Kim H. Veltman, Keynote: Perspective, Space, Time, Imagination, Colloquium: Eyesight Technologies, Faculdade de Arquitectura, U Lisboa, 17 February 2017.

In 1927, Erwin Panofsky, inspired by Ernst Cassirer and the neo-Kantians, published Perspective as a Symbolic Form. Since then it has become the fashion to describe Renaissance perspective as a shift from aggregate to systematic space, as if Renaissance painting was effectively a kind of manual version of photography in its capturing of space and time, four centuries before the invention of photography proper.

Renaissance painting practice and perspective theory reveal a very different reality. While Renaissance paintings depicted increasingly coherent spaces, they often showed events that historically occurred elsewhere and sometimes combined elements from different times within the same space. This paper focusses on examples from Italian Renaissance art, treatment of the Annunciation and some examples of Netherlandish and Northern art.

In terms of theory, Alberti’s manuscripts remained unpublished until 1540. Most 15th c. treatises remained unpublished until the 19th or 20th c. 16th century treatises became common after the 1540’s and included some architectural ruins but were largely imaginary adaptations of ruins, often in landscapes. What was supposed to have been a mastery of reality (space/time) was actually an exploration of the imagination. Hence, to speak provocatively, Erwin Panofsky imposed modern theories of space back onto earlier centuries and taught us misread Renaissance painting in terms of 19th c. neo-Kantian theories.

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1. Introduction

The history of linear perspective has numerous paradoxes. In the early 20th century a number of modern artists (e.g. the cubists)1 rejected its rules and there were discussions of perspective being dead. Not unlike similar announcements concerning God (e.g. Nietzsche), they proved premature. Granted, a number of alternative methods evolved: curvilinear perspective, spherical perspective, cylindrical perspective, but linear perspective continued to gain in importance. There were more publications on perspective in the 20th century than in the five previous centuries combined. The advent of computer aided design (CAD) has only confirmed this trend. Computer software (e.g. AutoCAD, Photoshop) typically uses linear perspective and includes light and shade features whereby space and time are integrated in the programme.2 More recently, there is even software to create the time/space effects of impressionism.3

According to Emmanuel Goldstein, linear perspective “is a mode of representation specific to capitalism at a particular stage of its development (1988:188)’. Along with the quantification and objectification of space, linear perspective presupposes an individual viewer from whose perspective the imagery is seen.”4 In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) prepared the way for new attention to perspective through his decision to make space and time a-priori features of human knowledge.5

In the late 19th and early 20th century, linear perspective gained new significance philosophically and theoretically, through the work of the neo Kantians. Ernst Cassirer in his Theory of Symbolic Forms (1923-1929), explored three main human functions; the expressive function (Ausdrucksfunktion); representative function (Darstellungsfunktion) and significative function (Bedeutungs-funktion). In his analysis, language, myth and philosophy of language were key symbolic forms. In all this, the shift from an aggregate space to a system space (Systemsraum) marked one of the key shifts in symbolic forms.

Cassirer’s ideas inspired his younger contemporary, Erwin Panofsky, to write his classic Perspective as Symbolic Form (1927), which brought these ideas together in a masterful synthesis. The history of perspective became a history of mastery of space and time, a shift from an Aggregate Space in Antiquity to a System Space (SystemsRaum) during the Renaissance.

The earliest perspectival demonstrations (c. 1413-1425)6 are attributed to Brunelleschi using a mirror and pinhole (as in a camera obscura) to represent the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. While no longer extant, they introduced analogies between perspective, the camera obscura and later the camera. Perspective, it was assumed, introduced the methods of photographic realism and naturalism long before the invention of photography four centuries later.

A careful study of Renaissance paintings reveals that the effects of linear perspective were quite different. Yes, there was typically a homogeneous use of space. But it frequently integrated different temporal events within a single pictorial space. More significantly, it represented events from the Old and New Testaments which occurred in the Middle east as happening in towns and cities of Italy and elsewhere in Europe. Mediaeval events, which happened in Rome were depicted as happening two hundred years later in Florence. In some cases, this conscious anachronism leads painters to represent past events as happening in a local environment, wearing contemporary costumes with respect to an event that happened hundreds or even nearly one and a half millennia earlier. Hereby, the historical events become a pretext for social and political commentary concerning (then) contemporary events.

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Figure 1. Massaccio, Masolino and Filippino Lippi, Brancacci Chapel, Chiesa del Carmine.7

2. Italian Renaissance Art

These trends are evident in Italian Renaissance art.8 One of the first extant paintings associated with perspective is Massaccio’s Trinità in Santa Maria Novella (1427-1428). On the surface, it depicts seven figures in the context of a Renaissance arch. On closer inspection, two of those figures are kneeling donors of the Berti or Lenzi families connected with the contemporary architecture of the early fifteenth century. Three figures, namely, Christ in the Cross, the Virgin Mary and Saint John, are connected with an event in 33 A.D. Meanwhile, two figures, namely God the Father and the Holy Spirit, represent figures outside regular temporal frameworks. So, the fresco, which seems homogeneous, includes at least three temporal contexts.

Not always included in photos of the fresco, is the lower section depicting a skeleton, lying on top of a sarcophagus above which is written a text: “I was once was what you are and what I am you will at one time be.”9 This cryptic note alludes to a fourth time-frame, namely, a future instant when we shall in the same state as the corpse is at present. Hence, the fresco which conveys an impression of homogeneous space, entails at least three temporal contexts: eternity, 33 A.D., 1427-1428 A.D., a generation later. What may look like a realistic space-time snapshot is, in fact, a collage of three times in one coherent space.

This approach of one space integrating multiple times becomes a leitmotif of the 15 th century fresco cycles wherein linear perspective is frequently used. Massaccio and Masolino’s work in the Brancacci Chapel (figure 1), is an excellent case in point. If we look at the iconographical programme, we see that there are 19 events in 15 scenes. In temporal terms, these entail three different time frames: a) soon after creation in the Garden of Paradise: Temptation of Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve driven from Paradise; b) scenes from the life of Saint Peter; c) two scenes relating to Saint Peter’s time in prison: Saint Paul visiting Saint Peter, and Liberation of Saint Peter.

One scene, The Tribute Money,“is widely believed to be the first painting, since the fall of Rome (ca. 476 A.D.), to use Scientific Linear One Point Perspective.”10 The one spatial scene is again three temporal events: a) a middle scene where Christ and Peter are pointing to the West; b) a scene on the left where Peter extracts a coin from the mouth of a fish; c) Peter

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paying the tax collector in a scene on the right.11 Spatially, the scene shows the Arno river and evokes a typical Florentine landscape with a 15th century building. Historically, Christ and the Apostles were never in Italy. According to the New Testament (Matthew 17:24–27), the event took place in Capernaum12 on the Northern shores of the Sea of Galilee in (what is today) Israel. Hence, the Tribute Money depicts an event in Florence, 3,717 km away from where the original event occurred,13 and in a contemporary setting that is nearly 1,400 years after the original. The choice of the Life of Saint Peter also “reflected support for the Roman papacy during the Great Schism:”14 again an event in Roman times to comment on contemporary problems.

In another section of the cycle, the vanishing point serves to define two different events within a single physical space. The lines going to the left pertain to Saint Peter healing the Cripple, while the lines going to the right pertain to the Raising of Tabitha. So, perspective unites space but separates time in terms of two different events.

In terms of composition, Fillipino Lippi’s treatment of The Raising of the Prefect’s Son (1483-1484) continues the pattern of Massaccio’s Tribute Money. There is a single physical space, which is divided into three events: the central raising, Theophilus and observers on the left and Saint Peter in cathedra on the right. “The narrative comes from the Golden Legend where Saint Peter resurrects the son of Theophilus (the ruler of Antioch), who had either lain dead for 14 years or died at the age of 14.”15 Once again the scene pertains to New Testament events, but at the same time there is a contemporary message:

There is a precise iconographic resemblance between Theophilus (seated on the left, in an elevated position within a niche) and Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Florence's bitter enemy. The latter was a feared tyrant, whose thirst for power pushed him to start a war with Florence, almost destroying its freedom. Memory of this episode returned in all its crude vividness, when Florence had to confront a dispute with Filippo Maria Visconti, Gian Galeazzo's son. The figure sitting on Theophilus' (i.e., Gian Galeazzo's) right would be the Florentine chancellor’s Coluccio Salutati, author of an invective against the Lombard lord. St Peter's presence, therefore, symbolizes the mediating role of the Church in the person of Pope Martin V, to sedate the conflict between Milan and Florence. At the extreme right, a group of four bystanders should personify Masaccio (looking away from the painting), Masolino (the shortest one), Leon Battista Alberti (in the foreground); and Filippo Brunelleschi (the last).16

Hence, what looks like a portrayal of events in Early-Christian times in Israel, is also a commentary on relations between Milan and Florence in the early 15th century, thereby offering a possibility of portraits of both contemporary Renaissance politicians and artists.

Meanwhile, Masolino, after he had finished his work in the Brancacci Chapel, went to Rome where he painted the Life of Saint Catherine in the chapel of Cardinal Castiglione, Church of San Clemente (1425-1431). Above the vaulted arch at the entrance to the chapel there is an Annunciation scene, thus reflecting an event in 0 B.C. The main cycle entails Saint Catherine who was martyred at 18 years of age in c.305 A.D.17 and Saint Ambrose (339-397 A.D.):

The chapel is most noted for its eight scenes from the legend of St Catherine of Alexandria on the left-hand wall. Four episodes from the life of St Ambrose are presented on the right-hand wall. The end wall of the chapel is filled with a multifigured Crucifixion. The vaulting paintings follow the pattern that had been traditional since the fourteenth century, only here each of the evangelists is paired with one of the Church fathers.18

Once again there are multiple events: one from just before the time of Christ and two in the fourth century A.D. One of the principal scenes in the cycle shows Saint Catherine Disputing

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with Scholars. “A ‘picture window’ on the right-hand wall allows us to look out at another scene, where the scholars, converted by the saint's words, are being put to the fire, but their

Saint Francis of Assisi 1181-1226Saint Clare of Assisi 1194-1253Saint Anthony of Padua 1195-1224Saint Louis 1224-1270Dante 1265-1321Giotto 1266-1337Petrarch 1304-1374Saint Catherine of Siena 1347-1380

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Saint Bernardine of Siena 1380-1444Figure 2. Benozzo Gozzoli, Life of Saint Francis, Montefalco.

bodies are unharmed by the flames.”19 Thus linear perspective defines a unified space, within which the window reveals a second episode at a different time. The event is early fourth century but depicted with architecture and costumes of the early fifteenth century. The event occurred in Alexandria but is depicted as if it were in Italy. Thus, perspective creates homogeneous spaces, within which multiple temporal events occur.

The same Cardinal Castiglione, who invited Masolino to paint his chapel in San Clemente, subsequently invited him to paint a Life of Saint John the Baptist in Castiglione d’Olona in Northern Italy. One of the major scenes in the cycle is The Banquet of Herod, which depicts his death (c. 31-36 A.D.). As in previous cases above, perspective creates an homogeneous space. Within this space are multiple events. In the central space, we see Herod, his attendants and Salome. On the left, we see the head of John the Baptist being wrapped. On the right, we see the head being presented to Salome. In the background, on the hill, we see John the Baptist being buried. Thus, one spatial scene with five temporal episodes. It may look as if it were a photograph in one juncture of space/time, but it combines a series of times in a single space.

Nearly two decades later, Filippo Lippi uses a similar approach in his Life of Saint Stephen and John the Baptist, Prato Cathedral (1452-1465). Here too we find a Banquet of Herod. The perspective floor is more elaborate than that of Masolino but its function remains the same. It creates an homogeneous space, within which there are three main episodes. In the centre, Salome dances for Herod. On the left, the newly decapitated head of John the Baptist is placed on a platter. On the right the head and platter are presented to Salome. Once more, a series of times in a single space.

At about the same time (1452), Benozzo Gozzoli painted the Life of Saint Francis of Assisi (1181/1182-1226) in Montefalco. The late 12th and early 13th century events are depicted using fifteenth century architecture. For instance, one space is divided into three. On the left is Saint Francis Giving away his clothes. In the central section Saint Francis is sleeping, with God above him pointing to a Vision of the Church Militant and Triumphant on the right:

Due to the repeated use of the vine scroll pattern, the building in the foreground can be recognized as St Francis' parental home. Francis is lying within, asleep on a bed. As he dreams, Christ appears to him in a crown of clouds. He gazes down on the sleeping man and points to the right at a building decorated with numerous coats of arms and flags bearing the Cross. This is, as the inscription below the picture confirms, the castle which Christ shows the young St Francis in a vision.20

In all, Gozzoli paints 13 spaces with 21 scenes from the Life of Saint Francis (figure 2). In addition he paints 1 painter (Giotto), 2 poets (Petrarch, Dante) and 5 Saints (Clare of Assisi, Anthony of Padua, Louis, Catherine and Bernardine of Siena). They are not arranged chronologically and together cover a period of 263 years (from 1194 to 1444). Hence, what may look as a series of snapshots of one saint’s life, actually covers more than two and a half centuries.

Like Masolino and Filippo Lippi, Benozzo Gozzoli uses perspective to create coherent space within which a series of events at different times occur. This anachronistic, multitemporal, approach to time within a single space is further developed in the frescoes of the chapel in the Palazzo Medici-Rucellai (1459-1462). The event depicted is the Procession of the Magi

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which, historically, is said to have occurred in the town of Bethlehem, twelve days after the birth of Christ. Gozzoli depicts it in a Tuscan landscape with all the participants wearing Renaissance costumes fourteen and a half centuries after the actual event. Among the portraits of

Saint Raphael and Tobias 721 B.C.Saint Matthew 1st c. Saint Mark 1st c. - 68Saint Luke 1st c. - 84Saint John the Evangelist 6 – 100Saint Sebastian 256 - 287Saint Nicholas of Bari 270 - 343Saint Gimingnano 4th c. Saint Monica 332 - 387Saint Augustine 354 - 430

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Saint Bartolus 1228 - 1300Saint Fina 1238 -253Saint Nicholas of Tolentino 1246 - 1305Figure 3. Benozzo Gozzoli, Life of Saint Augustine, San Gimignano, 1464-146521

Figure 4. Scheme of sequence of Piero della Francesca’s Legend of True Cross, Arezzo, 1466.22

contemporaries are Cosimo the Elder, Piero de Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent as the young king and John VIII Palaiologos23 as the Middle King.

The inclusion of John Palaiologos, alludes to his visit to the Council of Florence in 1439 when he came with a cortège of 700 followers24 concerning the union of the Greek and Roman churches. Once again, a scene from the time of the birth of Christ is imbued with contemporary 15th century religion and politics. John VIII Palaiologos also appears as Pontius Pilate in Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation, Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche (1455-1460), yet another example of anachronistic use of the life of Christ to depict 15 th century figures.

Benozzo Gozzoli’s Life of Saint Augustine (Figure 3) is analogous to his treatment of Saint Francis in Montefalco, but more rigorously organized with 17 scenes in 17 spaces. The temporal range of the ancillary figures is considerably greater (2,026 years) ranging from Saint Raphael and Tobias in the Old Testament (731 B.C.) to Nicholas of Tolentino in the early 14th century.

Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo del Te, Mantua (1465) seems to introduce a new commitment to representing a specific moment in time and space. It shows the Gonzaga court. It also shows “the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, who never visited Mantua, and Christian I, King of Denmark and brother-in-law of Barbara of Brandenburg, who was in

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Mantua in 1474” and “scenes from the stories of Arion, Hercules and Orpheus, which symbolically allude to Gonzaga virtues.”25 The ceiling shows roundels of the first eight Caesars and an oculus with putti which opens out to an open sky.

The Golden Legend by Jacobus da Voragine provided stories like the Legend of the True Cross which inspired fresco cycles. One early example is Agnolo Gaddi’s Legend in Santa Croce, Florence (1480s). In scenes such as Chosroes worshipped by his Subjects, a church in near isometric perspective serves to separate the king from a complex setting.

Piero della Francesca’s famous Legend of the True Cross, Arezzo, (1466) divides the space of a chapel into thirteen scenes, ten episodes plus two prophets and an angel. Chronologically it covers an enormous period from the death of Adam to the Emperor Heraclius (612 A.D.). The scenes include an Annunciation where two strategically placed pillars separate the space of the Angel Gabriel from that of the Virgin. The sequence of the scenes is complex and undermines the homogeneity of space and time that one associates with linear perspective (figure 4).

The Life of Saint Francis was another important theme in the early history of proto-perspectival and perspective paintings and undergoes noteworthy changes. For instance, in Giotto’s Confirmation of the Rule, San Francesco, Assisi (1297-1299), a pseudo-perspectival room defines the scene. In another version in Santa Croce (1325) the room of the confirmation is separated by two aisles which are used by two ancillary figures. An example by Ghirlandaio in Montefalco (1452) is more intimate and focusses on the pope and Saint Francis. Ghirlandaio returns to the theme in the Sassetti Chapel, Santa Trinità, Florence, 1482-1485). His cartoon shows the pope on a throne with a generic vaulted roof in the background.

In the finished painting, the background is replaced with a view of the Piazza della Signoria and the Palazzo Vecchio on the left. Historically there were three rules: 1209, 1221, 1223. “The rule composed in 1223 was solemnly confirmed by the Bull ‘Solet annuere’ of Honorius III, 29 November, 1223 (Bull. Franc., I, 15).”26 Historically the rule took place in Rome, In Ghirlandaio’s version the event has been shifted to Florence. Chronologically, it took place in 1223. In Ghirlandaio’s version, the figures to the left of Pope Honorius are Antonio di Puccio Pucci, Lorenzo de Medici, Francesco Sassetti and his son. In front of them are a series of figures ascending stairs: the poet, “Angelo Poliziano, followed by his pupils, Lorenzo the Maginificent’s three sons, Giuliano (adjacent to Poliziano), Piero and Giovanni, as well as Leo X.”27 Once again, an event in the early 13th century in Rome has anachronistically been transformed into a Florentine scene of the late 15th century.

A similar transformation occurs in Ghirlandaio’s treatment of the Resurrection of the Boy (1482-1485). The historical event is early 13th century. But it is rendered in a late 15th century context with Santa Trinità on the right and the bridge across the Arno in the background. The figures and costumes are 1480s rather than 1220s. Perspective creates a homogeneous space but with multiple times.

One of the next important commissions of Ghirlandaio was the Tornabuoni Chapel in Santa Maria Novella (1485-1490). Here, he returns to the theme of Herod’s Banquet considered earlier in the work of Masolino and Filippo Lippi. In Ghirlandaio’s example, the spatial treatment of the vaults is more impressive. In terms of story, the narrative is reduced to two events: the dance of Salome, and the head of John the Baptist.

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In another scene of the same cycle, The Visitation of Mary, we see Florentine landscape with the tower of the Bargello in the background. On the right hand of the painting is a noble lady and her two attendants. She recurs in another scene showing The Birth of the Virgin. She is Giovanna Tornabuoni who is also depicted in a portrait now in the Thyssen Bornemisza Collection, Madrid, 1489-1490. Hereby, an important family of the late 15 th century anachronistically becomes involved in an event that happened 1490 years earlier and which presumably happened near Bethlehem, 4,233.8 miles from Florence.28

The ability of perspective to create homogeneous spaces with multiple temporal moments, not unlike a film sequence, is evidenced in Carpaccio’s Saint George and the Dragon, San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice, 1502. The central space is dominated by Saint George in the act of spearing a dragon. On closer inspection, we see a toad in the position where we would expect to see the right leg of the cadaver. We also see a lizard in the foreground. Between the two, we see the lizard eating the toad. Once again, perspective creates an homogeneous space, within which three temporal moments are included.

A final example in this series is provided by Raphael’s School of Athens (1508-1511). On the surface, it is a coherent space, with reminiscences of the Vatican and the Basilica of Maxentius in the Roman Forum. Within this space are 21 figures representing the major figures of Greek philosophy.29 At a first glance they are 21 figures in an homogeneous space. But they are figures from different generations who could not possibly have occupied the same space. This too is an example of one space with multiple times.

3. Annunciation

Perhaps no scene is more associated with Renaissance linear perspective than the Annunciation. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the Annunciation occurred in Nazareth, where the Basilica of the Annunciation now stands. Early proto-perspectival examples include one by Pietro Cavallini in Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome (late 13th c.). In Cavallini’s mosaic, the Virgin sits in a throne-like structure that has little to do with Northern Israeli architecture. Giotto’s Annunciation in Capella degli Scrovegni, Padua (1302) shows a kneeling Angel Gabriel and Virgin in carefully styled cubicles to either side of the central arch. The Annunciation by a Giottesco in the Church of San Francesco (1308-1310), shows both Gabriel and the Virgin standing in an ambiguous space above the main arch. .

Masolino’s early Annunciation, National Gallery, Washington (1425-1430) shows a kneeling Gabriel and a seated Virgin in a room where a column defines the separate spaces of the two figures:

Street preachers gave vivid accounts of Gabriel's message to Mary about Christ's birth, and audiences would also have seen the Annunciation reenacted on its feast day. In Florence, Brunelleschi designed an apparatus to lower an actor portraying Gabriel from the cathedral dome, as young children dressed as angels hung suspended in rigging. Events in the drama took place in sequence. Mary was first startled at the angel's sudden appearance; she reflected on his message and queried Gabriel about her fitness; finally, kneeling, she submitted to God's will. Here Mary's downcast eyes and musing gesture -- hand resting tentatively on her breast -- suggest the second, and most often depicted, of these stages: reflection. As did actors in the religious plays, artists used gesture and posture to communicate states of mind.30

Masolino’s version in San Clemente, Rome (1428-1430) develops the approach of Giotto, but now has the event occurring under a portico of colonnaded arches in perspective.

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The 1430s bring new treatments to the subject. Fra Angelico’s Annunciation, Prado, Madrid (1430-1432) shows the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin in a colonnaded space, while on the left there is a scene of the Expulsion from Paradise. Another version by Fra Angelico in San Marco, Florence (1433) shows the same approach except that the figures of Adam and Eve are further in the background. Both paintings exemplify using a single space to integrate two temporal events.

Meanwhile, Jan Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece (1432) shows the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin in a low-ceilinged room with Nordic features. Indeed, the window opens out onto a view of early 15 th

century Ghent, far removed from the original location of the event in Nazareth. Another version by Van Eyck, National Gallery of Art, Washington (1434-1435), shows the event inside a Gothic Cathedral, a blatant anachronism with respect to an event over 1400 years earlier. Yet another version, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid (1435-1440), shows a standing Angel and Virgin in chiaroscuro in front of a black background with no hints of geographical location.

Anachronism is also evident in Fra Filippo Lippi’s Annunciation with two Kneeling Donors, Galleria Nazionale dell’Arte Antica, Rome (1440-1445) which depicts Renaissance donors attending the event 14 centuries earlier. Another version by Filippo Lippi, Galleria Doria Pamphili (1443), shows the event with Renaissance architecture, while God the Father looks down from the upper left of the painting. Domenico Veneziano’s version, Fitzwilliam Collection, Cambridge (1442-1448) again shows a modern Renaissance setting with a hortus conclusus in the background. A late version by Filippo Lippi, National Gallery, London (1450) shows the Angel Gabriel kneeling on grass while the Virgin is framed by an architectural space, an approach that Leonardo da Vinci pursues three decades later, Uffizi, Florence (1482).

In the second half of the 15th century, the architectural contexts became more imposing. Petrus Christus, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1450) shows the Angel Gabriel, kneeling before the Virgin framed by the entrance to a Gothic church. In Fra Fillipo Lippi’s Annunciation, Duomo, Spoleto (1467-1469) the Angel kneels outside while the Virgin is framed by a Renaissance room in a large building. In Pollaiolo’s Annunciation, Gemälegalerie, Berlin (c.1470), both the Angel and the Virgin are in an enormous Renaissance space, which has two rooms behind it. The window of the room behind Gabriel shows the town of Florence clearly in the background, a full 3,703 km away from the original event in Nazareth. The bedchamber behind the Virgin has angels at the window: again far removed from a typical snapshot. Examples by Sandro Botticelli, San Martino alla Scala, Florence (1481); Ghrirlandaio, San Gimignano (1482); and Botticelli, Metropolitan Museum, New York (1489-1490), provide further examples of placing the biblical event in a 15 th

century Tuscan landscape.

Carlo Crivelli’s Annunciation with Saint Emidius, National Gallery, London (1486) marks a new level of anachronism:

Monumental in scale, this altarpiece marks a special occasion. In 1482 the Pope granted the right of self-governance to Ascoli Piceno, the biggest city in the Marches. It citizens celebrated their liberty annually, on the feast day of the Annunciation (25 March). Here their patron, Saint Emidius, interrupts the angel Gabriel to present a model of the newly liberated city and invite divine protection.31

Here an event of 1482 vies with the narrative of the Annunciation 1487 years earlier.

An Annunciation by Pietro Perugino in the Chiesa di Fano (1488-1490), shows the Angel Gabriel kneeling before the Virgin under a colonnaded portico with a landscape in the background. Another Annunciation by Perugino (1497) shows the same event in a church again with a Renaissance

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landscape in the background. A painting by Pintoricchio in Spello (1500), shows a variant with God the Father and angels in the upper left. Hundreds of other examples could be cited but those cited above suffice to illustrate a basic principle. An event, nine months before the Birth of Christ, served a double role a) as part of the narrative of the life of Christ and b) as a context for Renaissance issues more than 1400 years later.

4. Netherlandish and Northern Art

This same twofold treatment can also be seen in Netherlandish and Northern art. The Ghent Altarpiece (1432) was mentioned earlier in the context of Annunciation paintings. In its closed form, it contains three levels of imagery. The top-level shows Sibyls (Erithraean and Cumaean) as well as Prophets (Zacharias and Micah). The second level shows an Annunciation with Ghent in the background. The third level shows grisaille statuary (John the Baptists and John the Evangelist) as well as donors (Jodocus Vijd, Elizabeth Borluut).

The open version of the Ghent Altarpiece has two registers. The upper register has Adam and Eve, singing angels and a Deësis of the Virgin Mary, The Almighty (God the Farther) and John the Baptist. The lower register is dominated by the central Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, surrounded by “the Warriors of Christ and Just Judges on the left-hand side, and the holy hermits and pilgrims on the right.”32 Hence, there are scenes that are timeless (Deësis), from the beginning of time (Adam and Eve), from -1 B.C. (Annunciation), a central scene with a 15th century landscape as well as warriors of Christ, judges, hermits, pilgrims, philosophers and martyrs from throughout the centuries.

Rogier van der Weyden’s Last Judgement Polytych, Hospices de Beaune (1445-1450) follows a similar pattern. Here, the closed version has two registers. The top register shows an Annunciation. The lower register has the donors, Nicolas Rolin and Guigone de Salins as well as grisailles of Saint Sebastian (256-287) and Saint Anthony (c. 251–356). The interior shows the Last Judgement with persons being led to heaven on the left and hell on the right. So once again there is a combination of different times within the spaces.

Rogier van der Weyden’s Miraflores Altarpiece, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (1442-1445) uses a different approach. Three portals frame three scenes from the life of Christ: the Holy Family (birth of Christ), Pietà and Christ appearing to Mary. Each of these events, ranging from 1 to 33 A.D., has a 15th century scene in the background. The “reliefs in the archivolts, showing other events from the lives of the Virgin Mary and Christ, accompany and comment on these scenes. They provide much more extensive narrative than the main scenes, showing their context in chronological order, running counter-clockwise and beginning at the apex of each archivolt.”33

Rogier van der Weyden’s Altar of Saint John, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (1455) uses the same framework to present three scenes from the life of Saint John the Baptist: Birth, Baptism of Christ and Beheading. Each of these first century scenes again have a 15 th century background. The central scene also has a head of God the Father. “Each panel is set within painted archivolts, which contain painted reliefs depicting statuettes of the apostles, and scenes from the lives of both Christ and John, with the overall theme of salvation.”34

Simon Marmion’s Saint Bertin Altarpiece Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (1459) develops this approach using architectural features of church buildings to frame scenes from the life of Saint Bertin (615-709). The two panels show at least ten events from the 7th and early 8th centuries in a fifteenth century landscape. The backs of the panels include Old Testament figures such as David and Isaiah, the evangelists Matthew and Lucas and the Virgin Mary at the time of the Annunciation.

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5. Theory

The theory of perspective evolved slowly. After losing the competition with Lorenzo Ghiberti concerning the doors to the Baptistery in Florence, Filippo Brunelleschi invited his friend Donatello to accompany him to Rome in order to study ancient runes.35 Sometime between 1415 and 1425, Brunelleschi returned to Florence to produce the first two demonstrations of perspectival principles using the Baptistery and Piazza dell Signoria as subjects.

The first treatise on perspective, Alberti’s De perspectiva (1434) outlined basic principles but the first manuscripts contained no diagrams and the first printed edition was not until over a century later (1540). Alberti, also wrote the first book length architectural treatise of the Renaissance (c.1450, published 1486) but it too lacked diagrams. The rest of the 15 th century saw perspective treatises by Filarete, Piero della Francesca, lost treatises by Vincenzo Foppa and Giovanni Fontana, brief sections in Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Luca Pacioli. Of these, only Pacioli (1494) was published in the 15th century. Apart from Piero’s treatments of individual columns there was no serious work on architectural perspective in 15th century Italy. The treatises offered no help for the creative spaces in narrative painting cycles.

5.1. Italy

This changed in the 1540s when Sebastiano Serlio’s works on architecture drew attention to stage scenery, Roman ruins and architectural elements. Serlio’s work inspires city views and imaginary backdrops in the stage scenery as at the Teatro Olimpico. Serlio had been an apprentice of Baldassare Peruzzi and later became one of a team of Italians, including Giacomo Barozzi il Vignola and Benvenuto Cellini, at the court of François I.

5.2. Germany

It was in Germany where architectural perspective acquired a greater significance. One of the early practitioners is Albrecht Altdorfer in his Christ chasing the Money Changers from the Temple and the Entrance hall to the Regensburger Synagogue (both 1519). Theoretical perspective was introduced in Germany by Albrecht Dürer (1225), but it was Hieronymus Rodler’s Ein klein nützlich Büchlein (1539) that applied to principles to landscapes and architectural views.

5.3. France

In France, the work of Jean Pélerin had contained some architectural views. But it was Jacques Androuet du Cerceau,36 who produced a series of books37 with architectural ruins and phantasy reconstructions. Like Renaissance paintings these images conflated ancient and contemporary motifs to create anachronistic collages. Only in later life did he start producing views of contemporary architectural scenes such as the Tuileries. In the latter 16 th century, Etienne Du Perac published I vestigi dell'antichitа di Roma (1575), before moving to Paris in 1587, introducing Italian perspectival garden techniques.

5.4. Lowlands

A similar interplay of phantasy and reality is found in the Low Countries, (Belgium, Netherlands). An engraving by Phillpe Galle after Maarten van Heemskerck shows a fanciful Ark of the Covenant and Destruction of Jericho. During the 1520s, Heemskerck produced much more realistic ruins, such as those in the Escorial manuscript. In 1548, Hieronymus Cock38 opened a

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printing house in Antwerp. He published illustrations from Heemskerck and especially, Jan Vredeman de Vries. He was himself author of Praecipua aliquot Romanae antiquitatibus ruinarum monimenta vivis prospectibus.(1551), which was the basis of Pittoni (1561) and Scamozzi (1582) and was also the author of Operum antiquorum Romanorum (1562).

Vredeman de Vries, in addition to his theoretical works, produced paintings with imaginary architectural views. Some of these included classical subjects such as the Queen of Sheba before Solomon: once again there is an anachronistic treatment whereby an Old Testament scene is set in a 16th century architectural framework. Here too, there is no simple link between time and space. The theoretical works on perspective, which might have been expected to inspire a copying of reality, led instead to new flights of the imagination, of which the prisons of Piranesi are one notable example.

6.Conclusions

In the early 20th century, Ernst Cassirer developed a theory of symbolic forms wherein space, time and number played an important part in myth. His colleague, Erwin Panofsky, explored perspective as a symbolic form. The history of perspective was described as a shift from aggregate space to system space. Renaissance perspective was seen as introducing a single, coherent, concept of space (and time). Hereby, Renaissance perspective was effectively seen as a precursor of photography where images reflected a specific moment in time and space. Accordingly, subsequent authors found in Renaissance perspective the roots of descriptive geometry and modern space.

Close examination of Italian Renaissance paintings, notably fresco cycles of saints, the Annunciation and some Northern examples reveals a more complex approach.39 Events from the life of Christ and his contemporaries in the first century are typically depicted in 15 th

century contexts qua architecture and landscapes. Religious events of the early Church and the mediaeval period are typically intertwined with political events of the 15 th century. In some cases, this anachronistic approach is complemented by deliberate distortions of historical fact: e.g. showing Christ and his Apostles in an Italian landscape, or showing the Confirmation of the rule of Saint Francis which occurred in Rome as happening in Florence. Typically, the paintings show a single space but often with multiple times. All this is far removed from what early 20th century philosophers and historians described. Their neo-Kantian theories of space persuaded us to misread the evidence.

A brief look at Renaissance theories of perspective also reveals a more complex picture than the philosopher’s view would suggest. The 15th century produced treatises on perspective, initially without illustrations, published only one, Pacioli (1494). In Italy, perspective treatises appeared in the 1540s beginning with the works of Serlio. It was in Germany, France and the Low Countries that perspectival treatises devoted especial attention to architectural spaces. But here too, there were anachronisms, whereby a Biblical scene was set in a mannerist space. The methods which should theoretically have led to a simple recording and copying of nature, inspired an approach that favoured the imagination.

Renaissance space-time is not as the neo-Kantian philosophers assumed. The Renaissance introduced homogeneous spaces with multiple timeframes. An integration of space-time

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through photography only came some four centuries later. A new history of Renaissance perspective needs to be written.

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1Notes Avant-Garde reject perspective: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VqhNCxKU-D4C&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=immanuel+kant+linear+perspective&source=bl&ots=OioyrnKt6N&sig=_Ws9q96AD0ePrJoU2mIaay655-U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW7d3I65vQAhWG2CwKHQ9RCk8Q6AEIMDAF#v=onepage&q=immanuel%20kant%20linear%20perspective&f=false2 AutoCAD: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rdsR93dGwNI/UiK3CE-uDcI/AAAAAAAAdsM/xmYpLQuqxVk/s1600/9-1-2013+10-38-03+AM.jpgPhotoshop: https://cdn.lynda.com/course/123450/123450-16x9.jpg3 Impressionism programmes: http://willkempartschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/how-to-paint-like-monet.jpg ; http://willkempartschool.com/how-to-paint-like-monet-lessons-on-the-techniques-of-the-impressionists-video ; Blue Lightning TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1et5VvLxgw4 Emmanuel Goldstein: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_uGgjxAR_yUC&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=immanuel+kant+linear+perspective&source=bl&ots=uuI6TvYq1o&sig=7S4m4L5QLH5yuXbUt6bNL9SoqQM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW7d3I65vQAhWG2CwKHQ9RCk8Q6AEIODAH#v=onepage&q=immanuel%20kant%20linear%20perspective&f=false5 Kant and Perspective: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=O6o5Yx-lEIIC&pg=PA242&lpg=PA242&dq=immanuel+kant+linear+perspective&source=bl&ots=IlYiu9LGmu&sig=eRCj-BLdiVZ7GBqJQy2DzJo_5cA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-zazB3Z3QAhVF1RQKHQejDBgQ6AEIKDAD#v=onepage&q=immanuel%20kant%20linear%20perspective&f=false6 Brunelleschi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(graphical)7 Brancacci Chapel: http://www.reidsitaly.com/images/tuscany/florence/sights/sm_carmine_brancacci_plan.jpg8 The sequences of narratives were studied by Marolyn Aronberg Lavin, Monumental Narrative Cycles, Census: Computerization in the History of Art, ed. Laura Corti, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, and J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 1984, 1, 142: 343-244: https://books.google.nl/books?id=ajfHhzNhMJwC&pg=PA296&lpg=PA296&dq=marilyn+aronberg+lavin+piero+della+francesca+database&source=bl&ots=ay54zvd-Kd&sig=7gOWcKnAB7Sb_8PVkFbetyoR1hA&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_q7Ptt9XQAhUELMAKHWVUC0AQ6AEINzAE#v=onepage&q=marilyn%20aronberg%20lavin%20piero%20della%20francesca%20database&f=false9 Sarcophagus: IO FU[I] G[I]A QUEL CHE VOI S[I]ETE E QUEL CH[‘] I[O] SONO VO[I] A[N]C[OR] SARETE:” https://travelsacrossitaly.com/tag/masaccio-trinity-santa-maria-novella/10 Tribute Money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tribute_Money_(Masaccio)11 Tribute Money Composition: http://www.artble.com/artists/tommaso_cassai_masaccio/paintings/tribute_money/more_information/analysis12 Capernaum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capernaum13 Distance from Florence to Capernaum: https://www.google.nl/maps/dir/Florence,+Itali%C3%AB/Kafarna%C3%BCm,+Isra%C3%ABl/@37.8580835,5.955674,4z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x132a56a680d2d6ad:0x93d57917efc72a03!2m2!1d11.2558136!2d43.7695604!1m5!1m1!1s0x151c17fb0f89d5e9:0xa91847e6f9c7b1dc!2m2!1d35.573307!2d32.88033!3e014 Great Schism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tribute_Money_(Masaccio)15 Golden Legend: https://books.google.nl/books?id=o5nNwRnTnmUC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=raising+of+theophilus+son+14+years+earlier&source=bl&ots=sc_ypXuJ8X&sig=YtMkp5ApQ9yldzC0pRk44bMX9XE&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=raising%20of%20theophilus%20son%2014%20years%20earlier&f=false16 Raising of Theophilus’ Son: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brancacci_Chapel17 Saint Catherine of Alexandria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Alexandria18 Saint Catherine: http://www.wga.hu/html_m/m/masolino/clemente/19 Saint Catherine: http://www.wga.hu/html_m/m/masolino/clemente/05clemen.html20 Benozzo Gozzoli: http://www.wga.hu/html_m/g/gozzoli/2montefa/02scene.html21 Life of Saint Augustine: http://www.travelingintuscany.com/images/art/benozzogozzoli/scheme1000.jpg22 Piero della Francesca, Legend of True Cross: http://www.travelingintuscany.com/art/pierodellafrancesca/marymagdalen.htm23 Palazzo Medici-Rucellai: http://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/chapel_of_the_magi.html24 John Palaiologos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_VIII_Palaiologos25 Camera Picta: http://www2.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/hum-mantegna-picta-grove.htm26 Confirmation of the Rule: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06208a.htm27 Ascending the Stairs: https://medicipatronsaints.wordpress.com/works-in-the-exhibition/domenico-ghirlandaio-sassetti-chapel/28 Florence – Bethlehem: http://www.happyzebra.com/distance-calculator/Florence-to-Bethlehem%20(PA).php29 School of Athens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_of_Athens

30 Masolino: http://www.wga.hu/html_m/m/masolino/panels/annuncia.html31 Carlo Crivelli: http://crivelli.gardnermuseum.org/works-upclose#-annunciation-with-saint-emidius-148632 Ghent Altarpiece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent_Altarpiece#De.C3.ABsis33 Miraflores: http://www.wga.hu/html_m/w/weyden/rogier/04mirafl/0miraflo.html34 Altar of Saint John: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar_of_Saint_John35 Brunelleschi: http://www.reidsitaly.com/destinations/tuscany/florence/sights/p-brunelleschi.html36 Androuet du Cerceau:

Androuet Du Cerceau, usually cited for his Perspective (1576) and sometimes for Le premier volume des plus excellents bastiments de la France (1576 etc.) published a series of books of engravings on ancient ruins. Mentioned in passing in Danti's preface to the edition of Vignola (1583), considered briefly by Comolli (1791, 156-157), Poudra (1864,173-174), his Italian activities were studied by Geymüller (1885), who also wrote the first and only major study (1887) which although dated remains of fundamental value. More recently, Fiore (1976-1977) has drawn attention to drawings in Codex Barberinus Latinus 4398 in the Vatican related to those of Androuet du Cerceau. Vagnetti (1979, 339-340) mentioned him briefly.

37Androuet du Cerceau: http://new.sumscorp.com/index.php?id=249&st=Y&id_semantics=7&st=Y&statement=get_list&id_class=Books&id_object=57365&session=ZW5nbGlzaDtlbmdsaXNoO1BlcnNwZWN0aXZlOzg0ODQ3OzE2OzA7MDtJbnRlcm1lZGlhdGU7MDtsb29rdXA-38 Hieronymus Cock. Mentioned by Vasari (III,85), a basic list of his publications was provided in a significant dissertation by Riggs (1971). Veltman (1979) touched on links between perspective, ornament and emblems in his work.

39 For another treatment see the author’s "Paradoxes of Perspective: Ideal and Real Cities," Convegno internazionale. Imago urbis. Images des Villes. Towns Images. Commission Internationale pour l'Histoire des Villes," Bologna, 2002, Roma: Viella Libreria Editrice, 2003, pp. 89-100 : http://sumscorp.com/perspective/news_90.html