THE MATHEMATICAL THEOREM of CASTEL del MONTE -Reverse architecture as a new methodology for analysing monuments (original) (raw)

2023, THE MATHEMATICAL THEOREM of CASTEL del MONTE

As a castle architecture, Castel del Monte has no similar references throughout the Middle Ages and across different architectural cultures. Its confirmed uniqueness has elevated it to a symbolic monument of Frederick II's political and cultural design, and, for the inestimable universal values it embodies, Castel del Monte was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996. The best synthesis was written, in a few and dense lines, by the renowned Italian art historian Giulio Carlo Argan, in the first volume of the "Storia dell’arte italiana" (History of Italian Art) published by Sansoni in 1968: “Rigorously as in a mathematical theorem, the octagon of Castel del Monte develops […]” This unique geometric bloom with a magnetic charm, based on the octagon, which has seduced generations of architects and art historians, does not yet have an explanation in geometric-compositional terms: is it a simple symmetrical juxtaposition of functional environments, or does it hide a mathematical law that connects them in a single theorem as Argan foreshadowed? Based on a detailed and advanced three-dimensional survey, with the support of sophisticated mathematical analysis tools, and our desire to follow a rigorous scientific method harmoniously combined with a series of geometric intuitions, we believe we have identified a series of novel geometric patterns that recount a completely new version of Castel del Monte. The conclusive analyses on the geometry of Castel del Monte, including the problem of the tracing method - once published - will refute, with an extensive critical comparison never tackled before, many of Schirmer's now widely accepted, shared and rooted conclusions, and consequently, also Götze's geometric scheme. Historians will have at their disposal a new interpretative tool which we hope can stimulate a different understanding of the culture of medieval architects and their technical abilities, of which we know very little due to the secretive and initiatory nature of their craft at that time, but we believe we can still manage to read through their stones. with the mathematical collaboration of Lorenzo Roi