University of Virginia Library

I.12.6

DIFFERENTIAL ATTENTION IN THE
RENDERING OF DOORS

An interesting case of discrimination between buildings of
lesser and greater importance can be observed in the
rendering of the doors. Throughout the whole expanse of
the Plan the location of a door is designated by two short
strokes intersecting the walls at right angles. In buildings
of major importance, the wall line stops as it reaches the
first crossbar and takes a fresh start in the center of the
opposite bar

. In buildings that hold a
lesser rank in the religious or social hierarchy of the
monastery the wall runs through as a continuous line, and
the crossbars simply intersect it

[ILLUSTRATION]

. This is,
of course, a faster way of rendering, which the draftsman
first substituted sporadically for the more exacting manner
as his hand got tired in the tracing of individual structures,
and then consistently as he turned from the primary to the
secondary buildings. In the Church (fig. 55), the most
important building of the Plan and the first to be traced,
there is only one instance of the abbreviated form: one of
the passages in the barrier that connects the penultimate
freestanding pair of columns, significantly enough, in a
place where the line straddles the seam of two connecting
sheets of parchment. In the atrium west of the Church there
are two more cases: the two openings in the wall that connect
with the passages of the two towers. There is none in
the Abbot's House (fig. 251), nor the Outer School (fig.
407), and only one in the House for Distinguished Guests
(fig. 396), one of the entrances to the stables of the horses.

[ILLUSTRATION]

48. MARBLE SLAB OF CLAUDIA OCTAVIA

PERUGIA, MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO NATIONALE DELL' UMBRIA

[courtesy Soprintendenza alle Antichǐtà dell' Umbria]

The slab displays the plan of a sepulchral monument (large building, right), and the house of its guardian (smaller building, left). The third
plan (in center, and at top) shows the basement of the guardian's house. Walls are rendered by two parallel lines; doors are indicated by
continuation of the outer line or by interruption or bending of both wall lines. Stairs are indicated varyingly as a sequence of parallel lines or as
two converging lines. The dimensions of the room are designated by Roman numerals. Gatti, who analyzed the plans, came to the conclusion
that they were drawn in three different scales: that of the sepulchral monument at the scale of 1:84; those of the guardian's house at the scales
of 1:140 and 1:230, respectively (see Carettoni ET AL, 1960, I, 210).

The incidents increase as the draftsman works himself
through the claustral structures, and thereafter the abbreviated
method of rendering becomes routine. The first
building drawn entirely in this style is the Hospice for
Pilgrims and Paupers (fig. 392). In some of the more
important guest and service buildings, such as the Great
Collective Workshop (fig. 419), and the House for Horses
and Oxen and Their Keepers (fig. 474), the two methods
are judiciously combined: the disrupted line for the principal
entrances, the undisrupted line for the secondary
doors. In the buildings to the east of the Church the continuous
line is standard; the disrupted line, the exception.
And in all of the buildings that lie to the west of the Church,
there is only one occurrence—obviously accidental—of the
disrupted line, in the House for Sheep and Shepherds and
Their Keepers.