Of Geometrie

First, you must understand that a poynt is a pricke made with a pen or compasse, which can not bee devided into any parts, because it conteineth neither length nor bredth in it.

A Line is a right consecutive imagination in length, beginning at a poynt, and endeth also at a point, but it hath no bredth.

When two Lines are set or placed of a little wydenesse one from the other, those two lines, according to the Latine phrase, are called Parable, and by some men they are named Equidistances.

When those two Equidistances aforesaid are at each end enclosed together by another Line, it is then called a Superficies: and in like sort all spaces in what manner soever they are closed, and shut by, are called Superficies or plainnes.

The second Booke The third Chapter, Fol.26.

The Satiricall Scenes are to represent Satirs, wherein you must place all those things that be rude and rusticall, as in ancient Satirs they were made plaine without any respect, whereby men might understand, that such things were referred to Rusticall people, which set all things out rudely and plainely: for which cause Vitruvius speaking of Scenes, saith, they should be made with Trees, Rootes, Herbs, Hils and Flowres, and with?oute countrey houses, as you see them here set downe. And for that in our dayes things were made in Winter, when there were but few greene Traes, Herbs, and Flowres to be found; then you must make these things of Silke, which will be more commendable then the naturall things themselves: and as in other Scenes for Comedies or Tragedies, the houses or other artificiall things are painted, so you must make Trees, Hearbs, and other things in these; & the more such things cost, the more they are esteemed, for they are things which stately and great persons doe, which are enemies to nigardlinesse. This have I seen in some Scenes made by Ieronimo Genga, for the pleasure and delight of his lord and patron Francisco Maria, Duke of Urbin: wherein I saw so great liberalitie used by the Prince, and so good a conceit in the workeman, and so good Art and proportion in things therein represented, as ever I saw in all my life before. Oh good Lord, what magnificence was there to be saene, for the great number of Trees and Fruits, with sundry Herbes and Flowres, all made of fine Silke of divers collars. The water courses being adorned with Frogs, Snailes, Tortuses, Toads, Adders, Snakes, and other beasts: Rootes of Corrale, mother of Pearle and other shels layd and thrust through betweene the Stones, with so many severall and faire things, that if I should declare them all, I should not have time enough. I speake not of Satirs, Nimphes, Mermaids, divers monsters, and other strange beastes, made so cunningly, that they seemed in shew as if they went and stirred, according to their manner. And if I were not desirous to be briefe, I would also speake of the costly apparel of some Shepheards made of cloth of gold, and of Silke, cunningly mingled with Imbrothery: I would speake of some Countrey Mayds and Nimphes carelesly apparelled without pryde, but I leave all these things to the discretion and consideration of the judicious workeman; which shall make all such things as their patrons serve them, which they must worke after their owne devices, and never take care what it shall cost.

staged

paper shield

skenographia ...mixed realities

From a very early date, as Aristotle attests (Poetics 1449a), scenic painting—skenographia—was a constituent element of Greek theatrical performance. In the temporary stages recorded as having been built in Rome from about the 3^rd century BC well into the Imperial period, and in Roman permanent stages, skenographia employed highly sophisticated perspectival techniques which were designed subtly to modulate between reality and illusion in a variety of ways. For a largely illiterate Roman populace, theatrical performances provided a shared, mythological language which could be adapted to send and receive ideologically- and politically- coded messages in public under the guise of seemingly innocuous “festive entertainment.” Performers, popular audiences and the political elite became increasingly sophisticated at reading and manipulating this symbolic, lingua franca, and freely deployed its codes in other public fora, such as triumphs, funerals, and in circus games (see Beacham, 1999). Although this language increasingly permeated public discourse in these and other ways, we contend that, as the primary, popular, institutional locus of symbolic representation as such, the theatre remained the most important medium through which this shared, symbolic language was negotiated and refined in Roman culture of this period. Consequently, if we are to understand the complex aesthetic-ideological codes operative during Rome’s decisive transition from Republic to Empire, we must study how this language was aesthetically and performatively constructed in the theatre. The wall paintings can enable us to do so.

Through illusionistic confabulations of real and imagined spaces, skenographia played with the borders between reality and illusion, thus establishing the aesthetic—and thereby ideological—“frame” for this public language. Indeed, skenographia was directly and explicitly implicated in these aesthetico-political discourses by contemporaneous Roman commentators such as Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder. Theatrical skenographia is therefore a prime site for scholarly attention. But of the many temporary stages that, according to Vitruvius (5.5.7), were constructed each year at Rome, none survives; and the permanent stage facades (scaenarum frontes) that do remain contain no trace of their temporary skenographic elements.

from King's Visualisation Lab

This painting by Peake [currently in the Van Dyck show at the Tate] seems to use a theatrical schematic for a backdrop; it is like a series of flats, there is a discontinuity in the visual space, some inconsistency and overpainting in the 'seam' between background and middle ground. The painting is contemporaneous with Inigo Jones' masques, which use similarly staged perspectival space to frame tableaux. The painting itself is a charged network of symbolic representations of power, emblazoned and quite literally dazzling, the paint applied like enamelling in the costume and rainbow saddlery. Interestingly, Peake published the Mannerist architect Sebastiano Serlio's books on architecture in 1611- the first publication in English. The books follow the antique and illustrate theatrical spaces. Peake's preface dedicates the translation to Henry Prince of Wales - the subject of the painting above - the shortly to be dead hope of the Jacobean monarchy.

TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTIE PRINCE HENRY OF WALES

Sir,

No vaine ambition of mine own Desire, much lesse presumption of my none Desert, incited me to present this Volume to your Princely view, but rather, the gracious Countenance, which [even from your Childehood] you have ever daigned to all good endeavours, invited Mee also [after so many others] to offer at the high-Altar of your Highnesse favour, this new-Naturalized Worke of a learned Stranger: Not with pretence of Profit to your Highnesse [who want not more exquisite Tutors in all excellent Sciences] but, under the Patronage of your powerfull Name, to benefit the Publicke; and convay unto my Countrymen [especially Architects and Artifcers of all sorts] there

Necessary, Certaine, and most ready Helps of Geometrie: The ignorance and want whereof, in times past [in most parts of this Kingdome] hath left us many lame Workes, which shame of many Workemen; which, for the future, the Knowledge and use of these Instructions shall happily prevent, if the event but answere [in any measure] to that Hope of mine, which alone both induced this Desire and produced this Designe: Wherein I must confesse my part but small, saving my great adventure in the Charge, and my great Good-will to doe Good. All which together with my best Services, I humbly prostrate at your Princely feete, as beseemes

Your Highnesse

most humble Servant

the noble art of venerie or hunting / 1576

after SERLIO