before 1200, sculptor Maggiore may have also functioned as a sort of moat separating the episcopal com- Benedictus began this work). The second source is Salimbene de Adam’s chronicle. plex from the rest of the city; ibid., 1:88–92. It is partially represented in Gian Pietro Salimbene reports that his father laid a stone in the baptistry’s foundation ceremony Sardi’s 1767 atlas of Parma, facs. ed. Gian Pietro Sardi, La città di Parma delineata, e in 1196 (Chronicle of Salimbene, 590). The third is the Chronicon Parmense (see n. 8); divisa in isole colla descrizione degli attuali possessori di tutte le case, chiese, monasteri &c. its terse entry for 1196 (7) records the names of the year’s consuls and the founda- dei cannali, cavi, canadelle, condotti, coli e fontane, che vi scorrono sotterra, ricavata dal tion of the baptistry. piano originale della medesima eseguita, e compilata in quest’anno MDCCLXVII [Atlante 25. Rosso di Verona is quarried exclusively near that city. It was used by the Romans Sardi], (Parma, 1993), 61. For further discussion of the baptistry and its relationship as a building material in Verona and Parma, but seldom elsewhere. See Guido A. to the Canale Maggiore, see Conforti and Erenda, “Il Battistero,” 253–60 (see n. 4). Mansuelli, “Il commercio delle pietre veronesi nella Regione VIII,” in Il territorio 36. The same is true of the Florentine baptistry; see Trachtenberg, Dominion, 42–44. veronese in età romana (Verona, 1973), 83–92. 37. This practice perhaps began in emulation of the Benedictine abbey church at 26. For an overview of the phenomenon of Italian freestanding baptistries after the Cluny. Cluny III’s west portal integrated a tympanum scene of Christ in Majesty year 1000, see Enrico Cattaneo, “Il battistero in Italia dopo il mille,” in Miscellanea with a lintel ﬁguring the Last Judgment or Second Coming. It was dated by Conant Gilles Gerard Meersseman. Italia sacra, Studi e documenti di storia ecclesiastica (Padua, to 1108–12 (Kenneth John Conant, Cluny, les églises et la maison du chef d’ordre 1970), vol. 1, 171–95. [Mâcon, 1968]). 27. Lomartire, “Introduzione,” 209, 233. The classic work on the Florence bap- 38. The site of the new building straddled the boundary formerly marked by the old tistry remains Walther Horne, “Das Florentiner Baptisterium,” Mitteilungen des perimeter wall of the curtis regia, which coincided with the Roman northern wall of Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 5, no. 2 (1938), 100–51. For more recent bibli- the city. Marini Calvani hypothetically establishes the perimeter of the Roman walls, ography, see Antonio Paolucci, ed., Il Battistero di San Giovanni a Firenze, 2 vols. but notes that their boundaries have not yet been sufﬁciently conﬁrmed by excava- (Modena, 1994). For the Cremona baptistry, see Sonia Tassini, Il Battistero di tion (Marini Calvani, “Parma nell’antichità,” 30; see n. 13). However, a document Cremona (Cremona, 1988). Note that Cremona’s stone revetment and upper gal- from 1167 seems to conﬁrm the presence of a city wall behind the canonry; in it leries were added in the sixteenth century in imitation of Parma. Guidoni has Bishop Aicardus grants all his rights to that portion of city wall to the canons, who hypothesized that the continual exchange of podestà between Italian communes may use it to “erect buildings suitable for them” (Giovanni Drei, Le carte degli archivi quickened the exchange of architectural, urbanistic and political ideas; Enrico parmensi del secolo XII [Parma, 1950], 290). Guidoni, “Modena e le città europee,” paper delivered at the conference The street just to the east of the baptistry (now called Via XX Marzo) led to the “L’urbanistica di Modena medievale, X–XV secolo,” Modena, 3 Dec. 1999. Porta Benedetta, the north gate of the city’s earliest circle of walls. While the gate 28. The 12 braccia are measured from the center of one pier to the center of the next no longer stood, it was still considered a privileged place within the city. pier, or the center of the reconstructed wall mass. 39. “This baptistry was constructed on the site of the homes of my kinsmen, who, 29. Unless otherwise indicated, all the measurements given in this paper for the after the demolition of their homes, left the city and became citizens of Bologna, piazza and its perimeter buildings are based on a laser-assisted survey of the site con- where they took the name of Cocca” (Baird, Chronicle of Salimbene, 12 [see n. 8]). ducted under my direction by Prof. Michela Rossi and doctoral candidate Cecilia 40. In the Middle Ages, this busy road led north from the Via Emilia to the convent 548 JSAH / 65:4, DECEMBER 2006 02 Marina 11/14/06 7:34 PM Page 549 of San Paolo and the Porta Bologna; it followed the path of the Roman cardo max- Guarisco, Il Duomo di Parma. Materiali per un’altra storia (Florence, 1992), 108, top. imus. As a result of street-widening during the Renaissance, today we can also see 55. The public road that connects the cathedral square with the monastic complex one-half of the baptistry’s west portal. This would not have been possible in the thir- of San Giovanni Evangelista (now called Via Cardinal Ferrari) was opened in 1514, teenth century. at least in part to display the façade of the newly rebuilt church of San Giovanni 41. See n. 10. (Bruno Adorni, “Parma rinascimentale e barocca. Dalla dominazione sforzesca alla 42. Baird, Chronicle of Salimbene, 46. On the construction history of the bishop’s venuta dei Borboni,” in Vincenzo Banzola, ed., Parma: la città storica [Parma, 1978], palace, see n. 20. 168–69). 43. For the iconography of the bishop’s palace, see Miller, Bishop’s Palace, 114–15 (see 56. A communal statute called for the vaulting of this portion of the Canale n. 8). For the alterations of 1476–82, see Pelicelli, Vescovado, 47–48 (see n. 23). I Maggiore in 1259; Ronchini, Statuta 1:423. address the building program of the commune of Parma and the architectural com- 57. The campanile measures 48.65 m to the top of its surmounting baluster; it meas- petition between the commune and the bishop in my doctoral dissertation (see n. 4); ures 62.31 m to the top of the spire, but the current spire is the last in a series of this material is the subject of a future publication. postmedieval replacements. 44. Pelicelli, Vescovado, 20–28; M. O. Banzola, “Il palazzo,” 33–38 (see n. 20). 58. Trachtenberg, Dominion, 253–62. 45. The center of the cathedral façade corresponds to the center of its central por- 59. Friedman, Florentine New Towns, 117–66 (see n. 2). tal, that of the baptistry façade to the center of the north portal, and that of the 60. For the sources and implications of the deployment of courtly and Romanizing bishop’s palace façade to the center of its ﬁfth (and central) ground-story pier. motifs in the Piazza del Duomo, see Marina, “Urbanistic Transformation,” 143–61 46. The need to inﬂect ideal plans to site conditions was already understood and (see n. 4). documented in Vitruvius’s day (Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, 5.6.7, 6.2.1). See 61. For Pisa, see Enrico Guidoni, Arte e urbanistica in Toscana, 1000–1315 (Rome, Trachtenberg, Dominion, 11–14 (see n. 2), for the Santissima Annunziata, and 1970), 49–52; Christine Smith, The Baptistry of Pisa, Outstanding Dissertations in the 124–40 for analysis of the accommodations made by Florence’s trecento planners at Fine Arts (New York, 1978), esp. 214–32; and Trachtenberg, Dominion, 297 n. 147. Piazza della Signoria. 62. Trachtenberg, Dominion, 17–21 (see n. 2). 47. Quintavalle’s revisionist reading of the baptistry’s fabric supports his argument 63. For Pisa, see n. 61. For Siena, see Colin Cunningham, “For the Honour and that the baptistry was not ﬁnished under Benedetto Antelami’s supervision; con- Beauty of the City: The Design of Town Halls,” in Diane Norman, ed., Siena, struction continued into the 1270s (Quintavalle, Battistero 1989, 19–39 [see n. 24]). Florence and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280–1400 (New Haven, 1995), 29–54, For a summary of arguments in favor of and against Quintavalle’s, see Lomartire, which includes further bibliography. For Florence, see Trachtenberg, Dominion, “Introduzione,” 213–35 (see n. 24). passim, esp. 251–71. 48. Pellegri, “Parma medievale,” 106–18, 124–25 (see n. 4). 49. The statute reads: “Capitulum quod Potestas teneatur facere ﬁeri et ampliari viam unam a meridie Batisterii per XVIII. pedes et auferri domos, quae ibi sunt, pro Illustration Credits ipsa facienda, ita quod opus Batisterii possit videri, et possit in porta quae ibi est Figure 1. ICCD (Laboratorio per la Fotointerpretazione e la Aerofoto- entrari, et quod circa Batisterium libere possit iri”; Ronchini, Statuta, 1:445 (see n. grammetria, concessione a divulgazione n. 209 del 10.11.55), Rome 9). This took place while the pro-church faction under the leadership of bishop Figures 2, 3. After Marco Pellegri, “Parma medievale. Dai Carolingi agli Òbizzo di Sanvitale (r. 1258–95) was in ascendancy in Parma, in opposition to the Sforza,” in Parma. la città storica, ed. Vincenzo Banzola (Parma, 1978), 100, pro-imperial Marchese Òbizzo Pallavicini, who wanted to become signore of the city 105 (Affò, Storia, 3:265–66 [see n. 8]). Figures 4, 9, 15–16, 20, 22–23, 25, 28–29, 32. Reconstructions by the author, 50. See the appendix for a discussion of Parma’s medieval measurement system. superimposed on the 1982 survey (scale 1:1000) conducted by the Comune di 51. Trachtenberg, Dominion, 36–41, 223–43. Trachtenberg has also demonstrated Parma that sensitivity to the visibility of sculpture and architecture, and empirical solutions Figures 5, 8, 17–19, 21, 24, 26–27, 30. Robert G. La France to the problems it presented, had long been medieval concerns; ibid., 185–205. Figure 6. Adapted from Maria Ortensia Banzola after Remo Cozi, “Palazzo del 52. For Òbizzo’s leadership of the church faction, see Baird, Chronicle of Salimbene, Vescovado,” Parma nell’arte 14, no. 2 (1982), ﬁg. 17 643, 657 (see n. 8). On the casting of the bell, see Muratori, Chronicon Parmense, 46 Figure 7. Photographed by Paolo Candelari (see n. 8). A bell was installed in 1292 (Chronicon Parmense, 63), and the tower was Figure 10. Vanni/Art Resource, N.Y. completed by 1294 (67). The Chronicon Parmense reports that an old campanile was Figures 11, 13. Cathedral plan adapted from A. C. Quintavalle, La cattedrale di demolished, although its location is unclear. Perhaps it stood among the heteroge- Parma e il romanico europeo (Parma, 1974), pl. 38; baptistry plan from an engrav- neous constructions occupying the ground between the cathedral’s southern ﬂank ing by Piero Sottili after a drawing by G. Bertoluzzi, in Lopez, Battistero, pl. 2 and the canonry. The unﬁnished tower to the left of the cathedral façade was added Figure 12. From an engraving by Piero Sottili after a drawing by G. Bertoluzzi, in 1602. It now houses the cathedral’s gift shop. in Lopez, Battistero, pl. 4 53. For a short comparative discussion of thirteenth-century Italian bell towers, see Figure 14. A. Campi, Pianta di Cremona, 1583, as printed in Sonia Tassini, Il Marvin Trachtenberg, The Campanile of Florence Cathedral, “Giotto’s Tower” (New Battistero di Cremona (Cremona, 1988), 11 York, 1971), 153. Figure 34. Alinari/Art Resource, N.Y. 54. Most of the campanile’s plaster and paint have been lost to weathering and con- Figure 35. Nicolò Orsi Battaglini/Art Resource, N.Y. servation efforts. For a photograph of a fragment of surviving plaster, see Gabriella Figure 36. Scala/Art Resource, N.Y. O R D E R A N D I D E A L G E O M E T R Y I N T H E P I A Z Z A D E L D U O M O , PA R M A 549

(PDF) Order and Ideal Geometry in the Piazza del Duomo, Parma (2006)