Architecture

The architect should be equipped with knowledge of many branches of study and varied kinds of learning, for it is by his judgement that all work done by the other arts is put to test. This knowledge is the child of practice and theory. Practice is the continuous and regular exercise of employment where manual work is done with any necessary material according to the design of a drawing. Theory, on the other hand, is the ability to demonstrate and explain the productions of dexterity on the principles of proportion. … Let him be educated, skilful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens.

In order to understand this we must note that architect means chief artist, from ἄρχος meaning chief, and τέχνη meaning art. Now that art is said to be a chief art which performs a more important operation. Indeed, the operations of artists are distinguished in this way, for some operations are directed to disposing the material of the artifact. Carpenters, for example, by cutting and planing the wood, dispose matter for the form of a ship. Another operation is directed to introducing this form into the matter—for example, when someone builds a ship out of wood that has been disposed and prepared. A third operation is directed to the use of the finished product, and this is the highest operation. But the first operation is the lowest because it is directed to the second and the second to the third. Hence the shipbuilder is a superior artist compared with the one who prepares the wood; the navigator, who uses the completed ship, is a superior artist compared with the shipbuilder.

Here it should be noted that an architect, especially of a building, is called the chief artisan, inasmuch as it is his duty to comprehend the entire arrangement of the whole work, which is brought to completion by the activities of the manual laborers. Consequently, he is called wise in building, because he who is wise, simply speaking, considers the highest cause, namely God, and orders all other things according to God. Thus, he who is called wise in building considers the principal cause of the building, i.e., its end, and arranges what is to be done by the subordinate artisans to realize the end.

For theory, when separated from practice, is generally of very little use; but when the two chance to come together, there is nothing that is more helpful to our life, both because art becomes much richer and more perfect by the aid of science, and because the counsels and the writings of learned craftsmen have in themselves greater efficacy and greater credit than the words or works of those who know nothing but mere practice, whether they do it well or ill. And that all this is true is seen manifestly in Leon Batista Alberti, who, having studied the Latin tongue, and having given attention to architecture, to perspective, and to painting, left behind him books written in such a manner, that, since not one of our modern craftsmen has been able to expound these matters in writing, although very many of them in his own country have excelled him in working, it is generally believed—such is the influence of his writings over the pens and speech of the learned—that he was superior to all those who were actually superior to him in work.