The Professione di Architetto in Renaissance Italy
elizabeth merrill
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
H
istorians of architecture have tended to recognize
architects less in terms of their practice and more
in terms of their conformity to modern notions of
the “professional” architect. This strategy fails, however,
when the focus turns to early modern Italy. Not only were
there no schools of architecture or systems of licensing in this
period, but also, in terms of training and practice, architec-
ture was without clearly defined occupational contours. As
scholars of Renaissance architecture have noted, there was
nothing to stop the painter, sculptor, or mason from freely as-
suming the title architetto in accordance with the position he
then filled on a building site.1 The indefinite role and varying
responsibilities of the early modern architect thus present a
historical dilemma as to how to describe the practitioner.
Whereas today we define the architect by professional status
as such, in early modern Italy, how did the architect delineate
his professed occupation? Equally important, was there even
such a thing as a “profession” in early modern Italy? In relat-
ing our present-day understanding of the professional archi-
tect to the early modern period, are we not anachronistically
transferring twenty-first-century ideas and social concepts to
a historically distinct epoch?
Within the accepted narratives of social history, the profes-
sional so commonly cited by Renaissance architectural histor-
ians did not exist in the fifteenth century, or even the sixteenth
or the seventeenth. According to sociologists, it was not until
the nineteenth century that the true professional emerged: an
individual distinguished by the specialized and discretionary
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, no. 1 (March 2017),
13–35, ISSN 0037-9808, electronic ISSN 2150-5926. © 2017 by the Society
of Architectural Historians. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for
permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of
California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/
journals.php?p=reprints, or via email: jpermissions@ucpress.edu. DOI: https://
doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2017.76.1.13.
character of his work, admired for his judgment, skill, and dil-
igence, and believed to fill a role of special importance within
the society at large. Within the sociology of professions,
moreover, the status of the professional is maintained through
a framework of official associations and accreditation boards,
which affirm the professional’s expertise and separate that
individual from his professional counterparts.2 But this estab-
lished convention is challenged by the emergence of a
group of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century architects who self-
consciously professed themselves to their occupation and,
in writing, appealed for the regulation, edification, and
standardization of their art. Drawing inspiration from anti-
quarian models and taking advantage of the increasingly
pervasive humanist ethos, they advocated for an extensive
program of architectural education, whereby through years
of training the practitioner would acquire expertise in both
the manual and the theoretical components of the discipline,
emerging as an authoritative architect, an exemplar of artistic,
social, and moral ideals.
The profusion of architectural literature in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries shows that the idea of the professional
architect flourished in Renaissance Italy. Dictating the linea-
ments of architecture—the skills required of the architect and
the materials, methods, and rules of his practice—these texts
sought to provide a programmatic foundation for architec-
ture. They argued that architecture was a discipline of the
creative mind, requiring strict regulations, and thereby
affirmed that the practice of building design in this period
already bore some resemblance to that of the modern profes-
sion. A close reading of numerous early modern writings on
architecture, moreover, reveals that the term professione was
explicitly used, and that it was related to distinct concepts of
education, occupational work, and personal propriety. The
Sienese architect Pietro Cataneo, for example, dedicated
13
his lengthy treatise to the “professione di buono Architetto.”3
Similarly, Andrea Palladio and Buonaiuto Lorini conceived
their treatises as guides for those who “study the profession”
of architecture, and Benvenuto Cellini and Giorgio Vasari
theoretically distinguished the painter and sculptor from he
who “makes the profession of architecture.”4 Taken alone,
however, these citations are not enough to make the case for
a legitimate professionalism as we understand it today; they
only scratch the surface of deeper questions regarding pro-
fessionalism in early modern Italian architecture.
Another problem can be discerned in the breadth and
diversity of the early modern architectural literature, which
itself proves that no consistent conception of professionalism,
or even of architecture, existed at this time. Yet we find that,
despite their multifarious meanings, these two charged terms
did relate to real occupational constructs. The increased
prevalence of the term professione in fifteenth- and sixteenth-
century architectural texts—which gradually came to replace
diciplina, scientia, and arte in characterizing architecture—
reflects the architect’s self-definition and his desire to aug-
ment his newfound social status with defined occupational
standards. In claiming professional status, the architect posi-
tioned himself alongside the university-educated professors
in the fields of medicine, mathematics, and law. Yet, the emer-
gence of the professione di architetto in architectural writings
was not merely a literary trope. Claims of professionalism had
real consequences for practicing architects. For fifteenth-
century authors like Antonio Averlino Filarete and Francesco
di Giorgio, the emerging concept offered a theoretical struc-
ture for the discipline, laying out a standard of training,
expertise, and moral integrity that would improve design
quality and speed construction processes.
The architect’s motivation for writing, and likewise the
nature of his occupation, was significantly different a century
later. By the mid-sixteenth century, the culture of profession
had become a popular phenomenon. Increasingly applied to a
wide range of occupational fields—regardless of a job’s intel-
lectual rigor or the difficulty of the skill it entailed—the con-
cept of the professional was no longer an explicit imprimatur
of the specialist’s knowledge. By the second half of the
cinquecento, moreover, the architect was an established fig-
ure of social repute. Within the city-states he served, he was
distinguished from the craftsman, granted a significant salary,
and often called upon for his expertise in matters of politics,
business, and diplomacy. Yet as an occupation, architecture
was also becoming increasingly specialized. Technological
advances in warfare spurred a swelling divide between the
branches of civil and military design, and increasingly, the
professione di architetto was distinguished from the professione
dell’architettura militare. Thus, as used by architects such as
Pirro Ligorio and Giovan Battista Belluzzi, who bestrode the
fields of civil and military design, the term professione spoke to
14 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017
evolving social and occupational structures. It had less to do
with the humanist underpinnings of the professional, as con-
ceived by Leon Battista Alberti, and more to do with the
architect’s association with a given occupation, which was
increasingly distilled with the formation of separate artistic
and military academies. It was within these institutions that
the concept of a comprehensive architectural curriculum
was born, and although the academies did not succeed in
categorically defining the architect, their formation marked
an important step in the emergence of the modern architec-
tural profession.
Architecture—Art and Profession
The word architect originates from the Greek architekton and
literally means “chief artificer or master builder.” Classical
ideals of architecture were a formidable presence in the imag-
inations of early modern practitioners.5 Although literature
on architecture from antiquity is limited—Vitruvius’s De
architectura is famously the only known tract dedicated solely
to the subject from this period—the writings of Plato
and Aristotle and of Pliny and Cicero served Renaissance
architects as supplemental guides. According to Plato and
Aristotle, the architect was a dignified figure who contributed
knowledge, oversaw workmen, and took no part in banausic
labor or even craftsmanship.6 Similarly, the writings of Pliny
and Cicero attest that the architect was regarded as a noble
figure, of unusual intelligence and ingenuity.7 Beginning with
these texts and the etymology of architect, the following his-
torical overview locates the origin of the idea of profession in
architecture in the ancient period and traces its evolution in
medieval and early modern Italy. I argue that the use of the
term architect in historical records—and, conversely, its
absence in distinct epochs—reveals more than lexicographic
trends. In the Italian Renaissance, the occupational title of
architect implicitly affirmed professional standards. Beyond
this, the distinctions increasingly drawn in the late fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries between the architetto, provveditore,
and ingegnere—titles that previously had been blurred—may
be correlated with the increasingly delineated understanding
of the architect’s occupation in this period.
Written around 15 BC, De architectura represented Vitru-
vius’s attempt to redress the lack of professionalism the aging
author saw among his peers (Figure 1).8 Vitruvius was a great
reader, and in assembling material from a broad swath of lit-
erary sources—including the works of Plato and Aristotle, as
well as those of Varro and Cicero, whom he regarded as men-
tors, and numerous other now lost commentaries of ancient
Greek origin—he valorized the building culture of ancient
Greece, producing a record of exemplary architecture and
building practices.9 Renaissance readers of De architectura
focused less on Vitruvius’s dissatisfaction with Roman
Figure 1 Vitruvius, De architectura, mid-fifteenth-century manuscript copy, illustration of Vitruvius teaching architects (Ms. Plut. 30.10, folio 1r, Biblioteca
Medicea-Laurenziana, Florence; by permission of the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo; any reproduction is prohibited).

architecture than on his repeated affirmations of the preci-
sion, skill, and intellectual rigor required in the art of build-
ing. The ideals projected in the treatise were seen to mirror
a superior, lost building culture. Within the text, Vitruvius
does not speak explicitly of profession (profiteor or professio in
Latin), as this term would not appear for another century. In-
stead, he describes architecture as an ars (occupation or
branch of learning) and disciplina (instruction as given to dis-
ciples, or, more generally, teaching and knowledge). Still, he
fully articulates the concept of the professional architect.10
Book 1.1 of De architectura opens with an assessment of
architecture as an occupation encompassing all forms of
building design—from the design of fortifications and water
pumps to the realization of temples and palaces. The archi-
tect who takes on such far-reaching responsibilities, Vitruvius
tells us, must be expert in “many disciplines and various sorts
of specialized knowledge.”11 The character of this technically
adroit, multiskilled, intellectual architect relates directly to
the all-encompassing educational curriculum Vitruvius pre-
scribed, which includes everything from geometry to history,
medicine, geology, and law. Equally important were the ar-
chitect’s moral obligations, which have often been overlooked

THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 15

by scholars. The architect, Vitruvius insists, is fair and trust-
worthy, free from greed, and buttressed by his good reputa-
tion.12 Reflecting on the dignity of the discipline, the
importance of the title of architect, and the lifelong commit-
ment that title entails, he concludes:
Because so great discipline must be adorned by and abundant
in so many and such various types of expertise, I do not believe
that architects can simply announce themselves as such, none
but those who have climbed step by step, nurtured from an
early age by education—in letters above all, and in the arts—
can reach the loftiest sanctuary of Architecture.13
According to Vitruvius, the architect’s distinction was
founded on the essentially professional qualities of his
work—applied knowledge and practical skill, morality, and
judgment.
While familiarity with De architectura in the late Roman
and early Christian eras is uncertain, it appears that the
general precepts of Vitruvian theory on architecture were up-
held.14 Around AD 538, the Roman statesman Cassiodorus
described the architect as a highly regarded, well-trained
designer and draftsman who directed the entirety of the
building process.15 Likewise, numerous examples from the
medieval period indicate that the building designer achieved
reputable social standing. In depictions of building construc-
tion, such as one contained in a thirteenth-century mosaic in
San Marco’s Basilica in Venice, the designer is often illus-
trated as a learned figure, distinguished from the craftsmen
whose work he directs.16 Correspondingly, in an edict of
1337, the governors of Siena decreed that the design and
technical direction of the construction of the cathedral were
to be assigned to a “trusted and competent man,” an indi-
vidual of superior rank, worthy of a handsome salary.17 All
the same, documents from the long medieval period affirm
that the concept of the autonomous, individual architect
was nearly extinct. Great buildings continued to be erected,
but, tellingly, the term architectus almost disappeared from
use. Within the records from the collectively organized ca-
thedral work sites, one reads of “masters” (maestro or magis-
ter), “project supervisors” ( provveditore and capomaestro), and
“masons” (magistro lapidum and scalpellino), individuals who,
absent a definitive building plan, collaborated over genera-
tions in realizing monumental constructions.18 When the
term architectus occasionally appears in the records, its appli-
cation is inconsistent, conveying no clear sense of duty or
standard qualifications.19
This state of building design carried over to the early Re-
naissance, when—even within the most ambitious, classically
inspired building projects—the chief designer, the “archi-
tect,” remained a phantom. Here we can take as reference the
well-documented building sites of Milan, Florence, and
16 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017
Siena. Records from the Florentine Opera del Duomo from
the pivotal period in which Filippo Brunelleschi oversaw the
design and construction of the legendary dome (1417–36)
contain only two references to architetti. Yet there are nearly
seven thousand references to capomaestri and maestri and
more than two thousand more to provveditori. Brunelleschi
himself is commonly referenced as provveditore, but only once
as architetto.20 The absence of the “architect” is also apparent
in the mid-quattrocento documents from the workshop of
the cathedral of Siena. Here, too, the great building designers
were known as maestri and operai, and they lacked the ab-
solute authority of the ancient architectus.21
Notably, however, contemporary records from Milan
show the use of a different lexicon. Beginning in the late four-
teenth century, documents from the Milanese Opera del
Duomo refer to the building designer as ingegnere.22 In a doc-
ument of October 1387, the cathedral’s first recorded chief
designer, Simone da Orsenigo, is referenced as “engineer of
said building.”23 Yet the pervasive presence of the term engi-
neer in Milanese documents, used to describe building
designers as well as multitalented artists more generally,
indicates that it was essentially synonymous with the contem-
porary Tuscan provveditore or capomaestro and, as an occupa-
tional designation, similarly lacked clear definition.24
A well-known roster of Milanese “engineers” in the late
1480s is the best evidence of this. Here we find Bramante and
Leonardo, both named as “ingeniarius et pinctor,” as well as
Giovanni Giacomo Dulcebuono (“ingeniarius et schulptor”)
and Giovanni Battagio (“ingeniarius et murator”). But
Leonardo was not employed as an engineer in Milan, and
Bramante—notorious for his limited knowledge of structural
systems—certainly did not possess the structural knowledge
that is typically associated with a modern engineer.25 There
is little evidence, moreover, that Dulcebuono and Battagio
did work that was dramatically different from that which
“architects” would later do. This is supported by a document
of 1490 in which Dulcebuono and Giovanni Antonio
Amadeo, chief designers of the Milan cathedral, are literally
named with both terms—“architects or engineers” (“quos
predictos architectos, seu ingeniarios”).26
The engineer was not only a Milanese phenomenon,
however, and given that the terms ingegnere and architetto
have often been used interchangeably—in early modern
documents and also by historians of architecture—it is
worth pausing to consider the relationship between the
two occupations in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
Italy.27 The distinction between the architect and the engi-
neer, which became increasingly clear over the course of
the Renaissance, helps to define the architect in this
period, as by the second half of the sixteenth century, the
increasingly delineated engineer came to characterize what
the architect was not.
 In its etymological origins, the term engineer (ingeniator) is
connected to ingenium, an innate mental facility and power to
invent. As consummately illustrated in Taccola’s De ingeneis,
the design of military devices, as well as mechanical devices
more generally, was considered the dominion of men with
great ingegno—ingenuity, intelligence, and the power to
invent (Figure 2). Brunelleschi, according to Taccola, was
“gifted . . . especially in architecture” but was also “a most
learned inventor in the design of structural devices.”28
Already by the 1430s, the practice of the Italian engineer had
expanded beyond the military arts, a logical evolution given
that the two disciplines involved similar technical skill sets. In
the documents it appears that by the second half of the fif-
teenth century (outside Milan) the term engineer was applied
to individuals in regard to their work on particularly techni-
cally complicated building tasks.29 For example, in Sienese
documents of the 1460s and 1470s, Antonio Federighi is
named ingegnere in regard to his involvement with the recon-
struction of the Torre del Mangia.30 A century later, the asso-
ciation between the engineer and the design of mechanical
systems and fortifications had become almost universal. By
the time Vasari wrote his Vite (1550 and 1568), strictly tech-
nical, utilitarian design was no longer considered the realm of
the architect.
Alberti and the Rebirth of the Architect
The Renaissance revival of the “architect”—as a concept and
as an occupational designation—thus marked a watershed.
Leon Battista Alberti’s definition of the architect, as set forth
in his De re aedificatoria (ca. 1450), provided the ideal model
for the Renaissance architect. It was Alberti’s architect who
was routinely cited and championed throughout the early
modern period, and, significantly, it was this model that set the
framework for the architect’s rise as a professional. While the
reason the Albertian architect gained such popularity has of-
ten eluded historians—the erudite Latin of De re aedificatoria
and the work’s absence of illustrations certainly did not attract
broad readership—Alberti’s deep affinity with contemporary
social thought offers an explanation.31 Based on ancient prece-
dent, the Albertian architect was a civic figure upon whom
“the security, dignity and honor of the republic depends” and
was not unlike the model professional the prominent human-
ist author espoused in his other celebrated texts.32
Among the leitmotifs of De re aedificatoria is the idea of the
architect’s nobility—his position, Alberti confirms, is “a great
matter”—and his categorical distinction from the crafts-
man.33 In this repositioning and, indeed, redefinition of the
architect, Alberti not only disassociates the architect from
anonymous maestri of the medieval work site but also places
him among the intellectual elite, ranking him alongside “the
greatest exponents of other [learned] disciplines.”34 In
Alberti’s view, such a shift was necessary, as the architect—like
any individual who wished to succeed within the competitive,
increasingly educated society of mid-fifteenth-century
Italy—had to profess the intellectual basis of his occupation
and rank his role in an organizational hierarchy above that of
his collaborators. Elaborating on the qualifications and char-
acter of the architect, Alberti articulates the architect’s com-
mitment to his occupation as act of profession (profiteor):
If the architect is to succeed in planning, preparing, and execut-
ing the work properly and according to his office, there are a
number of considerations that he must not overlook. He must
ponder the nature of his position, what he professes, and what
impression he would like to give; he must calculate the size of
the project and the amount of praise, remuneration, thanks and
even fame he will achieve, or conversely, if he embarks on
something without sufficient experience, prudence or consider-
ation, what contempt and hatred he will receive. . . . A great
thing is architecture, and not everyone can undertake it. He
must be of the greatest ingenuity, the keenest insight, the high-
est learning, and the widest experience, and most importantly,
he must be serious and of good judgment and counsel, who
dare to profess himself the architect.35
The attributes Alberti ascribes to the architect—civic, in-
tellectual, and moral—are not confined to the building de-
signer. In fact, they correspond with the more general
characterization of the professions he lays out in his De com-
modis (1429). In this ironic essay, Alberti weighs the virtues
and vices of pursuing a scholarly career, contrasting the clois-
tered scholar (litteratus) with the businessman or the scribal,
medical, legal, or military professional. The scholar is under-
appreciated in society and poorly remunerated, yet he is
noble in his pursuit of knowledge. The professional, by con-
trast, may be wealthy and esteemed but is slave to the clients
he serves.36 Sarcasm aside—Alberti’s litteratus is comically
pitiful—De commodis offers an alternative professional model:
the civic-minded intellectual.37 A socially engaged scholar
who pursues knowledge for a greater purpose than knowl-
edge itself, this figure uses his expertise to serve and enrich
society. Although the civic-minded intellectual values learn-
ing over material wealth, Alberti concedes that this person’s
great knowledge and agreeable nature are often rewarded
with financial prosperity. Moreover, due to his many positive
attributes, this professional exemplar often earns honor,
esteem, and admiration.38
The character of the civic-minded intellectual in De com-
modis is not unlike the architect in De re aedificatoria. This
professional model also appears in Alberti’s De statua. Here,
reflecting on empirical knowledge of the artist, Alberti cites
the example of the shipbuilder. “Who would dare to profess
himself a ship-builder, if he did not know the parts of the
ship, how one ship differs from the next, and how parts of a
THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 17
Figure 2 Jacopo Mariano Taccola, De ingeneis, ca. 1420–35, study drawings of a two-speed winch (center), wagons for the transport of cannons and a
trebuchet (top and center), palisade and mallet (center right with notes), a three-part wagon (bottom), and cannon and cannonballs (bottom with note)
(Codex Latinus Monacensis 197, part II, folio 19v, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich; by permission of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich;
reproduction prohibited).

18 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017

construction hold together?” Following this he categorically
asserts, “Everyone should have learned the art he pro-
fesses.”39 As in De re aedificatoria, Alberti thus affirms the in-
tellectual basis of the artist’s work; he also sets out a
framework of professional standards and social decorum.
Alberti does not mention profession in his famed treatise
on painting, but this is not because he deems painting in any
way inferior to the other arts. On the contrary, the clear dis-
tinction evident in Alberti’s treatment of the painter relative
to the architect speaks directly to the contemporary evalua-
tion of the former’s nobility and the ambiguous social stand-
ing of the latter. De pictura is based on the recognition of
painting as a cognate art, based in mathematics and letters,
and thus easily distinguished from the manual crafts. Paint-
ing, Alberti reminds his reader, was pursued in the ancient
world by noble citizens, kings, and philosophers and is distin-
guished not only in its intellectual foundations but also in its
great beauty and the joy and physical ease of its creation.40
In keeping with his exalted status, moreover, the painter
belonged to one of the greater guilds (arti maggiori)—as did
judges and notaries, silk and cloth merchants, bankers, doc-
tors, and apothecaries—occupational fields that demanded
less manual work and drew higher earnings.41 The architect’s
exclusion from the arti maggiori, and from any professional
system for that matter, only reaffirmed the need to delineate
the requirements of his occupation. De re aedificatoria ad-
dressed this need, drawing on an emerging understanding
of professions. Bestowing the architect with a classically
grounded theory and technical lexicon, Alberti placed him
alongside members of the learned professorate. The eloquent
Latin of De re aedificatoria—although inaccessible to the aver-
age worker—initiated a dialogue on architecture that spurred
a culture of architectural literature. The treatise represented
the first step in the definition of the early modern architec-
tural professional. The teaching of architecture in schools
was the second.42
Guilds, Universities, and the Aspirant Professional
The guilds of early modern Italy were essentially the first
self-governing professional organizations. In their staunch
traditionalism and regimentation, however, they were funda-
mentally at odds with the understanding of professions
espoused by Alberti and the preeminent role of the architect
advocated in De re aedificatoria. Alberti’s theory of architec-
ture, conceptually intertwined with contemporary humanist
discourses on the individual, rationalism, and the acquisition
of fame, provided a prescription for the architect-as-author.43
Within this conceptual framework, the architect took his
place alongside the uomini illustri—poets, rhetoricians, and
men of letters—whose legacy was rooted in their authorship
of laudable works.44 Guilds (arti) were antithetical to such
authorship.45 In the view of ambitious quattrocento Italians
like Brunelleschi, the guilds were homogenizing institutions
that, in controlling every aspect of their members’ occupa-
tional lives—from their primary training to the numbers and
types of jobs they were to execute, the pay they were to
receive, and the traditions they were to follow—stifled indi-
viduality and innovation.46 Thus it was unclear how the
Albertian architect was to gain an institutional framework,
acquire valid social credentials, and, in turn, achieve profes-
sional status. The Renaissance universities—themselves
founded as guilds—provided a model.
Often known as universitas (corporation), scholae (school),
collegia (assembly), or corpora opificum et artificium (order of
laborers and artisans), the early modern guild provided an in-
stitutional framework where men of like age, instincts, tastes,
and occupations could gather, their common interests pro-
tected and their morals and well-being looked after.47 Guilds
also often functioned as educational institutions, appointing
well-qualified instructors to teach young men in the duties
and responsibilities of particular occupations.48 It was within
this framework that the first universities (studio or sapienza)
were established as guilds of scholars, self-regulating bodies
of learned men. The association between the early modern
universitas (Latin) or università (Italian)—that is, the craft and
artisan sodality—and the modern university stems from this
connection.49
The administrative structures that controlled the occupa-
tional activities of the university-educated professoriat and
artisan guild members were therefore closely related. The
scribe, like the painter or mason, belonged to a sodality that
provided a social and religious community, set standards for
his education, and closely monitored the work he did and the
remuneration he received.50 In early modern Italy there was a
distinct theoretical and social divide between the professional
elite and the artisan class—the product of deeply ingrained
social hierarchies and the sociopolitical ramifications of guild
affiliation. Not all guilds were created equal, and a person’s
social rank was directly related to his position within the guild
system.51 As noted previously, the more socially prestigious,
“greater” guilds were reserved for those occupations with
higher earnings and cleaner and less labor-intensive work.
Painters and goldsmiths belonged to the arti maggiori.52
Those who worked in all other craft and commercial occupa-
tions—from butchers to shoemakers, stonemasons, tanners,
locksmiths, carpenters, and bakers—were housed within the
arti minori. Architects, who did not have a guild of their own,
were most typically grouped with stonemasons, wood-
workers, or carpenters in the arti minori.53
The association between the early modern trade guilds
and the universities also helps to elucidate how artists and
architects came to reposition their work within the artes liber-
ales. In ancient Greece, the artes liberales were those subjects
THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 19
deemed necessary for “free” men to master in order to partic-
ipate in civic life—grammar, logic, and rhetoric, as well as
arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.54 Their study
was controlled by no institution and was undertaken for no
concrete economic purpose. This philosophy of the artes
liberales, which equates to the Renaissance studia humanitatis,
was not absolutely mirrored in the pursuits of early modern
Italian intellectuals.55 The humanist writers and thinkers of
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy had in reality much
in common with Alberti’s model professional. Employed as
secretaries, lawyers, notaries, doctors, and chancellors, they
were engaged in the societies to which they contributed. Be-
yond this, they were often employed as schoolteachers or
professors. There was thus a direct connection between the
members of the guilds of doctors and lawyers and the mem-
bers of the university guilds—the professors. The title hu-
manista, in fact, was used to describe a professional teacher
of the studia humanitatis.56
The Renaissance studio—with its emphasis on liberal edu-
cation and the practical application of knowledge—was for-
mative in the conceptual development of professionalism.
The first professionals of early modern Italy were university-
educated doctors, lawyers, and secretaries, whose social rise
coincided with that of the university.57 The early modern
studio was a fundamentally urban institution. The social basis
of its recruitment was broad and democratic—attendance was
not limited to the wealthy or members of the elite—and its
members were closer, at least in spirit, to practitioners of the
mechanical arts than they were to those of the purely liberal
arts.58 This is not to say that the early modern university was
a training ground for the common citizen—or, for that matter,
the architect. The language of the university was still Latin,
and teaching focused not on specific occupational skills but
rather on broad scholarly principles—the ability to think criti-
cally and to apply analytical reasoning to a problem. But it was
this “liberal” focus that opened the studio, and the intellectual
model it propounded, to a greater population of aspiring
professionals.
Pietro Cataneo discusses the value of the university in the
development of a city’s middle classes in his L’architettura.
“The honored studio,” he notes, “will be of much use to the
city, because, in addition to the money which it brings in,
there come many students from far away, and from close re-
gions.” He continues: “But even beyond this, what is most
important is that the city’s inhabitants will be trained in dif-
ferent distinguished sciences, and because of this, they will
bring great honor and fame to their city.”59 Cataneo’s faith in
the studio as a stepping-stone for professional advancement
was the product of his own experiences. Trained as copyist
and scribe, Cataneo was introduced to architecture through
his work within the scriptorium of the studio of Siena, where
he copied and studied architectural texts, including Francesco
20 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017
di Giorgio’s Trattato di architettura, and later completed an
advanced course in mathematics.60
While Cataneo’s intellectual background was something of
an anomaly among architects—the majority of architects did
not write treatises—the implicit association he drew between
occupational success and a theoretically based education reso-
nated with a greater audience of artists. By the mid-sixteenth
century, artists in Italy were increasingly discontented with the
standard, guild-structured apprenticeship—education that
depended on one master and was limited to those projects
that happened to have engaged the workshop during the
artist’s training. They wanted broader, more objective educa-
tion and thus were increasingly drawn to universities and
literary academies.61 Baldassare Peruzzi, for example, was
appointed by the studio of Siena to teach courses on
perspective and draftsmanship (ca. 1530), and Agnolo
Bronzino, Bartolomeo Ammannati, Vincenzo Danti, and
Francesco da Sangallo were members of the Accademia
Fiorentina.62
The increasing concern among Italian Renaissance artists
for education and specialized knowledge also spurred the re-
structuring of traditional craft guilds and the development of
artistic academies—sister organizations of the university.63
The growth of the early modern studio, therefore, combined
with the dissemination of new professional ideals, allowed
skilled craftsmen, merchants, artists, and architects to assume
elevated social roles. While most artists and architects were
not scholars, by creating and joining in occupational struc-
tures that were comparable to those of the universities, they
were able to define themselves in the same terms as the
professoriat.
Profession by Another Name
By the second half of the fifteenth century, with Alberti’s ideal
of the authorial architect circulating in printed editions of
De re aedificatoria and Italian universities enjoying vigorous
growth, the social and cultural conditions might have been
ripe for the emergence of the professional architect.64 Yet
there is little evidence to suggest that the concept of profes-
sionalism was widely recognized within Italian society, and in
regard to architecture, it is clear that the term professione was
not consistently or uniformly used. While Lorenzo Ghiberti
and Alberti spoke explicitly of profession in their commentar-
ies on the arts, the term is entirely absent from the two
primary vernacular architectural treatises of the fifteenth
century: those of Filarete and Francesco di Giorgio.65 Never-
theless, these two authors unquestionably considered archi-
tecture as a profession: a specialized occupation involving
extensive theoretical knowledge and skill and requiring a
level of judgment and moral integrity that eludes the average
worker.66 In describing the work of the architect, Filarete and
Francesco employed the terms disciplina, dottrina, scientia, and
arte interrelatedly, in a manner that itself implies profession.
Disciplina, as understood in the early modern period, was a
field of learning or knowledge; dottrina was defined as a piece
of teaching or instruction, often made in public; the Latin sci-
entia took the literal meaning of “knowledge”; and arte, in
Italian, means “skill” or “craft.” In associating arte with disci-
plina, dottrina, and scientia, the authors linked the identity of
the knowledgeable, publicly avowed individual with that of
the craftsman-artist.
Written nearly two decades apart, Filarete’s Libro architet-
tonico and Francesco’s Trattato di architettura differ substan-
tially in form and content. The former is composed as a
utopian narrative, while the latter reads as a programmatic
thesis on the art of building. As individual texts, each defining
architecture in response to its author’s own situation, the two
treatises provide substantially different portraits of early
modern architecture. Yet the Libro and the Trattato are
immediately comparable in that both set out to provide a
theoretical framework to underpin the building professions.
Adopting a didactic tone, Filarete and Francesco alike drew
on their own experiences to instruct the reader on practices
of building design, construction, and project management.
Moreover, by including significant information from their
own lives, both authors created, in effect, professional auto-
biographies. While the impact of these architectural profiles
should not be overstated, neither was it inconsequential. Al-
though never printed, both the Libro and the Trattato enjoyed
significant readership. Filarete’s tract—realized in two ver-
sions (ca. 1460 and 1464) and dedicated to Duke Francesco
Sforza and Piero de Medici, respectively—was copied in its
original Italian as well as in Latin. The treatise made it
into the libraries of the elite—Alfonso II, Duke of Calabria,
and Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, among others, owned
copies—but was also circulated among practitioners.67
Francesco’s tract, known today in two principal versions (ca.
1480 and ca. 1490), was copied by the hundreds. Its didactic
images were so widely reproduced among practitioners that
they became canonical, anonymous models.68 The Libro and
the Trattato were thus circulated as published manuals for
professional practice, defining their authors while at the same
time educating a broader public on the architect’s occupa-
tional endeavors.69
Composed as a fictional dialogue between the architect
and his employers, Filarete’s Libro mirrors the author’s less-
than-agreeable experiences working in the Sforza court of
Milan.70 Relating every detail of the planning of the utopian
Sforzinda, Filarete stands as the model practitioner, and un-
questionably it was this ideal of the architect, and of the ruda-
menta of architecture more generally, that Filarete sought to
elucidate (Figure 3).71 He speaks of the importance of good
marble and how to assess its quality, for example, and then
relates a trip to a marble quarry, thereby proving his compe-
tence. Likewise, he notes the importance of proper calcula-
tion of expenditures and then does the math for Sforzinda
according to his foretold assessment of what is necessary and
appropriate.72
The scope of architecture assumed by Filarete followed
closely on Vitruvius’s prescription, involving the design of
houses, churches, and civic buildings; the conception and
construction of bridges, ports, towers, forts, and moats; and
the provision (often through invention) of building machin-
ery.73 Filarete not only advanced the Vitruvian ideal of the
architect’s polymathic knowledge but also gave great atten-
tion to the architect’s moral character. His chosen moniker,
Filarete—literally “lover of virtue”—was a rhetorical reaffir-
mation of his firm belief in the dignity of architecture and the
virtue it demanded of its practitioners. In the building and
maintenance of society, the architect was all-important, pro-
viding knowledge and experience without which “one cannot
conceive or dedicate a good building.”74 Filarete returns to
this point on several occasions, placing the value of the archi-
tect above that of monetary compensation and stressing that
the architect should be properly compensated in the honor,
favorable salary, and authority he receives.75
As a way of enforcing the standards for his model
architect—which from experience he knew was more the
exception than the norm—Filarete offers a hypothetical test
by which the presumptuous architect might be distinguished
from the truly practiced.76 While this is perhaps one of the
first references to an architectural accreditation exam, the
impetus behind Filarete’s proposal was not unique. Com-
plaints about the unregulated state of architecture, and
about the existence of “pretenders” who claimed titles and
the associated rewards without undergoing the requisite
training, were ubiquitous in fifteenth-century Italy.77 Cer-
tainly Francesco di Giorgio’s Trattato di architettura was
born out of similar concerns, and the time Francesco poured
into writing, revising, and rewriting his treatise proves that
his desire to codify architecture was sincere, a career-long
endeavor.
The Trattato, like the Libro, highlights exemplary practical
models while also drawing attention to the flaws in architec-
ture and its lack of a system of assessment and accreditation.
Beyond this, Francesco, like Filarete, speaks extensively of his
own experiences, using a first-person, active voice to guide
the reader through the lineaments of architecture. This is
particularly evident in the second version of the treatise, as
conserved in the authoritative codex Magliabechiana II.
I.141 manuscript. Here Francesco tells us, for example, about
the many buildings he designed for Federico da Montefeltro,
how he and the duke toiled over the text of Vitruvius, and the
numerous experiences he had surveying building sites or lo-
cating valuable minerals.78 The value of the text lies in the
THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 21
Figure 3 Antonio Averlino Filarete, Libro architettonico, ca. 1465, illustration of the architect giving orders to two workers (ms. Magliabechianus II.I.140,
folio 1r, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Firenze; by permission of the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo; any reproduction is
prohibited).

22 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017

firsthand insights and empirical knowledge of its impressive
author. Such on-site training, Francesco repeatedly reminds
the reader, is essential for professional success and is what ul-
timately distinguishes true practitioners from those “so-
called architects” (architetti nominati).79
Francesco’s critique of the unregulated, lamentable state
of architecture is most forcefully displayed in the final book
of the Trattato, on machinery. “Always and increasingly to-
day,” he writes, “the most ignorant take reward for the labors
of others, and glorify themselves with words of knowledge
and power in many things, which in truth are the inventions
of others. And this flaw in our time is most common in those
architects who call themselves such precipitously, who are
almost all ignorant and inexpert men, whose own work is
so easily realized.”80 This impassioned statement, from a
man obviously frustrated with the state of his professed
occupation, cannot be understood as anything but a call for
its reform. This sentiment is further manifest in the self-
affirming definition Francesco issues several lines prior
regarding the virtues of the architect proper. Nearly echoing
Alberti’s ideal of the monetarily indifferent, knowledge-
seeking professional, Francesco asserts that “I have acquired
the knowledge of [these machines] with great toil and
discomfort, and at the sacrifice of my means of livelihood.”
But such a condition, he continues, applies to all who are
truly dedicated to their art: “I find that he who achieves such
experience [knowledge] does so with great time, expense and
at the impediment of other useful cares.”81
One might reasonably ask why, if Filarete and Francesco
sought to educate others on architecture, they needed to
relate so much personal information. And one would be
justified in thinking that the authors were as interested in
self-promotion as they were in education. But such conspicu-
ous self-promotion and self-definition were necessary for the
architect’s transformation from an anonymous maestro, one of
several dozen involved in a major construction project, to the
authoritative building creator. Beyond this, Filarete and
Francesco were working to create an ethos of professional
practice. Although they did not explicitly discuss the profes-
sione di architetto, in showing themselves as credible and
knowledgeable individuals, and in systematizing their prac-
tice in a manner that also informed the greater citizen body
about the requirements and social importance of architec-
ture, they codified their occupation as a profession.82
The Emergence of the Professional
In content, structure, and didactic function, the architectural
treatises of the sixteenth century were not substantially differ-
ent from those of the fifteenth. They too responded to the
need to systematize the processes of building design and
sought to do so through self-definition. Yet the cinquecento
writings differ in the explicit claims they make for the
professione di architetto. Architects’ appropriation of the term
professione—used to refer to the title an individual claimed,
his occupation, or his commitment to a subject through
teaching—went hand in hand with the greater proliferation
of the concept of profession across social and cultural strata.
As evident in Tomasso Garzoni’s voluminous La piazza uni-
versale di tutte le professioni del mondo (1585), the use of profes-
sione had far more to do with self-representation and public
perception than it did with the value of an occupation, its in-
tellectual rigor, or the difficulty of the skill it entailed.83
According to Garzoni, almost every occupation—from that
of academics (accademici) to those of housewives (comari),
printers (tipografi), and robbers (rubbatori)—could be valued
as a profession.84 Guild associations, moreover, were largely
irrelevant, as in fact there were far more professions—150,
according to Garzoni—than there were guilds. The enor-
mous success of Garzoni’s La piazza universale, which saw
twenty-nine editions from 1585 to 1683, affirms the reso-
nance of this popular conception of profession, as well as its
understanding within the literate middle class. Certainly,
Garzoni was not alone or even original in promoting the
culture of professions. His discussions derived from a mass
of contemporary treatises and practitioner manuals in
which professione, as both a concept and a vocational title,
may be traced.
It was thus in keeping with current social and lexicographic
trends that nearly every architectural writer of sixteenth-
century Italy employed the term professione. As casually refer-
enced by Andrea Palladio, the word seems little more than a
gesture to social norms.85 But for certain authors—in particu-
lar those who, due to the insecurity of their own positions,
adopted a polemical approach to architecture—the use of pro-
fessione was a deliberate rhetorical means by which to cement
the parameters of their occupation. Indeed, what was meant
by “architecture” changed in the sixteenth century. The sub-
stantial political, cultural, and religious developments under
way in this period—spurred by the Sack of Rome, the Refor-
mation, and a long series of Turkish attacks on the Italian
coastlines—brought with them changes in building tastes and
needs. Under the continual threat of war, the leaders of
Naples, Florence, Venice, the Papal States, and Genoa in-
vested heavily in defenses, and the ever-increasing specializa-
tion of these constructions, necessitated by the technological
developments in firearms, led to the categorical rise of the
fortification expert. And if ever a professional existed—
that individual who possessed specialized, practically ori-
ented knowledge, whose work immeasurably benefited the
society he served, and who was trusted for his skill, judg-
ment, and moral integrity—it was the military architect.
Architects like Pirro Ligorio and Giovan Battista Belluzzi
thus stood on the fissure of a rapidly splitting occupation,
THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 23
Figure 4 Pirro Ligorio, Trattato di alcune cose appartenente alla nobiltà dell’antiche arti, ca. 1570, title page (ms. J. a. II. 15, folio 2r, Archivio di Stato Torino;
by permission of the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo; any reproduction is prohibited).
and each endeavored in writing to codify and legitimate his
practice. In tone, the texts of Ligorio and Belluzzi have much
in common with the acerbic passages of Francesco’s Trattato,
similarly charging “ignorant and inexpert” pretenders with
hindering the advancement of building and tarnishing the
architect’s reputation. Yet the context in which they wrote
was markedly different, as was the impact of their words.
Ligorio, drawing on the Vitruvian model, advocated for the
polymathic, intellectual architect. Belluzzi, in turn, promoted
the newly emergent military architect.
Practiced as a civil architect, fortification designer, hydrol-
ogist, and antiquarian, Pirro Ligorio (1513–83) was among
the most provocative and vocal critics of sixteenth-century ar-
chitecture.86 His damnation of the accepted norms of his oc-
cupation is readily apparent in his Trattato di alcune cose
appartenente alla nobiltà dell’antiche arti (ca. 1570), in which he
addresses the character of the architect within the broader
context of artistic decorum (Figure 4).87 The book’s rambling
quality and caustic tone is revealed in its full title, which may
be roughly translated as follows: “Treatise on the nobility of
the ancient arts, especially on painting, sculpture and archi-
tecture, and the good and the bad that those people acquire
that weakens the arts, and on those who are not of the
24 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017
profession, who speak excessively so as to sound learned
about that which they do not know, and detract from those
they themselves deface.”88 The term professione, which ap-
pears not only in the title but also throughout the text, delin-
eates good practice and is employed more subtly in the
associations Ligorio draws among intellectual, moral, and
social superiority.
Within the treatise Ligorio never identifies practitioners
of bad architecture, but he does elaborate on the character
flaws of such individuals. These men are inferior in intellect,
judgment, and virtue, he argues, and in falsely assuming the
title of architect, they degrade the profession.89 “Every mason
and every surveyor,” he writes, “wishes to be an architect.”90
But these individuals fail to recognize that the architect “is
called as such because he is literally ‘chief’ and ‘builder,’ lord
of the arts, and commander,” and thus foolishly claim his title
without knowing “how to found a building, or how to draw it,
or how to examine its proportions or recognize the nature of
its members, or how it should be raised and where it must be
located.”91 Equally as dangerous as such pretenders, accord-
ing to Ligorio, are those “spiteful and stupid” individuals who
recognize neither the extensive learning of the architect nor
his selfless dedication to his occupation. Such men “sap the
merits of virtuous men”—true architects—“who practically
kill themselves in doing something that is honorable, sparing
neither life nor their means.”92 This passage echoes the Vi-
truvian notion of the learned, socially upstanding, and abste-
mious architect, and the lines that follow, in fact, regarding
the architect’s extensive education, are taken directly from
Vitruvius.
The self-commendation evident in Ligorio’s writings, as
well as his explicit claims about the professional’s superiority,
are also found in documents concerning his career. In the
correspondence regarding Ligorio’s 1568 transfer to Ferrara,
for example, the architect’s selflessness, exceptional knowl-
edge, and professional character are routinely highlighted.93
But Ligorio, like almost every other artist of the day, was
not indifferent to salary and rewards, and in transferring
to Ferrara he secured for himself a generous contract of
twenty-five scudi a month as well as a house, a food allowance,
and two servants.94
The contradiction evident here—whereby Ligorio
characterized himself according to the model of the knowl-
edge-seeking classical architect, upholding all the virtues this
entailed, while at the same time greedily pursued fame and
wealth—might be seen as a product of the changing nature of
architecture and, paradoxically, the increased professionalism
it demanded. On one hand, the publication of the 1568 edi-
tion of the Vite of Vasari—Ligorio’s great rival—coupled with
the establishment of the Accademia del Disegno degraded
the design activities of military architects and ingegneri.95 But
at the same time, fortification designers, due to the immense
political and economic value of their work, increasingly de-
manded monumental salaries.96 Sixteenth-century Italian
military architects consciously sought to differentiate them-
selves from their civil-oriented peers, drawing a link between
the professione they espoused and their pay. Within both
camps of architecture, professione was increasingly used as a
badge of affiliation. Within the ever-expanding body of
printed architectural literature, professione signified social and
economic status and had little to do with the practitioner’s
moral character or classical virtues.
In texts by Galeazzo Alessi, Buonaiuto Lorini, Francesco
de’ Marchi, and Giovan Battista Belluzzi the concept of
profession is explicitly employed to underscore the scarcity
of the military architect’s—or engineer’s—knowledge.97 Ac-
cording to these authors, success in the professione dell’archi-
tettura militare required full commitment to the professione
militare.98 This meant that it was not only imperative to be
proficient in surveying, plan making, and construction man-
agement—as was the case for essentially all architects—but it
was also necessary to know firearms and attack and defense
strategies, and to have had firsthand experience on the bat-
tlefield. In delineating the technical acumen required of the
military architect, exponents of the profession explicitly
differentiated themselves from their “civilian” peers, even
going so far as to belittle the ornamental concerns of their
art. As Belluzzi states:
Architects and scholars . . . have not seen so many of the exer-
cises I have found in the architecture of combat, nor [do they
know] how to draw a piece of artillery or to make a stronghold
with a countermine . . . thus, it will be fine to let architects make
palaces, churches, sepulchers, cornices, architrave, bases, col-
umns, swags, shields, masks and other carved details, because
fortresses require good flanks, good parapets, fine gates, and
good men.99
He elaborates on this sentiment elsewhere, again treating the
civil architect’s aesthetic and formal concerns with disdain.
“Fortresses made in Italy by architects without the advice of
soldiers suffer great opposition . . . and thus the prince who
wants to make a fortress should take the advice from soldiers
and from those to whom he would like to give it custody
when necessary, and not to scholars [dottori] because neither
measures nor books fight.”100
Remarkable in both passages is the comparison Belluzzi
draws between architects and men of learning (dottori), and its
derogatory implications. The Renaissance definition of
dottore—an authoritative figure of eminent learning who is
often looked to for instruction—was quite closely related
to professore, and so also to professione.101 In correlating the
dottore with the architect, Belluzzi bestowed the latter with
university-level credentials. Yet, whereas such association was
befitting the Albertian architect, for Belluzzi and his peers
such bookish learning was worthless in the profession of the
military architect. As reiterated by Lorini, “For he who wants
to be a good Military Engineer and perfect soldier it is unnec-
essary . . . to complete a doctorate in Padua or Bologna . . . but
he should have seen artillery sieges.”102
From these passages, it might seem that Belluzzi, like
Lorini, was hard-nosed and anti-academic. In a certain sense,
he was. Within the context of such exceptionally accom-
plished, authoritative, and often legitimately noble men,
however, anti-academic did not equate to anti-learning.103
Correlating Belluzzi’s claims with his actual practice helps to
clarify what was meant by the professione dell’architettura
militare. Giovan Battista Belluzzi (1506–54), a member of the
distinguished Belluzzi family of San Martino, was trained in
bookkeeping, but through a series of fortuitous relationships,
he found a place in architecture and the military arts.104
Whatever applied or theoretical training he had missed in his
youth, he made up for in practice. In service to Cosimo de’
Medici, Belluzzi demonstrated his abilities in mathematics,
draftsmanship, military strategy, and surveying (he even de-
signed a new instrument to facilitate the surveyor’s process),
and his architectural knowledge and linguistic eloquence
were such that Cosimo specifically requested that he write
THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 25
Trattato delle fortificazioni di terra (Figure 5).105 Beloved and
highly esteemed within the Florentine court, Belluzzi was the
learned yet decidedly practical professional that his treatise so
doggedly promoted.106
The profession of military architect championed by Bel-
luzzi did not take hold overnight. While the advancing pace
of military technology undoubtedly demanded greater spe-
cialization, in terms of practice alone, sixteenth-century Ital-
ian military architects did not categorically distinguish
themselves from their civil-oriented peers. Most telling in
this regard is the fact that in the sixteenth century, military ar-
chitects continued to work in the civil realm and vice versa.107
The impassioned rhetoric of the military designers was in
large part the propaganda of self-promotion. Military archi-
tects of Belluzzi’s rank enjoyed generous salaries and the
rewards of courtly affiliation—benefits that alone were suffi-
cient to justify their desire to institutionalize their occupation
and strictly limit the entry of others. Within the volatile po-
litical climate of sixteenth-century Italy, which brought with
it uncertainties of patronage and an increasingly fluid work-
force, the claims of profession were a practical means of legit-
imation. But in order for the professione dell’architettura
militare to truly take root, new educational programs were
needed—military academies—in which customized curricula
based in practical warfare, architectural drawing, artillery, ge-
ometry, and philosophy would provide the requisite training
for the new fortification architect. The academy founded by
Galileo in Padua, which accepted students from 1592 to
1609, was the first of its kind to offer a comprehensive educa-
tional program on fortifications.108 Almost a half century ear-
lier, however, academies of civil architects and artists were
already operating in Florence, Perugia, and Rome.
The Rise of the Academy
Academies, as conceived and developed in fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century Italy, were directly associated with profes-
sion. The first academies emerged around 1440, in Florence
under the auspices of Cosimo de’ Medici and in Rome under
Cardinal Bessarion. By 1500, Naples, Padua, Mantua, Lecce,
Siena, and Urbino all supported semi-institutionalized acade-
mies.109 Early modern academies differed from universities
primarily in that the latter were founded by public authori-
ties, whereas the former were private entities, admission to
which was carefully controlled. Educational activities thus
differed substantially from one academy to the next, but as in
the studio, the Ciceronian debate (disputatio) was the common
epistemological model.110 Characterized by the continual
testing of ideas through discussion, the disputatio allowed
academicians to explore broad inquiries into the structure
and character of knowledge as well as more specific topics in
history, poetry, music, and the arts.111 Benedetto Varchi’s
26 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017
1542 Due lezzioni, on the nobility of the arts, is perhaps the
best-known example of academicians’ theoretical engage-
ment with the arts. This debate, and the dialogue it sparked,
laid the groundwork for the formation of the Florentine
Accademia del Disegno two decades later and the subsequent
development of analogous artistic academies in Perugia and
Rome.112 These artistic academies represented the first insti-
tutional attempts to professionalize the arts.
Giorgio Vasari’s Vite, the second version of which was
composed in the same years that the Accademia del Disegno
was conceived and founded, was the most extensive literary
publication of the sixteenth century to promote the profes-
sional artist. Within the Vite, Vasari speaks of the professions
of painting, sculpture, and architecture, employing the term
explicitly as a means to affirm the practitioner’s excellence.113
We learn, for example, that Francesco di Giorgio had “very
good judgment in architecture and proved that he had a very
good knowledge of that profession,” and that no one equaled
Baldassare Peruzzi in the “profession of architecture.” Vasa-
ri’s use of the term also implicitly values the artist’s assessed
character—his skill, morality, and decorum—the defining
characteristics of a true professional.114 The critical and nar-
rative history put forth in the Vite, moreover, was integral to
the development of the Accademia del Disegno, which was
inaugurated in 1563 as an academy and university (accademia
et studio).115 As the first academy of art—a state-controlled,
scientifically oriented institution that hosted lectures, offered
students an extensive library of books, drawings, and models,
and sponsored publications, competitions, and conferences as
a means to spark innovation and elevate artistic standards—
the Accademia del Disegno marked a crucial step in the insti-
tutionalization of artistic professionalism.116 The regulating
function of the academy was particularly important in terms
of architecture, a discipline that, as Vasari asserted in the first
edition of the Vite, was often practiced by “cunning impos-
tors,” ill trained in perspective and even the principles of
draftsmanship. Like so many before him, Vasari saw the need
to define the then unmonitored practice of architecture:
“The truth, indeed, is that architecture can never be practiced
to perfection save by those who have an excellent judgment
and a good mastery of design, or have labored much in paint-
ing, sculpture, or works in wood.”117
The proper architect according to Vasari was thus a
master of disegno—the father of the arts—which, “proceeding
from the intellect, derives from many things a universal judg-
ment, like a form or idea of all things in nature.”118 This con-
ception of disegno provided the foundation for the admittance
of the fine arts into the liberal arts and justified the estab-
lishment of an academy for artistic education.119 In the Vite,
Vasari also associates proficiency in disegno with judgment,
prudence, and discretion, and his repeated elision of these
concepts implicitly affirms that in mastery of disegno lies artistic
Figure 5 Giovan Battista Belluzzi, Trattato delle fortificazioni di terra, ca. 1550, illustration of bussola (surveying compass) (manuscript copy, Biblioteca
Antica Z.II.24, folio 5v, Archivio di Stato Torino; by permission of the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo; any reproduction is prohibited).

THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 27

professionalism.120 The Accademia del Disegno was to be
the institution for the artist’s cultivation, a complement to
workshop practice, whereby through disputatio and demon-
strations the standards for a unified community of profes-
sional artists would be set.
In theory, the Accademia del Disegno was to foster all arts
rooted in disegno—painting, sculpture, and architecture. In its
actual operation, however, architecture was given an inferior
status. Within the Accademia’s statutes, the admission of
architects was limited to those who were qualified as painters
or sculptors. This stipulation was born out of the lingering
distaste for any activity that appeared to be manual or me-
chanical in nature, as well as the still pervasive conception of
architecture as a utilitarian art, dependent in its form on the
“service and adornment” of painting and sculpture.121 Thus
within the Accademia del Disegno, the architect was a practi-
tioner of the artes liberales only in his abilities as an artist—a
designer of building ornaments and profiles—and not in his
abilities as a technician.
This policy was reflected in the Accademia’s membership.
In the first year of its existence, there were no architect mem-
bers, and by 1595, the institute had welcomed just one archi-
tect who did not affiliate with another discipline.122 Vasari
supported the academy’s homogenizing policies, promoting
the model of the artist-architect in the second edition of the
Vite. Of the nearly three hundred artists included in the com-
pendium, only eleven are said to be purely architects (and just
one is an architect-engineer).123 Little is said about the archi-
tect’s distinction in the book’s introductions, and Vasari
includes just a handful of references to built works in his
lengthy discussion of the achievements of the academy mem-
bers.124 Vasari’s bias, and that of the Accademia del Disegno,
was significant not only in that it excluded masons, carpen-
ters, and other nonartist architects from Florence’s presti-
gious art institute. The Vasarian concept of the architect
also redefined on an official level what was meant by the term
professione di architetto. The exclusion of fortification designers
and machinists from the Accademia only reinforced the desire
among these individuals to establish their own specialized
academies.125
In the same years that the Accademia del Disegno insti-
tuted a revised meaning of the professione di architetto in
Florence, so did the Università degli Architetti e Agrimensori
in Milan (1563). Although more a specialized guild than an
educational institution, the Milanese “university of architects
and surveyors” was unprecedented as a state-established insti-
tution dedicated to the protection of the building profes-
sions.126 Founded in response to the influx of foreign
artisans in Lombardy—“the multiplication of inept people
who exercise the profession”—the Università sought to
impede the rise of outsiders who were said to compromise
building projects in their ignorance of design principles and
28 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017
building practices.127 In addition to levying professional fees,
the Università implemented an extensive set of exams as a
means to ensure the intellectual and practical competence of
architects, who, in keeping with Lombard tradition, were still
closely associated with “engineers.” Aspiring architects were
tested in geometry, arithmetic, leveling, Milanese regulations
regarding the diversion of water, easements, and rules of
civilian and military architecture.128 The Università degli
Architetti e Agrimensori did not offer classes to assist
students in their preparation—for mathematical instruction,
for example, students could attend lectures at the University
of Pavia or take classes in the Scuole Palatine of Milan—but
within the closely affiliated Opera del Duomo a strong tradi-
tion of architectural theory did develop.129 The tract of Pel-
legrino Tibaldi is particularly notable. Not only was Tibaldi
a member of the Università, but also his proscriptive theory
on architecture was written as a discorso. Relying heavily on
the texts of Vitruvius and Alberti, Tibaldi’s L’architettura gives
significant attention to the role of the architect and his educa-
tion, technical competence, and professional practice. In
short, Tibaldi’s theory might be regarded as having provided
an educational curriculum for the Università degli Architetti
e Agrimensori, laying out the criteria necessary to gain admit-
tance to Milan’s architectural profession.130
While the Università degli Architetti e Agrimensori
sought to monitor professional practice through legislation,
the Accademia di San Luca in Rome sought to do so through
education. Modeled on a literary academy, the Accademia di
San Luca was conceived to train and support “studious young
boys, who wished to study the most noble professions of
Design: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.”131 Its first
principal, the distinguished painter and architect Federico
Zuccaro, substantially shaped the academy’s curriculum. A
former member of the Florentine Accademia del Disegno,
Zuccaro issued a critical assessment of the institute in a letter
written in 1578, calling attention to its weak instructional cur-
riculum, which he believed should be enhanced with figure-
drawing classes, lessons in handling tools, artistic critiques,
and regular lectures in mathematics.132 Within the letter,
Zuccaro also specifically addressed the base status of the archi-
tect within the Accademia: “And as architecture is united with
these [arts], the most expert Architects should, above all, at
times be present and discuss, as one must use this extraordi-
narily useful and necessary knowledge, and its modes should
be preserved.”133
When Zuccaro founded the Accademia di San Luca in
Rome more than a decade later, his dedication to architec-
tural education remained a principal concern. The early
history of this institution is well documented in its surviving
statutes, as well as in Romano Alberti’s Origine et progresso
dell’Accademia del disegno de’ pittori, scultori et architetti di Roma
(1604).134 As a studio for artists, the Accademia di San Luca
was to bring together students and experienced practitioners
for lectures, demonstrations, and debates on subjects ranging
from the human figure and its movements to history, deco-
rum and beauty, the rules of architecture, proportion, inven-
tion, color, and perspective. Biweekly lessons on the theory of
art were also held, which in regard to architecture primarily
consisted of discussions about Vitruvius.135 It was Zuccaro’s
belief that the rigorous curriculum would benefit both the
young and the experienced; aspiring artists would gain from
necessary instruction, and the more advanced academicians
as well as the amateurs would be furnished with dialogue that
“would sharpen the wit, and make it more prudent and
livelier.”136
The Accademia meeting of 11 February 1594, recorded in
the Origine, is of particular interest in regard to the institu-
tion’s approach to architecture.137 Discussing the role of the
architect, Zuccaro, along with the architects Francesco Vol-
terra, Onorio Longhi, and Flaminio Ponzio, examined the
Vitruvian definition of architecture.138 While some within
the group challenged the practical applicability of Vitruvius’s
model of the polymath architect, Zuccaro adamantly upheld
the ancient author’s theory.139 The practice of architecture,
Zuccaro argued, had become so competitive and “so
commonly professed” that only the true expert, proficient in
letters and drawing, theory, and mechanics, could fully com-
prehend and practice all the requisite fields of knowledge
needed for building design.140 To support his argument
further, Zuccaro returned to the etymology of architecture.
“Architecture is a name derived from Greek, which relates to
the work of the capomaestro and may be understood according
to the particular professions and the practices it subordinates,
such as those of masons, carpenters, stonecutters, and the
like, which it absolutely commands.” Implicitly invoking
Vitruvian authority, and echoing the sentiments of the quat-
trocento theorists, he continued:
Architecture, in our language, denotes Archi and tette, which is
the substance of building, and as such this refers to the particular
work of building, and its machines, but in terms that connote
greater dignity and greater intellect, as also the ability to orga-
nize and instruct. . . . We say, therefore, [that] Architecture is the
science of building and its pertinent rules, and the orders of dis-
tribution in its theory and practice. . . . We say it is a machine, of
many types and composed of diverse materials, which makes use
of the artifice of various disciplines and different practices.141
The Failure of Profession
Within the greater scope of early modern architecture
Federico Zuccaro’s affirmation of Vitruvius may seem
unremarkable: from Lorenzo Ghiberti to Pietro Cataneo,
numerous architects had championed the ancient author.
But by the late cinquecento, the Albertian-Vasarian ideal of
the architect-as-designer reigned supreme. According to
the professional social norms of the time, the architect
proper adhered to the educational model of the Accademia
del Disegno, while more technically oriented practitioners
were increasingly drawn to the specialized professione di
architettura militare.142 Zuccaro’s vision for the architect
was at once radical and retrograde; few of his contemporar-
ies followed his model. It is thus perhaps not surprising
that the academy that was to support this model of the
architect was largely unsuccessful. Artists and architects
disliked the intensive lecture schedule of the Accademia di
San Luca and were reticent to speak in front of others. In
addition, there was insufficient accord on the curricular
ideals advanced by the academy, implementation of the
academy’s statutes was too difficult, and the relationship
between classroom education and on-site practice was
poorly delineated.143 The architectural profession envi-
sioned by Zuccaro, moreover, was fundamentally weak-
ened by factors far beyond his control: the political
divisions of Italy and the corresponding pull of local
cultures, local traditions, and local guilds. No city-state
wanted to surrender its building heritage, no patron
wanted to defer to state-imposed regulations, and no archi-
tect wanted to submit to a standardized course of training.
In the modern sense of the concept, therefore, there was
no profession of architecture by the onset of the seventeenth
century in Italy. There were no degree-granting institutions,
no licenses for practice, and—the Università degli Architetti
e Agrimensori aside—no accreditation boards to impose
occupational regulations. Yet, as I have shown, a classical
concept of professione undoubtedly did exist. Among the likes
of Leon Battista Alberti and Francesco di Giorgio in the
fifteenth century and Pirro Ligorio and Giovan Battista
Belluzzi in the sixteenth, there was a clear understanding of
what it meant to profess oneself a member of a learned occu-
pation in which theoretical knowledge was combined with
practical expertise and public service. These architects also
conceived their work in terms of civic integrity, which
affirmed the inherent value of their own practice and placed
it within a social hierarchy far above that of the average
worker.
In crafting didactic treatises about their work, the archi-
tect-authors of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy were
decidedly modern. Their objections against pretenders and
“so-called architects,” and their systematic efforts to intro-
duce theory to the art of building, foreshadowed a long his-
tory of architectural literature that continues to this day.
The central themes of inquiry explored in the Renaissance
texts regarding the role and practice of the architect have be-
come canonical. The intellectual character of the architect,
the nature and extent of his involvement on the work site, his
THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 29
technical know-how, and his education are topics of long-
standing debate. One can thus rightfully say that Italian
Renaissance architects initiated an internal dialogue within
architecture that, by spurring the discipline’s codification and
progressive evolution, came to be a defining characteristic of
the modern architectural profession.
Elizabeth Merrill studied at Columbia University and at the
University of Virginia, where she earned her PhD. Her specializa-
tion is European architectural history, both the early modern and
modern periods. Her current research focuses on Renaissance ar-
chitectural practices and the means by which architects designed,
communicated, and developed their buildings. elizabethmer-
rill11@gmail.com
Notes
1. Definitive studies on the character of the Renaissance architect, and its am-
biguities, include James S. Ackerman, “Architectural Practice in the Italian
Renaissance,” in Distance Points: Essays in Theory and Renaissance Art and Archi-
tecture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991), 361–84; Mary Hollingsworth,
“The Architect in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” Art History 7 (1984),
385–410; Leopold Ettlinger, “The Emergence of the Italian Architect during
the Fifteenth Century,” in The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession,
ed. Spiro Kostof (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 96–123;
Catherine Wilkinson, “The New Professionalism in the Renaissance,” in
Kostof, The Architect, 124–60. See also Marvin Trachtenberg, Building-in-
Time: From Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 2010), 106; Martin Kemp, “From ‘Mimesis’ to ‘Fantasia’:
The Quattrocento Vocabulary of Creation, Inspiration and Genius in the
Visual Arts,” Viator 8 (1977), 359–60.
2. For a discussion of the modern definition of professionalism, see Eliot
Freidson, Professionalism Reborn: Theory, Prophecy, and Policy (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1994), 200. Freidson also provides “a semantic history
of ‘profession’ ” in his Professional Powers: A Study of the Institutionalization of
Formal Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 21–26. For
one of the first studies within sociology to examine critically the concept and
structure of professions and professionalism, see Michael Burrage and Rolf
Torstendahl, eds., Professions in Theory and History: Rethinking the Study of the
Professions (London: Sage, 1990). For historians of early modern architecture,
the term profession is a tempting rhetorical crutch, succinctly linking an occu-
pational category—and all of the social, intellectual, and practical connota-
tions it entails—with a common, readily understood term. But a handful of
scholars explicitly state that there was no profession of architecture during the
Renaissance. See, for example, Simon Pepper and Nicholas Adams, Firearms
and Fortifications: Military Architecture and Siege Warfare in Sixteenth-Century
Siena (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 177–78; Franklin Toker,
“Building on Paper: The Role of Architectural Drawings in Late-Medieval
Italy,” L’ art et les révolutions: Technique, structure et style de l’architecture gothique
8 (1992), 47; Trachtenberg, Building-in-Time, 106.
3. See Pietro Cataneo, L’architettura, in Pietro Cataneo, Giacomo Barozzi da
Vignola, con l'aggiunta degli scritti di architettura di Alvise Cornaro, Francesco
Giorgi, Claudio Tolomei, Giangiorgio Trissino, Giorgio Vasari, ed. Elena Bassi
(Milan: Edizioni il Polifilo, 1985), 401.
4. See Andrea Palladio, I quattro libri dell’architettura, ed. Licisco Magagnato
(Milan: Edizioni il Polifilo, 1980), 9–10: “Et a questa impresa tanto più volen-
tieri mi son messo, quanto ch’io veggo a questi tempi essere assaissimi di
questa professione studiosi.” Buonaiuto Lorini, “Ai lettori,” in La fortezza e la
città (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1997): “E questo accade a coloro che,
30 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017
confidati nelle loro male fondamente opinioni, vogliono far quella professione
che non sanno procurando i carichi per favori e per altre strade indirette.”
Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. Vasari’s citations to the
professione di architetto appear throughout his Vite and are discussed elsewhere
in this article. Benvenuto Cellini speaks on the professions of painting, sculp-
ture, architecture, and drawing in his Vita and in his Trattati. See Benvenuto
Cellini, La Vita di Benvenuto di Mo Giovanni Cellini and Trattati e discorsi di
Benvenuto Cellini, in Opere di Baldassare Castiglione, Giovanni della Casa, Benve-
nuto Cellini, ed. Carlo Cordié (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi Editore, 1955),
497–1112, esp. 1110.
5. The Greek architekton combines arkhi, “chief,” and tekton, “builder.” See
Stephen Parcell, Four Historical Definitions of Architecture (Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012), 24. On the ancient architect, see
also Spiro Kostof, “The Practice of Architecture in the Ancient World: Egypt
and Greece,” in Kostof, The Architect, 3–27.
6. Kostof, “The Practice of Architecture in the Ancient World,” 3, 22. Plato
describes architects as rulers of workmen in his Politikos (259E) and groups
them with doctors and shipbuilders in Gorgias in characterizing their exper-
tise. See Plato, The Statesman, Philebus, Ion, trans. Harold Fowler and Walter
R. M. Lamb (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 15; Plato,
Lysis, Symposium, Gorgias, trans. Walter R. M. Lamb (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1991), 287–88. In book 1.1 of the Nicomachean
Ethics, for example, Aristotle speaks of the superiority of architecture, reason-
ing that of all the sciences and arts, “the ends of the architectonic ones are
more choiceworthy than all those that fall under them, for these latter
are pursued for the sake of the former.” See Aristotle, Aristotle’s Nicoma-
chean Ethics, trans. Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2011), 2. On Aristotle’s and Plato’s views on
architecture, see Lisa Landrum, “Before Architecture: Archai, Architects
and Architectonics in Plato and Aristotle,” Montreal Architectural Review
2 (Mar. 2015), 5–25.
7. The generally positive connotations of the architekton carried into the
Roman world, where the Latin term architectus first appeared around 200 BC.
Pliny immortalizes many ancient artists and their works, discussing sculpture
in book 34 of The Natural History, painters in book 35, and architecture and
monuments in book 36. See Pliny, Natural History, vols. 9–10 (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995). In book 1.42 of De officiis, Cicero
comments on architecture: “But the professions [Quibus autem artibus] in
which either a higher degree of intelligence is required or from which no
small benefit to society is derived—medicine and architecture, for example,
and teaching—these are proper for those whose social position they become.”
See Cicero, De officiis, trans. and ed. Walter Miller (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1913), 47–48.
8. Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, trans. Ingrid D. Rowland, ed. Ingrid D.
Rowland and Thomas Noble Howe (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 7; Thomas Gordon Smith, Vitruvius on Architecture (New York:
Monacelli Press, 2003), 9.
9. Vitruvius asserts that “an architect should understand letters so that he
may strengthen his own memory by reading what has been written in the
field.” Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, 22. On Vitruvius’s reliance on
commentaries and his encyclopedic ambitions, see Indra Kagis McEwen,
Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
2003), 17–31.
10. For a discussion of the etymological roots of the word profession, see Maria
Malatesta, “Introduction: The Italian Professions from a Comparative
Perspective,” in Society and Professions in Italy, 1860–1914, trans. Adrian
Belton, ed. Maria Malatesta (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), 5–7. One of the first references to professio, which attributes ethical
content to skill or workmanship, is found in the medical treatise On Remedies
by Scribonianus Largus (early first century AD). On this and other early ap-
pearances of the term, see Ingrid D. Rowland and Thomas Noble Howe,
commentary on book 1, in Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, 142. As derived
from Aristotle’s definition of scientific knowledge, in its original meaning the
Latin ars referred to a branch of learning, connected to scientia. The meanings
of these two terms evolved in the late medieval period, when ars came to be
associated with artificium (craftsmanship or manual ability) and scientia came
to connote theoretically based knowledge.
11. Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, 21. It is worth noting that Vitruvius
never speaks of the engineer (ingeniator), an occupational title of eleventh-
century Anglo-Norman origin, which as originally used referred explicitly to
the designer of military works. See OED Online, s.v. “engineer,” http://www.
oed.com (accessed 3 Oct. 2016).
12. Notably, in his 1521 Italian edition of De architectura, Cesare Cesariano
uses profitere in describing what skills and knowledge the architect needs to
“profess” himself as such. See Cesare Cesariano, “De la institutione de li
architetti,” in Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, vol. 2, ed. Paola Barocchi (Milan:
Riccardo Ricciardi Editore, 1973), 2986.
13. Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, 23.
14. On the degree to which De architectura was read in Vitruvius’s lifetime and
the late Roman period, see ibid., 1–2, 6; Robert Ousterhout, Master Builders of
Byzantium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 39–40.
15. Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium, 39.
16. On the depiction of the construction of the Tower of Babel at San Marco’s
Basilica, see ibid., 45–46.
17. This document is quoted by Fabio B. Petrucci, Le fonti di Siena e i loro acque-
dotti, vol. 1 (Siena: Edizioni U. Periccioli, 1974), 91. A document of 1339 that
refers to the appointment of Lando di Pietro as head of cathedral works simi-
larly characterizes the building designer, referring to him as “a most upstanding
man . . . of great intelligence and invention.” See Gaetano Milanesi, ed., Docu-
menti per la storia dell’arte senese, vol. 1 (Siena: Onorato Porri, 1854), 228.
18. Helen Rosenau argues that “the standing of the architect in the Gothic
period was high,” but she does not cite a single example of the use of the term
architect in the records. Helen Rosenau, Design and Medieval Architecture
(London: B. T. Batsford, 1934), 28.
19. Nikolaus Pevsner, “The Term ‘Architect’ in the Middle Ages,” Specu-
lum 17, no. 4 (1942), 556–57. On the attribution of building designs to pa-
trons or saints, see also Spiro Kostof, “The Architect in the Middle Ages,
East and West,” in Kostof, The Architect, 60; Ousterhout, Master Builders of
Byzantium, 40–43.
20. See “Parole in nomi e qualifiche,” Gli Anni della Cupola, 1417–1436,
digital archive, ed. Margaret Haines, http://duomo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.
de/home.html (accessed 28 May 2015). Brunelleschi’s immortalization as
an architect was initiated by Alberti, who declared him a “genius” archi-
tect, “in no way inferior to the ancients.” See Leon Battista Alberti, On
Painting and On Sculpture, ed. Cecil Grayson (London: Phaidon, 1972),
32. Antonio Manetti’s Vita di Filippo Brunelleschi (ca. 1480), the first
comprehensive biography of an artist written in the Italian Renaissance,
further solidified Brunelleschi’s fame.
21. Records pertaining to the Duomo of Siena are reproduced in Monika
Butzek, ed., Die Kirchen von Siena: Der Dom S. Maria Assunta, vol. 3 (Munich:
Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1985), pt. 1.
22. In fact, one of the first appearances of the word engineer is traced to late
thirteenth-century Milanese documents. See Richard Goldthwaite, The
Building of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1980), 365.
23. Evelyn Welch, Art and Authority in Renaissance Milan (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 76, citing Annali della fabbrica del Duomo
di Milano, vol. 1 (Milan: Libreria Editrice G. Brigola, 1877), 10. Documents
through the fifteenth century refer to building designers as ingegnere della
fabbrica or ingegnere maestro.
24. As Richard Schofield notes, “The word ingegniarus (which at this period
in Lombardy is the ‘volgare’ synonym for architectus) was not a professional
qualification.” Richard Schofield, “Leonardo’s Milanese Architecture: Career,
Sources and Graphic Techniques,” Achademia Leonardi Vinci 4 (1991), 117.
25. There are, however, Milanese documents from this period that use
the term architectus; for example, a ducal letter of 12 January 1481 praises the
excellence of the Solari family architects. See Charles R. Morscheck, “The
Profession of Architect in Milan before Bramante: The Example of Guini-
forte Solari,” Arte lombarda 78, no. 3 (1986), 94. On the roster of Milanese
engineers, see Schofield, “Leonardo’s Milanese Architecture,” 116–17. On
Bramante’s notoriously limited knowledge of structural systems, see James
Ackerman, “Notes on Bramante’s Bad Reputation,” in Studi bramanteschi: Atti
del congress internazionale (Rome: De Luca, 1974), 339–50. In a document
concerning the work on Santa Maria at Santo Spirito, Bramante is again
referenced as “Ingignero.” Luca Beltrami, “Bramante a Milano,” Rassegna
d’arte 1 (1909), 35–36.
26. This document, of 13 April 1490, appears in Annali della fabbrica del
Duomo di Milano, vol. 3 (Milan: Libreria Editrice G. Brigola, 1880), 55. In the
documents that follow, Amadeo and Dulcebuono are referred to both as
architects and as engineers.
27. Historians have largely disregarded the distinction between the engineer
and the architect, perpetually using both terms according to their modern
connotations. While numerous publications have been devoted to the topic
of “engineers” in the Renaissance—for example, Bertrand Gille, Engineers of
the Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1966); Paolo Galluzzi, ed.,
Renaissance Engineers: From Brunelleschi to Leonardo da Vinci (Florence: Giunti,
1996)—as far as I am aware, no comprehensive study has yet addressed the
origins of the concept “engineer” in the early modern period.
28. For original text and translation, see Mariano Taccola, De ingeneis, vol. 1,
ed. Gustina Scaglia, Frank Prager, and Ulrich Montag (Wiesbaden: L. Reich-
ert Verlag, 1984), 134. Taccola, paraphrasing Brunelleschi, refers to those in-
dividuals who might otherwise be called engineers as “masters in the
mechanical arts” (magistrorum in arte mechanica). Ibid., 135.
29. In the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (1612), ingegnere is defined as
someone with talent in machines and invention, synonymous with the
Latin machinator and architectus. See Giovanni Nencioni, ed., Vocabolario
degli Accademici della Crusca (Florence: Le Lettere, 1987), 444.
30. See Ettore Romagnoli, Biografia cronologica de’ bellartisti senesi, 1200–1800,
vol. 4 (Florence: S.P.E.S., 1976), 593. Federighi’s role as ingegnere del comune is
discussed in Mirella Cirfi Walton, L’architettura di Antonio Federighi (Siena:
Betti Editrice, 2009), 129–36. Notably, Francesco di Giorgio is also often re-
ferred to as “engineer” in Sienese documents, but that description is used
even in records entirely unrelated to his work. It is thus not clear if he was
called “engineer” because of the work in which he was then involved or if this
term had come to take on more social weight. For a reasonably complete cat-
alogue of documents pertaining to Francesco’s life, see Allen Stuart Weller,
Francesco di Giorgio: 1439–1501 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1943).
31. Scholarly skepticism of Alberti’s credibility begins with Vasari, who com-
ments that many architects “have done better work than Alberti in practice,
[but] such has been the influence of his writings on the pens and speech of
scholarly men that he is commonly believed to be superior to those who were,
in fact, superior to him.” See Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scul-
tori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. Rosanna Bettarini and
Paola Barocchi (Florence: Sansoni, 1966), 3:284.
32. Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, trans. Joseph
Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
1988), 5.
33. Ibid., 315.
34. Ibid., 3.
35. This translation is based on that provided by Rywerk, Leach, and Taver-
nor in ibid., but I have revised it to take into account the original Latin termi-
nology. The passage reads: “Sed quo in his rebus curandis parandis
exequendis sese recte atque ex officio genere architectus possit, nonnulla sunt
THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 31
minime negligenda. Cogitandum ei, quid suscipiat muneris, quid profiteatur,
quen sese haberi velit, quantum rem aggrediatur, quantum laudis, quantum
emolumenti quantum gratiae atque etiam posteritatis, si suo recte functus
fuerit officio, nancisactur. . . . Magna est res architectura, neque est omnium
tantam rem aggredi. Summo sit ingenio, acerrimo studio, optima doctrina
maximoque usu praeditus necesse est, atque in primis gravi sinceroque iudicio
et consilio, qui se architectum audeat profiteri.” See Leon Battista Alberti,
L’architettura [De re aedificatoria], ed. Paolo Portoghesi (Milan: Polifilo,
1966), 853, 855.
36. Alberti summarizes this sentiment: “In scholarship . . . the rewards that
come naturally are elegance of thought and moral refinement, which prudent
men generally consider the purpose of their study, so that it is more becoming
to bear poverty with fortitude for the sake of knowledge than to gain wealth
without honor.” Leon Battista Alberti, The Use and Abuse of Books, trans.
Renée Neu Watkins (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1999), 32.
37. Here I am following the analysis of John Oppel, “Alberti on the Social Po-
sition of the Intellectual,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 19 (1989),
127–34. Alberti’s ideal of the civic-minded intellectual, based on a classical
model, is elucidated, albeit indirectly, in the final section of the treatise. See
Alberti, The Use and Abuse of Books, 48–50.
38. Alberti argues that one cannot fully dedicate oneself to both knowledge
and money, as these two passions are entirely opposite. However, he does
concede that it is possible for an individual to “become justly rich for his
learning.” See Alberti, The Use and Abuse of Books, 27, 30–31.
39. Ibid., 128–29. “Quis enim se audeat fabrum navalem profiteri, si et quot
sint partes navis, et quid a navi navis differat, et quid cuiusque operis partes
inter si conveniant, non tenuerit? . . . Suam quemque didicisse artem decet
quam profiteatur.”
40. See Alberti, On Painting and On Sculpture, 63.
41. John E. Staley, The Guilds of Florence, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1906),
231.
42. Gustavo Giovannoni and Pietro d’Achiardi, “Architectural Education in
Italy in the Past,” in Proceedings of the International Congress of Architectural
Education (London: RIBA, 1925), 21.
43. On the architect-as-author, see Trachtenberg, Building-in-Time, 88.
44. See also Donata Levi, Il discorso sull’arte: Dalla tarda antichità a Ghiberti
(Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2010), 277–82.
45. Staley discusses the decline of the guilds in relation to the decline of public
spirit and the rise of the individual. Staley, The Guilds of Florence, 583.
46. On the regulations imposed by early modern guilds, see Elliott Krause,
Death of the Guilds (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996), 5; Gior-
gio Borelli, “A Reading of the Relationship between Cities, Manufacturing
Crafts and Guilds in Early Modern Italy,” in Guilds, Markets and Work Regu-
lations in Italy, 16th–19th Centuries, ed. Alberto Guenzi, Paola Massa, and
Fausto Piola Caselli (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1998), 19–20. On guilds
impairing technological progress, see Pamela Long, Openness, Secrecy, Author-
ship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 96–97.
47. For general overviews of guilds in the early modern period, see Krause,
Death of the Guilds, 2–9; Sheilagh Ogilvie, “The Economics of Guilds,”
Journal of Economic Perspectives 28, no. 4 (Fall 2014), 169–92.
48. Staley, The Guilds of Florence, 33–35.
49. In general terms, the medieval Latin use of universitas referred to a corpo-
ration or self-regulating body of individuals engaged in the same activity. See
Charles Dempsey, “Some Observations on the Education of Artists in
Florence and Bologna during the Later Sixteenth Century,” Art Bulletin 62,
no. 4 (Dec. 1980), 553–54.
50. Ogilvie, “The Economics of Guilds,” 181.
51. On the function of guilds as political units and the medieval social divi-
sions to which this political system related, see Staley, The Guilds of Florence,
37–42.
32 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017
52. Ibid., 231.
53. On the building-craft guilds, see Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance
Florence, 242–56.
54. Bruce Kimball, Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal
Education (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1995), 13–16.
55. For discussion of the “professionalism” of the humanist in early modern
Italy, see Douglas Biow, On the Importance of Being an Individual in Renaissance
Italy: Men, Their Professions, and Their Beards (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 62, 93–94.
56. See Douglas Biow, Doctors, Ambassadors, Secretaries: Humanism and Profes-
sions in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 14, 32n.
On the lives of teachers in Renaissance Italy and their educational back-
grounds, see Paul Grendler, “Part I: Teachers and Pupils,” in Schooling in
Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1991), 23–28, 36–41. On university professors, see Peter A.
Vandermeersch, “Teachers,” in A History of the University in Europe, gen. ed.
Walter Rüegg, vol. 2, Universities in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800), ed.
H. de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), esp.
214–19, 223–31.
57. On the professional aspect of early modern university teaching, see
Willem Frijhoff, “Graduation and Careers—Professions and Professionaliza-
tion,” in Rüegg, A History of the University in Europe, vol. 2, de Ridder-
Symoens, Universities in Early Modern Europe, 397–406. On the rise of the
university in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries across Europe, see Paul
Grendler, “The Universities of the Renaissance and Reformation,” Renais-
sance Quarterly 57, no. 1 (Spring 2004), 2.
58. As Grendler notes, the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century bulls issued in
establishing universities invariably presented these institutions in terms of
their benefit to the community as a whole. Grendler, “The Universities of the
Renaissance,” 2. On university attendance as a means of upward mobility, see
Oppel, “Alberti on the Social Position,” 130.
59. See Cataneo, L’architettura, 207.
60. On the Siena studio, its curriculum, and its student attendance, see Peter
Denley, Commune and Studio in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena (Bologna:
CLUEB, 2006). On Cataneo’s background, see Rita Binaghi, “Fortuna critica
del Codice Cataneo,” Arte Documento 8 (1994), 74. On the scriptorium of
Siena, see Gustina Scaglia, “Francesco di Giorgio, autore,” in Prima di
Leonardo: Cultura delle macchine a Siena del Rinascimento, ed. Paolo Galluzzi
(Milan: Electa, 1991), 69. On Cataneo’s mathematical treatise, see Rita Bina-
ghi, “Pietro Cataneo architettore nostro diletto ad Orbetello,” in Studi in
onore di Renato Cevese, ed. Guido Beltramini and Adriano Ghisetti Giavarina
(Vicenza: Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio,
2000), 44–46.
61. Young artists often disregarded guild regulations and deliberately moved
between workshops to gain experience. See Anabel Thomas, The Painter’s
Practice in Renaissance Tuscany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), 67. The very fact that artists joined, or attempted to join, academies
proves that there was strong interest in doing so. See François Quiviger, “The
Presence of Artists in Literary Academies,” in Italian Academies of the Sixteenth
Century, ed. David Chambers and François Quiviger (London: Warburg In-
stitute, 1995); also see Giovannoni and d’Achiardi, “Architectural Education
in Italy,” 22.
62. See Valeria Annecchino, “Baldassare Peruzzi e la didattica dell’architet-
tura a Siena,” in Baldassare Peruzzi 1481–1536, ed. Christoph Frommel et al.
(Venice: Marsilio Editori, 2005), 312. On artists in the Accademia Fiorentina,
see Quiviger, “The Presence of Artists,” 108, 110; Charles Dempsey, “Disegno
and Logos, Paragone and Academy,” in The Accademia Seminars: The Accademia
di San Luca in Rome, c. 1590–1635, ed. Peter Lukehart (Washington, D.C.:
National Gallery of Art, 2009), 46.
63. On the general decline of traditional guilds in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, see Staley, The Guilds of Florence, 583. See also Paul Anderson,
“Master Carpenters in Renaissance and Baroque Rome: The Collaboration of
Artists, Architects and Artisans on Monumental Commissions in the Cinque-
cento and Seicento” (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara,
2008), 18–20.
64. On the exponential growth in the number of universities in the early
modern period, see Grendler, “The Universities of the Renaissance,” 2–4.
65. In his I commentarii (ca. 1455) Ghiberti develops the idea of the knowl-
edgeable, publicly avowed artist who professes himself as such (si professa).
Lorenzo Ghiberti, I commentarii, ed. Lorenzo Bartoli (Florence: Giunti,
1998), 47–49.
66. This definition of profession draws on that provided by Freidson, Profes-
sionalism Reborn, 200–201.
67. There exist today at least ten complete or partial versions of the Libro ar-
chitettonico in Italian and five Latin manuscripts of the treatise. See Antonio
Averlino detto il Filarete, Trattato di architettura, ed. Anna M. Finoli and
Liliana Grassi (Milan: Edizioni il Polifilo, 1972), cvii–cxv; Filarete, Filarete’s
Treatise on Architecture, vol. 1, ed. John R. Spencer (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1965), xvii–xviii. The Codex Misc. L.V.9 (Biblioteca Comu-
nale degli Intronati, Siena), attributed to Pietro Cataneo, proves the distribu-
tion of the Libro among practitioners, as this is in fact a reelaboration of
Filarete’s treatise.
68. On the chronological development of the Trattato, see Massimo Mussini,
“Siena e Urbino: Origini e sviluppo della trattatistica martiniana,” in Francesco
di Giorgio alla corte di Federico da Montefeltro: Atti del convegno internazionale di
studi, Urbino, 11–13 ottobre 2001, ed. Francesco P. Fiore (Florence: Leo
Olschki Editore, 2004), 317–36; Richard J. Betts, “On the Chronology of
Francesco di Giorgio’s Treatises: New Evidence from an Unpublished Man-
uscript,” JSAH 36, no. 1 (Mar. 1977), 3–14. On the reproduction of the Trat-
tato images, see Elizabeth Merrill, “Francesco di Giorgio and the Formation
of the Renaissance Architect” (PhD diss., University of Virginia, 2015).
69. For discussion of Cellini’s self-definition as a professional, see Douglas
Biow, In Your Face: Professional Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous in
Sixteenth-Century Italy (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2010),
148–50.
70. For an overview of Filarete’s tenure in Milan, see Welch, Art and Authority
in Renaissance Milan, 145–66.
71. For a discussion of Filarete’s propagandistic aims in writing the Libro and
his presentation of the ideal architect, see Valentina Vulpi, “Finding Filarete:
The Two Versions of the Libro architettonico,” in Raising the Eyebrow: John
Onians and World Art Studies, ed. Lauren Golden (Oxford: Archaeopress,
2001), 334–37.
72. In book 4 of the Libro architettonico, Filarete assesses construction materi-
als and their costs. Books 6 through 21 deal with the buildings and infrastruc-
ture of Sforzinda.
73. Filarete’s discussion of the requirements of the architect follows closely on
that of Vitruvius. See Filarete, Filarete’s Treatise on Architecture, 198–200.
74. Ibid., 18–19.
75. Ibid., 199–200.
76. Ibid., 201.
77. On fifteenth-century complaints about the unregulated nature of archi-
tecture, see Elizabeth Merrill, “The Trattato as Textbook: Francesco di Gior-
gio’s Vision for the Renaissance Architect,” Architectural Histories Journal 1,
no. 1 (2013), art. 20, doi:10.5334/ah.at.
78. Biow discusses the self-referential quality of Benvenuto Cellini’s autobi-
ography in similar terms. Biow, In Your Face, 148.
79. See, for example, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Trattati di architettura in-
gegneria e arte militare, vol. 2, ed. Corrado Maltese (Milan: Il Polifilo, 1967),
378, 493. Francesco’s defamation of “so-called architects” foreshadows Cesar-
iano’s subsequent disparagement of “pseudo-architects” (nominati pseudo-
architecti). See Cesare Cesariano, Cesare Cesariano e il classicismo di primo
Cinquecento (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1996), 355.
80. “Sempre e massimamente oggidì li ignoranti, facendosi onorati delle fa-
tighe aliene, e si gloriano con parole di sapere e potere molte cose, le quali se
la verità si cercasse si truovaria invenzione d’altri; e questo vizio nelli tempi
nostri abbonda in quelli che architetti si chiamano precipuamente, li quali
sono quasi tutti omini ignoranti et inesperti, che per le opere loro facilmente
si può comprendere.” Martini, Trattati di architettura, 492–93.
81. “Peroché avendo io acquistata la notizia di quelle con grande mia spesa
di esperienzia e grave incomodo, lassando da parte le cose al mio vitto neces-
saria . . . né trovo che consideri che le esperienzie non si possino acquistare vere
senza longo tempo e dispendio et impedimento dell’altre cure utili.” Ibid., 492.
82. See Biow’s discussion of Cellini in In Your Face, 149.
83. For general discussion on the rise of the concept of profession in the
sixteenth century, see Biow, Doctors, Ambassadors, Secretaries, 5–13. See also
George W. McClure, The Culture of Profession in Late Renaissance Italy
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004).
84. See Tomaso Garzoni, La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo
(Venice: Miloco, 1665), 556. For information on the original 1585 edition, see
Tomaso Garzoni, La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, 2 vols., ed.
Giovanni Battista Bronzini (Florence: Olschki, 1996).
85. See note 4 above.
86. On Ligorio’s criticism of Michelangelo’s architecture, see Daniel Sherer,
“Error or Invention? Critical Receptions of Michelangelo’s Architecture from
Pirro Ligorio to Teofilo Gallaccini,” Perspecta 46 (Aug. 2013), 76–121.
87. On the dating of the treatise, see David Coffin, “Pirro Ligorio on the
Nobility of the Arts,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 27
(1964), 191–92.
88. See Pirro Ligorio, Trattato di alcune cose appartenente alla nobiltà dell’antiche
arti e massimamente de la pittura, de la scoltura e dell’architettura, e del bene e del
male che s’acquistano coloro i quali errano nell’arti, e di quelli che non sono de la
professione, che parlano troppo per parere dotti di quel che non sanno, e detrattando
altrui se stessi deturpano, in Barocchi, Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, 1412–75.
89. Ligorio bases his argument for the general superiority of the professional
on the Platonic theory of inequality and the idea that men are diverse, and
with such diversity comes variation in intellect, judgment, and virtue. See
ibid., 1417–18.
90. “Vogliono essere ogni muratore architetto, et ogni misuratore di terreni.”
Ibid., 1468.
91. “Egli è pur detto da archi e tector, dal signoreggiar le arti, commandartet-
tura, dunque, uscendo del metodo del buono architetto, non sanno fondare
uno edificio, non sapendolo disegnare o ‘saminare le proporzioni e conosciere
la natura d’i membri, donde nascono e dove si devono locare.” Ibid., 1445.
92. “Con certe ingratitudine per fiaccare gli honori le forte i meriti degli huo-
mini virtuosi, che crepano il cuore per fare acquisto di cosa honorevole non
risparmiando nela vita nella faccultà si sforzaro procaciarsi quel che huomo
desidera otterne per gloria.” Ibid., 1448–50.
93. Writing on Ligorio’s behalf, Cardinal Ippolito d’Este recommended the
architect as “an antiquarian, the first in Rome . . . very excellent not only in
the profession of coins and medals, but in designs, in fortifications and in
many things.” See Beatrice Palma Venetucci, “Pirro Ligorio and the Redis-
covery of Antiquity,” in Acta Hyperborea: The Rediscovery of Antiquity—The
Role of the Artist, ed. Jane Fejfer, Tobias Fischer-Hansen, and A. Rathje
(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2003), 74. See also Coffin, “Pirro
Ligorio,” 195.
94. Coffin, “Pirro Ligorio,” 195. The prodigiousness of the salary is brought
to light when one considers that in the sixteenth century, a well-off infantry-
man earned between twenty and twenty-five scudi a year, and a well-regarded
architect received about six scudi for developing a set of drawings for the dec-
oration of a palace. See Pepper and Adams, Firearms and Fortifications, 30;
Elisabeth Kieven, “ ‘Mostrar l’invenzione’: The Role of Roman Architects in
the Baroque Period: Plans and Models,” in The Triumph of the Baroque: Archi-
tecture in Europe, 1600–1750, ed. Henry Millon (Milan: Bompiani, 1999), 186.
THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 33
95. On the rivalry between Ligorio and Vasari, see Robert Gaston, “Vituper-
ation and Revenge: Giorgio Vasari and the Reputation of Pirro Ligorio,” in
Renaissance Studies in Honor of Joseph Connors, vol. 1, ed. Machtelt Israëls and
Louis A. Waldman (Florence: Villa I Tatti, 2003), 485–90.
96. In sixteenth-century Italy, one large bastion alone might cost 15,000 lire, a
considerable sum when one considers that the monumental Strozzi Palace in
Florence cost just under 250,000 lire. See Richard Goldthwaite, “The Build-
ing of the Strozzi Palace: The Construction Industry in Renaissance Flor-
ence,” in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, vol. 10, ed. William M.
Bowsky (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973), 189; Pepper and
Adams, Firearms and Fortifications, 30.
97. See Galeazzo Alessi, Compendio della fortificatione della città (ca. 1570);
Buonaiuto Lorini, Le fortificationi (1597 and 1609); Francesco de’ Marchi,
Architettura militare di Francesco Marchi (1577); and Giovan Battista Belluzzi,
Della fortificatione or Libro de fortificazioni (ca. 1550), printed posthumously as
Nuova inventione di fabricar fortezze di varie forme (1598). Belluzzi refers to the
designer of fortifications as an engineer but relates his work to architecture.
“Agli ingignieri che vorranno ordinare et terminare le fortification, haver-
anno bisogno di esser instrutti delle cose della guerra, et delle mathematiche,
massimamente di quella parte che serva alla architettura.” Giovan Battista
Belluzzi, Nuova inventione di fabricar fortezze di varie forme (Venice: Roberto
Meietti, 1598), 2.
98. Lorini speaks of the architetto militare. The professione militare was also
discussed by Giovanni Battista Zanchi, Jacopo Fusto Castriotto, and Ber-
nardo Puccini, among others.
99. “Li Architetti et li Dottori si in molti lochi hò ditto questo non esser suo
offitio proprio non havendo gia mai veduto in tanti esserciti che mi son
trovato l’Architettura ‘a combater ne meno tirar un pezzo d’artiglieria ne far
un forte da campo una contramina una traversa. . . . Però sarà bene che li
architetti vadino a far palazi, chiese, sepoltre, cornise, architrave, base, col-
lone, foggiami, scudi, termini, maschare et trofei, perche a fortezze conven-
gano bone spale, boni parapetti, bone sortie e bone homeni non ricercando
li canoni misura né intaglio.” Belluzzi, Nuova inventione di fabricar fortezze, 53.
100. “Et che cio sii il vero vi dico che tutte le fortezze che si trovano in Italia
fatte per Architetti senza consiglio de soldati patir grande oppositioni come di
Fiorenza fatta d’Antonio Sangallo di Piasenza ordinata da Zanstefano Negro
et molte altre in Italia et fuor d’Italia quale patiscono mancamenti, et manca-
menti d’importanza, et pero devra il prencipe che vuol far una fortezza pigliar
il consiglio da soldati et da quelli ‘a i quali gli la darebbe da custodire quando
fosse il bisogno et non a dottori perche ne misure ne libri non combattono.”
Ibid., 51. Belluzzi’s conception of the architect-as-scholar, concerned primar-
ily with the building’s formal and aesthetic features, is strikingly similar to
Alberti’s prescription, which was significantly more accessible following the
1550 publication of Cosimo Bartoli’s Italian edition of Alberti’s works.
101. OED Online, s.v. “doctor,” http://www.oed.com (accessed 3 Oct. 2016).
102. “Sì che chi vorrà essere buono Ingegnere Militare e perfetto soldato
non gli sarà bisogno (dopo la fatica fatto intorno a questo studio) andarsi
a dottorare a Padova, né a Bologna, ma dove si fa la guerra e si difendano
& espugnino le Fortezze, & ivi risolver molti dubbi per li successi che ve-
drà accadere dalle batterie.” Buonaiuto Lorini, Le fortificationi di Buonaiuto
Lorini, nobile fiorentino . . . (Venice: Press Francesco Rampazetto, 1609),
111. This is then confirmed: “E però giudico: coloro che vogliono fare
professione di sapere Fortificare bisogna cha habbino con l’esperienza
visto assai, sì nel fabricare come nell’espugnare le Fortezze.” Ibid., 112.
103. For a discussion of Belluzzi’s distinguished ancestry, see Daniela Lam-
berini, Il Sanmarino: Giovan Battista Belluzzi, architetto militare e trattatista del
Cinquecento, vol. 1 (Florence: Olschki, 2007), 3–12. Lorini’s nobility—
proclaimed in the title of his treatise, Le fortificationi di Buonaiuto Lorini, nobile
fiorentino—was also hereditary.
104. On Belluzzi’s early life, see Lamberini, Il Sanmarino, 19–40. On Cosimo
de’ Medici’s sponsorship of Belluzzi, see ibid., 46.
34 JSAH | 76.1 | MARCH 2017
105. On Belluzzi’s bussola topografica, ibid., 133–46. Within the treatise,
Belluzzi displays his classical learning, citing the ancient writings of Julius
Caesar, Flavius Renatus Vegetius, Vitruvius, and Polybius. See ibid., 288–90.
106. Belluzzi’s esteemed position within the court is reflected in the com-
ments of Vasari, as well as in his depiction alongside Cosimo in Vasari’s
“Cosimo fra gli artisti della sua corte” (1556–59). See Giorgio Vasari, Lives
of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, 2 vols., trans. Gaston du C. de Vere
(New York: Everyman’s Library, 1996), 395. See also Lamberini, Il Sanmarino,
322–32. On Belluzzi’s generous salary, increased from 180 to 200 scudi a year,
see Lamberini, Il Sanmarino, 101.
107. Pepper and Adams, Firearms and Fortifications, 177–78. For discussion of
the unease some fortification architects felt in categorically separating them-
selves from the realm of civil design, see J. R. Hale, Renaissance Fortification:
Art or Engineering? (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 32–33.
108. Matteo Valleriani, “Galileo’s Private Course on Fortifications,” in Galileo
Engineer (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), 71–113.
109. David Chambers, “The Earlier ‘Academies’ in Italy,” in Chambers and
Quiviger, Italian Academies of the Sixteenth Century, 6–11.
110. Ibid., 1–14. On the use of the Ciceronian dialogue in university educa-
tion, see Walter Rüegg, “New Objectives of University Education,” in Rüegg,
A History of the University in Europe, vol. 2, de Ridder-Symoens, Universities in
Early Modern Europe, 24–26.
111. Dempsey, “Disegno and Logos,” 48–50.
112. There are clear correlations between Varchi’s theory of disegno and that
promulgated by Vasari, which served as the conceptual foundation for the
latter’s establishment of the Accademia del Disegno. For an overview of
sixteenth-century artist academies, see Nikolaus Pevsner, “From Leonardo da
Vinci to the Accademia di San Luca,” in Academies of Art: Past and Present
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 25–66.
113. On Vasari’s promotion of profession more generally, see Biow, In Your
Face, 189–90; David Cast, The Delight of Art: Giorgio Vasari and the Traditions
of Humanist Discourse (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2009), 115.
114. It is perhaps no coincidence that Vasari omitted the term professione when
describing those artists for whom he had little esteem—among others, Al-
berti, Ercole Roberti, and Cosimo Rosselli. For his comment on Francesco,
see Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, 3:383: “Nell’architettura ebbe gran-
dissimo giudizio e mostrò di molto bene intender quella professione.” Discus-
sing Peruzzi’s model for Saint Peter’s, Vasari writes: “E di vero questo artefice
fu tanto diligente e di sì raro e bel giudizio, che le cose sue furono sempre in
modo ordinate che non ha mai avuto pari nelle cose d’architettura, per avere
egli, oltre l’altre cose, quella professione.” Ibid., 4:322.
115. Karen-Edis Barzman, The Florentine Academy and the Early Modern
State: The Discipline of Disegno (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000), 1, 56.
116. For an overview of the Accademia del Disegno’s activities and discussion
of Cosimo I’s conception of the academy as a studio, see Dempsey, “Some
Observations,” 554–57.
117. Vasari, Lives of the Painters, 2:54–55. “Sommo piacere mi piglio alcuna
volta nel vedere i principii degl’artefici nostri per veder salire molti talora di
basso in alto, e specialmente nell’architettura; la scienza della quale non e stata
esercitata da parecchi anni adietro se non da intagliatori o da persone soffis-
tiche, che facevano professione, senza saperne pure i termini et i primi princi-
pii, d’intendere la prospettiva. E pur e vero che non si puo esercitare
architettura perfettamente se non da coloro che hanno ottimo giudizio e buon
disegno, o che in pitture, sculture o cose di legname abbiano grandemente op-
erato; con cio sia che in essa si misurano i corpi delle figure loro, che sono le
colonne, le cornici, i basamenti, e tutti l’ordin’ di quella, i quali a ornamento
delle figure son fatti e non per altra cagione. E per questo i legnaiuoli, di con-
tinuo maneggiandogli, diventano in ispazio di tempo architetti.” Vasari, Le
vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, 4:609 (1550).
118. “Perché il disegno, padre delle tre arti nostre architettura, scultura e pit-
tura, procedendo dall’intelletto cava di molte cose un giudizio universale sim-
ile a una forma overo diea di tutte le cose della natura.” Vasari, Le vite de’ più
eccellenti pittori, 1:110 (1550).
119. Dempsey, “Disegno and Logos,” 43–44.
120. On Vasari’s theoretical development of disegno and the related concepts
of giudizio, diligenza, and prudenza, see Robert Williams, Art, Theory, and
Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy: From Techne to Metatechne (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), 45–48.
121. Vasari, Lives of the Painters, 2:24. In the preface to the 1550 edition of the
Vite, Vasari highlights architecture “as the most universal and the most neces-
sary and useful to men, and as that for the service and adornment of which the
two others [painting and sculpture] exist.” The academy administration’s
conscientious refusal to admit mechanically oriented architects is underscored
by the fact that the original statutory clause that permitted the admission of
“gentlemen and noble personages [who] are knowledgeable with respect to
the sciences pertaining to architecture and the art of disegno” was crossed out
and completely omitted from the Accademia’s agenda. See Barzman, The
Florentine Academy, 35.
122. Parcell, Four Historical Definitions of Architecture, 172; Barzman, The
Florentine Academy, 288n68.
123. Martin Briggs, The Architect in History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927),
136–37.
124. Parcell, Four Historical Definitions of Architecture, 173–74.
125. On the split between military and civil architecture in the second half of
the sixteenth century, and the arguments developed by the former as to distin-
guish themselves from the latter, see Alessandra Coppa, Galeazzo Alessi:
Trattato di fortificazione (Milan: Edizioni Angelo Guerini, 1999), 3–12.
126. On the establishment of the Università degli Architetti e Agrimensori,
see Giovanni Liva, “Il Collegio degli ingegneri architetti e agrimensori di
Milano,” in Il Collegio degli ingegneri e architetti di Milano, ed. Giorgio Bigatti
and Maria Canella (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2008), 9–11; Francesco Repishti,
“Sufficientia, experientia, industria, diligentia e solicitudine: Architetti e
ingegneri tra Quattro e Cinquecento in Lombardia,” in Formare alle profes-
sioni: Architetti, ingegneri, artisti (secoli XV–XIX), ed. Alessandra Ferraresi and
Monica Visioli (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2012), 48–49.
127. Passage from the decree of the vicario di provvisione, March 1565. See
Aurora Scotti, “Il Collegio degli architetti, ingegneri ed agrimensori tra il
XVI e il XVIII secolo,” in Costruire in Lombardia: Aspetti e problemi di storia
edilizia, ed. Aldo Castellano (Milan: Electa, 1983), 93n9.
128. Scotti, “Il Collegio degli architetti, ingegneri ed agrimensori,” 94. The
testing of surveyors (misuratore)—who were generally regarded as lacking in
artistic ingenuity and thus as inferior to architects—was slightly different from
that of architects and engineers. See Kieven, “ ‘Mostrar l’invenzione,’ ” 177.
129. Other architectural authors of the the Università degli Architetti e
Agrimensori included Galeazzo Alessi, Francesco Maria Richino, and
Pietro Antonio Barca. See Scotti, “Il Collegio degli architetti, ingegneri
ed agrimensori,” 94–101.
130. See Giorgio Simoncini, “Umanesimo, religionsità e scienza della natura
nella concezione architettonica di Pellegrino Tibaldi,” in “L’architettura” di
Leon Battista Alberti nel commento di Pellegrino Tibaldi, ed. Sandro Orlando and
Giorgio Simoncini (Rome: De Luca Edizioni d’Arte, 1988); Derek A. R.
Moore, review of L’architettura, by Pellegrino Pellegrini, ed. Giorgio Panizza,
and “L’architettura” di Leon Battista Alberti nel commento di Pellegrino Tibaldi,
ed. Sandro Orlando and Giorgio Simoncini, JSAH 51, no. 4 (Dec. 1992),
458–60.
131. Julian Brooks, “Introduction,” in Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist-
Brothers in Renaissance Rome (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2007), 2. See
also Romano Alberti and Federico Zuccaro, Origine et progresso dell’Accademia
del disegno de’ pittori, scultori et architetti di Roma (Pavia, 1604), ed. Detlef
Heikamp (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1961), 13: “In dirizzo de’giovani
studiosi, che nelle nobilissime professioni del Dissegno, vogliono studiare
Pittura, Scultura & Architettura.” Zuccaro saw that young artists in Rome of-
ten lacked proper instruction and accommodation and were accustomed to
working long hours in workshops, grinding pigments and preparing canvases
without receiving proper training in return.
132. Barzman, The Florentine Academy, 67–68. For the full transcription of the
letter, see Alberti and Zuccaro, Origine, 243–46.
133. “Et con queste essendo unita l’architettura, i più periti Architetti sopra di
Lei, alle volte ragionassero, et mostrassero, come di deve usare questa scienza
tanto utile, et necessaria, et quei modi, si debbono tenere, et quei fuggire.”
Alberti and Zuccaro, Origine, 244.
134. Composed in homage to Zuccaro and the academy he created, the
Origine reveals the Accademia’s founding legislation and chronicles the
speeches and arguments it hosted from 1593 to 1599. The history’s full
title is Origine et progresso dell’Accademia del disegno de’ pittori, scultori et
architetti di Roma: Dove si contengono molti utilissimi discorsi, & Filosofici ragio-
namenti appartenenti alle sudette professioni, & in particolare ad alcune nove def-
initioni del dissegno, della pittura, scultura, & architettura. See Monica Grossi
and Silvia Trani, “From Universitas to Accademia: Notes and Reflections on
the Origins and Early History of the Accademia di San Luca Based on
Documents from Its Archives,” in Lukehart, The Accademia Seminars, 31.
135. Hermann Schlimme, Dagmar Holste, and Jens Niebaum, “Bauwissen
im Italien der Frühen Neuzeit,” in Wissensgeschichte der Architektur, vol. 3, Vom
Mittelalter bis zur Fru::hen Neuzeit (Berlin: Max Planck Institute, Edition Open
Access, 2014), 150.
136. Zuccaro’s 1593 letter to the academy’s patrons, as quoted in Quiviger,
“The Presence of Artists,” 112.
137. This is not to say that architects had a predominant role in the academy.
As Elisabeth Kieven and others have emphasized, during the early years of the
Accademia di San Luca, architects played a minimal role in the overall admin-
istration. See Kieven, “ ‘Mostrar l’invenzione,’ ” 188.
138. Alberti and Zuccaro, Origine, 46.
139. A former member of Claudio Tolomei’s Vitruvian academy, Zuccaro
developed his conception of architecture based on his close reading of De
architectura.
140. “L’Architettura dunque che hoggi communemente si profesa.” See
Alberti and Zuccaro, Origine, 49, 47–48.
141. “L’Architettura è nome che da greco deriva, dando l’interpretatione di
capomaestra, questo si può intendere, e comprendere nelle sue particolari
professioni, e prattiche à se stessa sottoposte, come fabri, mutatori, falegnami,
scarpelini, e simili, à chi ella assoltamente commanda, per tanto trattando
dell’operatione, e facoltà sua in particolare in che li suoi artefici, e professori
si essercitano in sustanza di fabrica, si potrebbe dire, che questo nome, Archi-
tettura, in nostra lingua dinoti, Archi, e tette, che è sustanza di fabrica, e
questo in quanto si riferisce all’opera particolare della fabrica, e machine sue,
ma per venire à qualche diffinitione più convenvole alla dignità, e qualità sua
intelletiva, e all’ordinare, e al commandare, dieri regola di partimento, &
ordine di distributione . . . ; diremo adunque Architettura scienza di fabrica,
e regola di partimento, & ordine di distributione nella propria sua teorica, e
nella prattica, circa all’opera sua propria, diremo essere machina, di più, e
diverse materia composta, la quale si fà con articio di varie discipline, e di
diverse prattiche.” Ibid., 49.
142. Giovanna Curcio, “L’architetto intendente, pratico e istoriografo nei
progetti e nella professione di Carlo Fontana,” in Maestri d’Europa: Eventi,
relazioni, strutture della migrazione di artisti e costruttori dai laghi lombardi, ed.
Stefano della Torre, Tiziano Mannoni, and Valeria Pracchi (Milan: EdiNodo,
1996), 277.
143. On the failure of the Accademia di San Luca, see Quiviger, “The
Presence of Artists,” 105, 112.
THE PROFESSIONE DI ARCHITETTO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY 35