Carlo Lodoli

Carlo Lodoli
File:Carlo Lodoli by Alessandro Longhi.jpg Portrait of Carlo Lodoli by Alessandro Longhi, 1760s
Born	1690
Died	October 27, 1761
Nationality	Italian
Occupation	Architectural theorist, architect, Franciscan priest, mathematician, teacher
Notable work	Apologhi immaginati
Notes
He is known as the Socrates of architecture

Carlo Lodoli OFM (1690 – 27 October 1761) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest, architectural theorist, mathematician and teacher, whose work anticipated modernist notions of functionalism and truth to materials.

Biography

Born in 1690 in Venice, he was a Franciscan father at the Venetian convent of San Francesco della Vigna. He was the tutor of Angelo Querini.

Lodoli claimed that architectural forms and proportions should be derived from the abilities of the material being used. He is sometimes referred to as the Socrates of architecture since his own writings have been lost his theories are only known from the works of others. Together with architects and architectural theorists including Claude Perrault, Abbé Jean-Louis de Cordemoy, Abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier, Lodoli articulated a rational architecture which challenged the prevailing Baroque and Rococo styles.

Girolamo Zanetti records that after 20 years of writing Lodoli finished his treatise on architecture but refused to publish it. Instead Francesco Algarotti endeavoured to publicise Lodoli's thinking in his own work Saggio sopra l'architettura (1757) albeit in a somewhat watered down form, emphasising imitation rather than Lodoli's daring anti-Baroque rationalism. It was Andrea Memmo who attempted to do justice to Lodoli's theories in his work Elementi d'architettura lodoliana (1786) published one year before the first edition of the only book bearing Lodoli's name, Apologhi immaginati (1787); a collection remarks and tales, often paradoxical in nature, told to his friends and pupils. Another pupil of Lodoli's, Francesco Milizia (1725–1798) published a long treatise, Principles of Civic Architecture (1781), which presented an exhaustive architectural system inspired by contemporary science.

Lodoli spent the years 1739 to 1751 in the office of Padre Generale Commissario di Terra Santa in Venice, here he committed himself to the restoration (1739–43) of the pilgrim's hospice attached to the monastery. This was his only built architectural work.

References

Caligaris, Sergio Paolo (1986). "Gli indici per il trattato sull'architettura di fra Carlo Lodoli," Arte Cristiana, Vol. LXXIV, pp. 181–90.

Caligaris, Sergio Paolo (1990). "Fra' Carlo Lodoli: La Ristrutturazione dell'Ospizio di Terrasanta Presso il Convento di S. Francesco della Vigna in Venezia, tra realtà ed ipotesi," Arte Cristiana, Vol. LXXVIII, pp. 31–42.

Cavallari Murat, Augusto (1966). "Congetture sul Trattato d'Architettura Progettato dal Lodoli," Atti e Rassegna Tecnica della Società degli Ingegneri e degli Architetti in Torino, Vol. XX, pp. 271–80.

Cellauro, Louis (2006). "Carlo Lodoli and Architecture. Career and Theory of an Eighteenth-century Pioneer of Modernism," Architectura, Vol. XXXVI, No. 1, pp. 25–59.

Cellauro, Louis (2010). "New evidence on Piranesi's circle in Venice and Rome: the ambassador Francesco Venier and Carlo Lodoli," Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, Vol. LV, pp. 279–93.

Consoli, Gian Paolo (2006). "Architecture and History: Vico, Lodoli, Piranesi." In: Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 4, The Serpent and the Stylus: Essays on G. B. Piranesi, pp. 195–210.

Del Negro, Piero (2005). "Lodoli, Carlo." In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 65. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.

Gengaro, Maria Luisa (1937). "Il Valore dell Architettura nelle Teoria Settecentesca del Padre Carlo Lodoli," L'Arte, Vol. VIII, No. 4, pp. 313–17.

Kaufmann Jr., Edgar (1964). "Memmo's Lodoli," The Art Bulletin, Vol. XLVI, No. 2, pp. 160–75.

Kaufmann Jr., Edgar (1982). "Lodoli Architetto." In: In Search of Modern Architecture. A Tribute to Henry-Russell Hitchcock. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 31–37.

Rykwert, Joseph (1976). "Lodoli on Function and Representation", Architectural Review, Vo. CLX , No. 2, pp. 21–26.

Neveu, Marc J. (2009). "The Indole of Education: The Apologues of Carlo Lodoli," Getty Research Journal, No. 1, pp. 27–38.

Neveu, Marc J. (2010). "Apologues, by Carlo Lodoli," Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. LXIV, No. 1, pp. 57–64.

External links

• PhD dissertation on Carlo Lodoli by Marc J. Neveu: Architectural Lessons of Carlo Lodoli (1690-1761): Indole of Material and of Self