The book opens with an introduction by Pierluigi Cervellati. If at first glance he appears to be off topic - speaking about the Catalan cloisters of San Cugat and Gerona - he is really providing an interpretation of the work of Santucci, the art historian and photographer who passed away in 2014. Cervellati cites the theory of musicologist Marius Schneider, according to whom the capital decorations of the monuments mentioned are nothing other than a music score in which a note or a pause corresponds to each figure.1 At this point, the provocation emerges: what if Bologna’s porticoes also hide secret melodies and ineffable chords in a coded language for few?
“Like musical notes, the decorations - painted or sculpted - have always underscored the harmony that architecture possesses in its broad score, all composed on the metre of proportions and distributed in the magic of numbers...” (page 19).
In Bologna, all this is made concrete in the medietas that is, as Santucci emphasises, “the minute and continuous lexicon that has accompanied the plastic form of the city” through the centuries and that finds its minimum unit in the capital, and hence in the portico. The capital,
“whether it is a tangle or still life, is the metronome that punctuates the step of who crosses through the city, the rhythmic foot of a dynamic vision that precisely from the portico, corridor of perspective instability shaped by the light, grasps that it is illusory and theatrical” (page 34).
The portico shows itself to be also an element of mediation between the public nature of the street and the private nature of the loggias, entrance halls and courtyards. It is yet a guarantor of continuity not only in space, by offering shelter for the many kilometres of its extension, but also in time. Indeed, every era has left its interpretation of the portico: from the overhangs still without ground supports to the specimens in wood, through the thousand versions in stone and brick, up to the cement of our day in the suburbs that, precisely owing to this characteristic architectural type, try to recover a modicum of identity.
One aspect that's anything but secondary is that the book is illustrated by a collection of stunning photographs, especially those in black and white. This allows our eyes to focus on details that often go by unnoticed, bringing into the foreground - even literally - the unexpected decorative richness of the capitals and cornices adorning portals and windows.
The author continues with a historical excursus attentive to the decorative evolution of capitals put in relation to the cultural and artistic climates that influenced them, in a continuous reference from detailed to general and vice versa, which gives rise to the sensation of a complete and consistent cultural outline.
An example for all, one regarding the Bentivoglio period and the relationship sparked within it between humanists and the ancient world, is found in how it comes to light and presents itself
“in the constant comparison between culture and city life, skilfully bringing together an anti-academic character that appropriates classic culture, integrating it in the same, still alive, medieval tradition, to then lower it into everyday life and lastly, to combine it with a sophisticated dialectic, all hinged on the ‘man-nature’ dialogue. Unlike the one that was practised in Florence, this dialectic deviated from a pure harmonious vision of this dialogue, tracing the origins of this same dialectic back to the Aristotelian tradition that prevails in the Bologna University. In Bologna as in the entire Po Valley, this led to a relationship between man and nature that was a free interpretation of it, often enthralling and exciting. This emerged intensely in more formal outcomes, which included decoration as well, understood here as a part, pares inter pares, of all the arts...” (pages 87-89)
Even within the scientific rigour which inspired it, the historical narration is documented by a rich system of notes and makes use of a plain, captivating style without specialisms that, every once in a while, also displays a poetic vein. Santucci's critical tone, which doesn’t fail to underscore problematic puzzles that the official discipline didn’t yet have about 20 years ago and often has not yet solved, is interesting.
Referring back to Cervellati’s opening words, Santucci emphasises how the thousands of capitals punctuating porticoed walkways play a role that goes beyond simple decoration.
“a lofty and noble role delegated to emphasise the building’s rhythms, to characterise it and to personalise it: a role that from secondary becomes primary” (page 145).
The porticoed space was then enriched by niches and painted lunettes, in a spacial perception where colour covered the surfaces much more than now: “chromatic devices and illusions made even the most humble materials noble”, we are told.
“...Columns in fired brick plastered and painted in faux marble or the colour of rock, entire façades in fired brick as well, plastered and turned into luminous travertine, plasters and stuccoes that became porphyry, malachite or red Verona marble […] In a city so built and, most importantly, so colourfully decorated, the functional and image-creating value of the sculpted decoration was joined by that of the painted decoration, fusing with it, echoing them and serving as a real sounding board, abandoning all roles of mechanical art, subject to the other liberal arts, however assigned to them a posteriori...”(pages 146-147)
In conclusion, the book, which seems to have fallen into the oblivion of Bologna historiography, is instead a key text on the subject of the porticoes and their decoration. And more: it also provides a base full of original ideas for continuing the discussion towards an increasingly greater awareness of our heritage, a condition that is necessary for its survival.
1Pietre che cantano: studi sul ritmo di tre chiostri catalani di stile romanico, trad. di Augusto Menduni, Milano, Archè, 1976; Parma, Guanda, 1982, prefazione di Elémire Zolla; Milano, SE, 2005