Read about my book on the impact of Dietterlin and his Architectura, coming in autumn 2024 from Cambridge University Press: The Architectural Image and Early Modern Science: Wendel Dietterlin and the Rise of Empirical Investigation
The following text is the English version of an exhibition catalogue essay that originally appeared, in French, as Elizabeth J. Petcu, "Wendel Dietterlin & l'Architectura," in Cécile Dupeux and Jean-David Huhardeaux Touchais (eds.), Strasbourg 1560-1600. Le renouveau des arts (Strasbourg: éditions des Musées de Strasbourg, 2024), 197-211. The author thanks the Musées de Strasbourg for granting permission to publish the English version here.
Wendel Dietterlin & the Architectura
The artist Wendel Dietterlin the Elder (c. 1550-1599), best known today for his Architectura treatise, embodies numerous dimensions of the intellectual and cultural richness of his home city of Strasbourg during the later sixteenth century. Dietterlin was born in Pfullendorf in present-day Baden-Württemberg and married a Strasbourg citizen, Catharina Sprewer, in 1570, to gain Strasbourg citizenship himself as well as entry to the local artists’ guild.[1] Dietterlin’s relocation to Strasbourg during the formative years of his career proved shrewd. The city’s position at the centre of trade routes that ran between the Netherlands, Italy, France, and Central Europe, as well as its status as a Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire, fostered a culturally rich environment defined by vibrant arts and publishing scenes.[2]Strasbourg’s cosmopolitanism shaped Dietterlin’s art from the beginning. It manifests, for instance, in a drawing [Fig. 1] that resembles a putto from a fragment of a fresco of the prophet Isaiah that Raphael (1483-1520) made for Sant’Agostino at Rome in 1512, which the Rhineland artist could have known from a 1592 print by the Dutch painter and printmaker Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), or even a drawing that the Dutch painter and historian of art Karel van Mander (1548-1606) made in the mid-1570s.[3] As Dietterlin’s putto suggests, the artist absorbed from Strasbourg a rich local culture as well as a pan-European array of artistic and intellectual influences in ways that prepared him to engage audiences across Europe and beyond.
Not long after settling in Strasbourg, Dietterlin had become one of the leading painters of facades and interiors in the German-speaking lands, a status that both relied upon and supported the artist’s exposure to trans-European artistic and intellectual influences. Records indicate that Dietterlin led multiple architectural painting campaigns in Strasbourg and the south German region, including the decoration of the residence of the Strasbourg Bishop, the Bruderhof, between 1574 and 1575, and the city’s so-called Neue Bau, or town hall, between 1588 and 1589.[4] Further afield, Dietterlin painted the interior of the Great Hall of the Neue Lusthaus or “new pleasure palace” in the gardens of Duke Ludwig III of Württemberg at Stuttgart, between 1590 and 1593.[5] Scholars have also attributed the paintings of the so-called “Salle de la Loge” of Strasbourg’s Frauenhaus to Dietterlin, though definitive proof of the cycle’s authorship remains elusive.[6] In addition, a single panel painting, The Raising of Lazarus (1587?), has survived from Dietterlin’s hand.[7]
The travel Dietterlin undertook to complete his architectural painting commissions expanded upon the already rich panoply of intellectual and cultural resources the artist could encounter in Strasbourg. For instance, Dietterlin’s sojourns brought him into contact with the polymathic Württemberg architect-engineer Heinrich Schickhardt (1558-1635). The friendship granted Dietterlin access to Schickhardt’s building expertise and voluminous engineering and architectural drawings, in addition to books from across the Holy Roman Empire, as well as France, Italy, and the Netherlands.[8]Schickhardt’s library contained not only volumes on architecture, art, and engineering, but religion, geometry, perspective, alchemy, medicine, pharmacology, and botany.[9] Thus, while there is no record that Dietterlin ever travelled beyond the German-speaking lands, the artist nevertheless enjoyed exposure to an international and multidisciplinary spectrum of textual and visual sources. That omnivorous gathering of inspiration would come to fruition in his final major project, the Architectura.
Dietterlin had begun to conceive his Architectura no later than 1592, the year he applied to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612) for an imperial privilege—an early form of copyright—for the project.[10] Over 150 Architectura drawings, such as this design for a fountain showing St Christopher [Fig. 2], survive from Dietterlin’s preparations for the treatise, which the artist states he etched himself.[11] Perhaps due to the large number of plates it encompassed, Dietterlin’s Architectura appeared in phases.[12] A first instalment materialised at Stuttgart without a named publisher in 1593, in German, with forty-nine etched plates, including text pages.[13] A bilingual, Latin/French version appeared in the same year, published at Strasbourg by the heirs of printer Bernhard Jobin (c. 1545-1593/5).[14] In 1594, Jobin’s heirs released a second instalment of Dietterlin’s Architectura in German, and were likely also responsible for a bilingual, Latin/French version that appeared in the same year with the same fifty-three new images (and five plates repeated from the 1593 Architectura) as its German counterpart.[15] In 1595, Jobin’s atelier also released a luxury version of the Latin/French sequel with a title page printed in black and red inks.[16] The multipronged publication programme continued in the Architectura’s final instalment, published at Nuremberg by Balthasar (1583-1635) and, in some printings, Hubrecht Caymox (1554-1601) in 1598.[17] The Caymoxes produced upmarket German and Latin/French versions of the Architectura with title pages printed in red and black ink, as well as a German version of the treatise printed in black ink alone.[18] The 1598 instalment of the Architectura encompassed all the etchings included in the previous releases, plus an additional 107 prints, to achieve a total of 198 unique image plates, all accompanying less than twenty pages of text.[19]
Dietterlin’s 1598 Architectura, like its precursors from 1593 and 1594, encompasses five “books”. Each book showcases one of the five “modern” orders of architecture, ranging from the Tuscan to the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite.[20] Each also provides a historical introduction to the featured order, and discusses how to draft its basic elements.[21] Every book likewise contains an etching that summarizes the order’s main physical features as well as the metaphorical character or personality historically attributed to it, such as this plate that visualises the Tuscan order as a farmer-formed post [Fig. 3].[22] There follow plates showing variations on the order’s fundamental architectural components, such as different columns, cornices, capitals and bases, and then architectural projects that incorporate the order, such as fountains, funerary monuments, doorways, triumphal arches, and facades.
As a painter of architectural structures who likely never received or executed a building commission, Dietterlin used his Architectura to express his versatile understanding of architecture as a medium. Dietterlin’s Architectura etchings cultivate ambiguity about the material status and scale of the architectural compositions they depict, for instance, this image of a clock fountain [Fig. 4], which could be constructed in monumental form using stone or wood, or on a modest scale as an adornment to a dining table or cabinet of curiosities, executed in, say, ivory or silver.[23] In many cases, artists could also emulate this and other Architectura designs in a combination of materials. Thus, on the one hand, readers can interpret Dietterlin’s Architectura as a guide to the fundamental elements of building design and an architectural model book. On the other hand, one can read Dietterlin’s Architectura as a guide to creating architectural forms in media other than built architecture, for instance, façade painting, woodwork and glass-painting—artforms that played prominent roles in late sixteenth-century Strasbourg.[24] Whatever media a reader might use to realize an Architectura design, the project remains “architectural” insofar as Dietterlin had established that all the works portrayed in his treatise embodied a classical order.
Dietterlin’s flexible definition of architecture as well as his multilingual and multiformat publication strategy positioned his Architectura to appeal to many kinds of readers.[25] In the first place, the spectrum of structures and objects pictured in Dietterlin’s treatise as well as the material ambiguity of its designs allowed various types of architects and artists to employ the book in their work. Dietterlin’s moves to please many kinds of artists were not revolutionary—artist-authors in the German-speaking lands had aspired to reach a variety of architect and artisan readers since the time of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).[26] Indeed, in crafting prints that portrayed objects as architecture and architecture as objects, Dietterlin burnished a tradition of flexible architectural image-making that had already flourished in Strasbourg and the Upper Rhine region more broadly under the influence Martin Schongauer (1430-1491), who fashioned rich engravings such as this image of an architectonic censer [Fig. 5]. Schongauer’s printed censer displays architectural elements such as finials and intersecting tracery typical of prestige building in his milieu, thus mediating architecture through an engraved image of metalwork. Schongauer’s engraving of a small object as a site for masterful ruminations on the multimedia possibilities of architectural composition anticipates the ways in which Dietterlin would, nearly a century later, use print to portray architecture as a subject with which virtually any artist could engage.[27] Dietterlin built upon Schongauer’s example by showing how all artistic creations could fall into the visual and conceptual framework of the five modern orders of architecture.[28] In so doing, Dietterlin ensured that his Architectura could appeal not only to diverse architects and artists, but a broad array of patrons of art and architecture who might purchase the treatise as a source of inspiration for their commissions.
Just as Schongauer had modeled the ways in which Dietterlin manipulated print to mediate architectural forms, the artist Tobias Stimmer (1539-1584) furnished a compelling precedent for Dietterlin’s pursuit of various artist and patron readers through a printed, illustrated book. Like Dietterlin, Stimmer arrived in Strasbourg in 1570 and was active throughout the southern German-speaking lands as a painter of interiors and facades. Stimmer, too, expanded his artistic impact by producing illustrated books, such as Gründtliche Beschreibung, der freyen Ritterlichen unnd Adelichen Kunst des Fechtens […] (1570), that is, “Thorough Description of the Knightly and Noble Art of Fencing”, and Neue Künstlicher Figuren Biblischer Historien (1576), that is, “New Artful Images of Biblical Histories”, in which architecture played a prominent role.[29] New Artful Images of Biblical Histories formed a compendium of biblical images, such as this woodcut of the Tower of Babel [Fig. 6]. The prints could act as didactic tools for artists-in-training, as models for frescoes, panel paintings, tapestries, intarsia, or relief sculptures—or as prompts for patrons’ commissions from the same spectrum of media.[30] Finally, New Artful Images of Biblical Histories also modeled how to craft a book of images that would attract collectors and prove compelling enough to inspire further books.[31]
Dietterlin emulated Stimmer by pitching his Architectura not only to a diverse range of artists, architects, and their patrons, but a growing body of print and book collectors.[32] In line with this strategy, the Architectura pictures a range of narrative and allegorical subjects, including mythological as well as Old and New Testament episodes ranging from Genesis—as in this doorway allegorizing the expulsion from the Garden of Eden [Fig. 7]—to the Apocalypse.[33] By picturing his Architectura’s spectrum of biblical, mythological, and mundane images as manifestations of the five Orders, Dietterlin framed architectural ornament as a platform for figuring the history of the world.[34] The conceit both aggrandized the work of architectural image-makers and formed a compelling concetto for those who appreciated the Architectura for its intellectual and aesthetic appeal.
In addition to artists, architects, patrons, and lovers of printed images and books, there was one further addressable audience for the Architectura: those interested in subjects that we might now call “scientific,” but which in sixteenth-century Europe fell under the auspices of natural philosophy—topics such as alchemy and natural history.[35] Indeed, the imagery of Dietterlin’s Architectura both emulated and added to a strong Strasbourg culture of natural philosophical research, publishing, and image-making. For instance, the treatise’s many so-called “auricular” ornaments emulate the internal anatomical forms illustrated in books by the Dutch physician Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) and followers such as Strasbourg artist Abel Stimmer (1542-1606) (the brother of Tobias), thus engaging a tradition of anatomical science and publishing that thrived in late Renaissance Strasbourg.[36] Other categories of natural philosophical inquiry that flourished in both late sixteenth-century Strasbourg and Dietterlin’s Architectura were mechanics—that is, the study of moving bodies and their interactions with other bodies—and research on machines. Taking cues from the Roman architect Vitruvius (1st century BCE), who had addressed machines in his paradigmatic De architectura treatise, Dietterlin’s etching of a hydraulic clock [see Fig. 4] exemplifies architecture’s mechanical dimensions.[37] First, this and numerous other Architectura etchings show moving animal and human figures who act upon each other and on inanimate objects by touching, embracing, pressing, and pushing. This and other Architectura designs [see Fig. 2] also showcase moving water, summoning a tradition of aquatic image-making and mechanical inquiry as old as Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) to luxuriate in the visual effects of spouting, spraying, and flowing liquid.[38] Finally, this [see Fig. 4] and further Architectura etchings portray active water-and human-powered machines, from fountains and clocks to automata.
In seeking inspiration for his hydraulic clock etching, Dietterlin did not have to look further than Strasbourg’s own astronomical clock and publications related to it. That monumental timepiece’s most recent iteration had been constructed under the direction of clock-makers Isaac (1544-1620) and (Josias (1552-1575?) Habrecht between 1571 and 1574 according to plans by mathematician Conrad Dasypodius (1529/1531-1601) and decorated by Tobias Stimmer.[39] Dietterlin likely studied this magnificent machine, located in the Strasbourg Cathedral, first-hand. In planning his clock etching, the artist could also refer to the woodcuts of the Strasbourg astronomical clock produced by Stimmer, such as the title page of Dasypodius’s Warhafftige Auszlegung des Astronomischen Uhrwercks zu Straszburg or “True Explanation of the Astronomical Clock at Strasbourg”, published at Strasbourg in 1578 [Fig. 8]. Dietterlin may likewise have consulted Dasypodius’s True Explanation or the same author’s Heron mechanicus of 1580 for further insight on machines and mechanics.[40] Dasypodius’s True Explanation joined sixteenth-century Europe’s waxing corpus of printed machine books, such as the Saxon physician Georgius Agricola’s (1494-1555) De re metallica or “On the Art of Metals”, published posthumously in 1556.[41] The wealth of machine prints in Dietterlin’s Architectura suggests that the Strasbourg artist sought to position his treatise within that tradition. In sum, the diverse natural philosophical imagery of Dietterlin’s Architectura reflects the richness of late sixteenth-century Strasbourg’s visual culture of scientific inquiry as well as the artist’s awareness of trans-regional dialogues on natural philosophical topics such as human anatomy and mechanics.
In addition to studying images by local artists and the illustrations of natural philosophical treatises produced in Strasbourg and elsewhere, Dietterlin took inspiration for his Architectura etchings from a panoply of European artists and architects. Architectura columns, like those pictured in TVSCANA I. [see Fig. 3], rely on models from the Swiss woodworker Hans Blum (1520/1527-1562).[42] The treatise’s anthropomorphic supports, such as the stout farmer in the same Tuscan print, recall the caryatids and atalantids of English architect John Shute’s (d. 1563) The First and Chief Grounds of Architecture of 1560.[43] Many Architectura portals [see Fig. 7] meanwhile resemble the thresholds of painter-architect Sebastiano Serlio’s (1475-c. 1554) Extraordinario Libro (1551).[44] The treatise’s fireplaces and cenotaphs converse with prints by French architect Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau the Elder (c. 1515-after 1584).[45] The book’s zoomorphic ornaments [see Fig. 7] suggest the raucous fauna of the Nouveaux Pourtraitz et Figures de Termes of 1592 by Joseph Boillot (c. 1546-after 1603).[46] Other components, such as columns, capitals, and bases, cull from images by artists such as Dürer and Hans Sebald Beham (1500-1550), as well as the Dutch painter-architect Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-c. 1606).[47] The geographic diversity of the sources that Dietterlin used to craft his Architectura, as well as the treatise’s multilingual format, suggest that the author saw himself as part of a European community of artists and thinkers, and that he likewise aspired to reach audiences beyond the German-speaking Holy Roman Empire.
At the same time, there is evidence that Dietterlin used his Architectura to promote German artistic traditions. During the second half of the sixteenth century, thinkers in Europe argued for the cultural superiority of their own regions, whether by describing regional versions of classical antiquity or by touting the excellence of their own modern artists and authors.[48] For instance, around the time Dietterlin arrived in Strasbourg, artists and learned individuals in the circle of Bernhard Jobin, including the architect Daniel Specklin (1536-1589), Tobias Stimmer, and the poet-satirist Johann Fischart (c. 1545-1591), had responded to an unsympathetic account of German art in Giorgio Vasari’s (1511-1574) Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori or “Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects” (1550 and 1565) through erudite images and texts.[49] Their reactions to the Italian treatise joined a wave of cultural production in late sixteenth-century Strasbourg that promoted the German language and German artistic traditions in a patriotic fashion.[50]
In the wake of Strasbourg’s backlash against Vasari, Dietterlin’s Architectura championed an emerging concept of German identity and cultural achievement.[51] Describing the origins of the Tuscan order—a genus Dietterlin visualized as a hefty, farmer-like figure [see Fig. 3]—the Architectura explained that “[…] some architects […] write that this column, because it […] is cruder and stronger than all the others, takes its name from the powerful giant Tuscano (who is called the father of the Germans) […].”[52] Thus, Dietterlin attributed a German lineage to an order of architecture also mentioned in Vitruvius’s De architectura, vesting the Tuscan designs of his Architectura with a Teutonic identity as well as the authority of classical antiquity.[53] Other Architectura etchings, such as this monumental façade [Fig. 9], championed styles of art and architecture that had dominated the German-speaking lands during the long Middle Ages, emulating the gothic verticality of the Strasbourg Cathedral and the ogee arches of Schongauer’s Censer [see Fig. 5].[54]This and further Architectura prints also channelled recent building in the Upper Rhine, for instance, the sculptural decorations of Hans Schoch’s (c. 1550-1631) Neubau (finished 1585) at Strasbourg, and the bound branches known as Astwerk (“branch-work”), visible in Hans Thoman Uhlberger’s (fl. 1576-1608) additions to the Strabourg Frauenhaus [see Petcu, “La salle de la Loge,” Figs. 1 and 2, pp. 103-104], and even Stimmer’s image of the Strasbourg astronomical clock [see Fig. 8].[55] All these motifs Dietterlin combined with more stereotypically “Renaissance” details, such as a portal with a half-round arch.[56] Indeed, the print’s mix of gothic, all’antica, and “modern” elements embodies the Architectura’s knack for synthesizing the styles of disparate periods and places. Dietterlin’s Tuscano portrait [see Fig. 3] and eclectic façade [see Fig. 9] each contradict the broadly negative image of the “German manner” set forth in the Lives by linking German art to the esteemed heritage of antiquity as well as vaunted examples of modern building.[57]
Considering Dietterlin’s apparent interest in the role of the German-speaking lands in the broader histories of art and architecture, it might be tempting to regard his Architectura as a proto-nationalistic treatise. However, the Architectura’s wealth of imagery from visual and intellectual traditions originating beyond the German-speaking lands—as well as the steps Dietterlin took to reach foreign audiences—contradict that thesis.[58] Rather, Dietterlin’s Architectura manifests pride in the cosmopolitan artistic, architectural, and intellectual heritage of Strasbourg as a Free Imperial City well-connected to regions beyond the Holy Roman Empire.
Dietterlin drew from his home city’s formidable cultural productions and natural philosophical resources as well as the images and texts of foreign territories to cast a long shadow within Strasbourg and the early modern world. The artist’s son, Wendel Dietterlin the Younger (fl. 1610-1614), would continue their father’s inquiries into the grotesque [Fig. 10], as painters, woodworkers, and architects throughout the German-speaking region emulated Dietterlin’s Architectura designs.[59] Beyond the Holy Roman Empire, artists and architects from England to Spain, the Viceroyalty of Peru, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and Ethiopia likewise emulated Dietterlin’s Architectura prints well into the eighteenth century.[60] The many measures Dietterlin took to craft a treatise with broad appeal to various audiences—the Architectura’s multilingual formats, intermedial qualities, pictorial richness, and engagement with natural philosophical themes—all contributed to the book’s widespread and enduring popularity. Channeled through Dietterlin’s Architectura, the artistic and intellectual achievements of late sixteenth-century Strasbourg reached a global audience.
*This is an English version of an essay that originally appeared, in French, in Cécile Dupeux and Jean-David Huhardeaux Touchais (eds.), Strasbourg 1560-1600. Le renouveau des arts, Strasbourg : éditions des Musées de Strasbourg, 2024. The author thanks the Musées de Strasbourg for granting permission to publish this version here.
[1] Karl Ohnesorge, Wendel Dietterlin, Maler von Strassburg. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen Kunst in der zweiten Hälfte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts. Ph.D. dissertation, Kaiser Wilhelms-Universität (Leipzig: August Pries, 1893), 2.
[2] On the social conditions that shaped artmaking in sixteenth-century Strasbourg, see, for instance, Thomas A. Brady, Jr., “The Social Place of a German Renaissance Artist: Hans Baldung Grien (1484/85-1545) at Strasbourg,” Central European History 8, no. 4 (Dec. 1975): 295-315. On Strasbourg as a centre of book production, see Miriam Chrisman, Lay Culture, Learned Culture: Books and Social Change in Strasbourg, 1480-1599 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982).
[3] On the sources of Dietterlin’s Putto, see Elizabeth J. Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration: Wendel Dietterlin and the Architectura,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 2015, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/orders-elaboration-wendel-dietterlin-architectura/docview/1718414961/se-2, 45-47 and 699-701.
[4] On Dietterlin’s role at the Bruferhof, see Liliane Châtelet Lange, “Le Bruderhof à Strasbourg, citè des chanoines,” Bulletin de la Cathédrale de Strasbourg 24, Hommage à Victor Beyer (2000): 175-196, here 193. The artist’s involvement in the Neue Bau decorations is documented in Hans Rott, Quellen und Forschungen zur Südwestdeutschen und Schweizerischen Kunstgeschichte im XV. und XVI. Jahrhundert. III. Der Oberrhein. Quellen I (Baden Pfalz, Elsass) (Stuttgart: Strecker und Schröder Verlag, 1936), 235.
[5] See Werner Fleischhauer, “Die Malereien im Stuttgarter Lusthaus,” in Württembergische Vergangenheit. Festschrift des Württ. Geschichts- u. Altertumsvereins zur Stuttgarter Tagung des Gesamtvereins der deutschen Geschichts- und Altertumsvereine im September 1932 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1932), 305-333, here 314-321; 328-331.
[6] For an overview of the controversy, see, for instance, Anne Wolff, Les peintures de la salle de la Loge de la Cathédrale de Strasbourg, M.A. thesis, Université Marc-Bloch, Strasbourg (2006), 22-28. C.f. the essay in this volume, Elizabeth J. Petcu, “La ‘salle de la Loge des maçons et tailleurs de pierre’ de la maison de l’Oeuvre Notre-Dame,” 107.
[7] The panel is Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe Inv. Nr, 2181. On the painting, see Kurt Martin, “Der Maler Wendel Dietterlin,” in Festschrift für Karl Lohmeyer, ed. Karl Schwingel (Saarbrücken: West-Ost Verlag, 1954), 14-29, here 19-22.
[8] On Schickhardt’s resources and possible influence on Dietterlin, see Ohnesorge, Wendel Dietterlin, 23; Margot Pirr, Die Architectura des Wendel Dietterlin (Gräfenheinichen: C. Schulze & Co., 1940), 22; and Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 47-48.
[9] The contents of the library and the rest of Schickhardt’s collections are documented in the modern, critical edition of the architect’s inventory, Heinrich Schickhardt, Inventarium 1630-1632: Inventar der Güter und der Werke eines Architekten der Renaissance, ed. André Bouvard and Denise Reitsch (Karlsruhe: Braun, 2013). The librart is analysed in Roman Janssen, “Heinrich Schickhardt im Spiegel seines Buchbesitzes,” in Neue Forschungen zu Heinrich Schickhardt, ed. Robert Kretzschmar (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 2002), 7-49.
[10] Jürgen Zimmer, “Wendel Dietterlin (1550/51-1599) Architectura von Außtheilung, Symmetria und Proportion der Fünff Seulen, Nuremberg, 1598, Architecture of division symmetry and proportion of the five columns,” in Architectural Theory From the Renaissance to the Present: 89 Essays on 117 Treatises, with a preface by Bernd Evers and an introduction by Christof Thoenes (Berlin and London: Taschen, 2003), 520-523, here 522. The contents of the application were first analysed and transcribed in Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 455-460 & 469-471.
[11] On the drawings, see, for example, Gustav Pauli, “Die Originalzeichnungen Wendel Dietterlins zu seinem Architekturbuch,” Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst, n.s. 10 (1898/1899): 281-284. The 1598 German Architectura states the treatise was “[…] Geetzt, und an tag gegeben durch Wendel Dietterlin […].” Wendel Dietterlin, Architectura von Ausstheilung, Symmetria und Proportion der fünff Seulen und aller darauss volgender Kunst Arbeit […] (Nuremberg: Hubrecht and Balthasar Caymox, 1598) Zürich, Zentralbibliothek Zürich Rx 12: c,2 | F, title page.
[12] An authoritative census of the Architectura publications is Tobias Büchi, Thomas Hänsli, and Martin Pozsgai, “Wendel Dietterlin d.Ä.,” in Architecturtheorie im deutschsprachigen Kulturraum 1486-1648. ed. Werner Oechslin, Tobias Büchi, and Martin Pozsgai (Basel: Colmena, 2018), 378-386.
[13] G. Ulrich Großmann, “Die verschiedenen Ausgaben der ‘Architectura’ des Wendel Dietterlin,” Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums (1997): 157-13, here 157.
[14] Ibid. 160.
[15] See, for example, Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 462-463.
[16] This version was first mentioned in Albert von Zahn, “Wendel Dietterlins ‘Säulenbuch’,” Archiv für die zeichnenden Künste mit besonderer Beziehung auf Kupferstecher- und Holzschneidekunst und ihre Geschichte im Vereine mit Künstlern und Kunstfreunden 9 (1863): 97-108, here 100.
[17] See, for instance, Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 464-465.
[18] See, for example, ibid. 446-450.
[19] The total number of plates in the 1598 editions was established in Von Zahn, “Wendel Dietterlins ‘Säulenbuch’,” 100.
[20] See, for example, Pirr, Die Architectura, 28.
[21] See, for instance, Ohnesorge, Wendel Dietterlin, 30.
[22] On the metaphorical characters of the Orders in Dietterlin’s book, see, for example, Pirr, Die Architectura, 26-35.
[23] On the material ambiguity of the Architectura designs, see, for instance, Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 129. The fountain designs of the Architectura may have been inspired by the fountains constructed on the grounds of the New Lusthaus in Stuttgart, pictured in the print by Matthäus Merian featured in this exhibition.
[24] The resulting disagreement over the Architectura’s intended purposes is summarised in Pirr, Die Architectura, 7-8. On the Architectura’s usefulness for glass-painting and woodworking, see ibid. 22-23.
[25] On Dietterlin’s efforts to produce a versatile, widely appealing treatise, see Kimberley Skelton, “Shaping the Book and the Building: Text and Image in Dietterlin’s Architectura,” Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry 23, no. 1 (Jan.–Mar. 2007): 25–44.
[26] On Dietterlin’s reception of that strategy, see Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 138.
[27] On Schongauer’s Censer as an architectonic print and model for Dietterlin, see ibid. 22-23.
[28] Ibid. 129.
[29] On Stimmer’s career and style as models for Dietterlin, see Pirr, Die Architectura, 22, and Erik Forssman, “Wendel Dietterlin: Maler und Architekturtheoretiker,” in Architektur und Figur: Das Zusammenspiel der Künste. Festschrift für Stefan Kummer zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Nicole Riegel and Damian Dombrowski with Severin Josef Hansbauer (Munich and Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2007), 202-215, here 205-206.
[30] On the didactic value of the Neue Künstlicher Figuren Biblischer Historien, see Augustus Stolberg, Tobias Stimmer. Sein Leben und seine Werke. Mit Beiträgen zur geschichte der deutschen Glasmalerei im sechszehnten Jahrhundert (Strasbourg: Heitz & Mündel, 1901), 7-8.
[31] On Tobias Stimmer and his circle as forerunners to Dietterlin as a book illustrator, see, for example, Pirr, Die Architectura, 25.
[32] On Dietterlin’s efforts to reach book and print collectors, see, for instance, Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 379.
[33] On the treatise’s mix of biblical and mythological images, see, for example, Günter Irmscher, Kölner Architektur- und S.ulenbücher um 1600 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1999), 60; and Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 64 and 401-402.
[34] On Dietterlin’s efforts to reach book and print collectors, see, for instance, Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 401.
[35] The author of the present essay explores that theme in the forthcoming book: Elizabeth J. Petcu, The Architectural Image and Early Modern Science: Wendel Dietterlin and the Rise of Empirical Investigation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).
[36] Elizabeth J. Petcu, “Amorphous Ornament: Wendel Dietterlin and the Dissection of Architecture,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 77, no. 1 (March 2018): 29-55.
[37] Vitruvius discusses machines in De architectura, book X.
[38] On Leonardo’s water studies as mechanical inquiry, see Leslie Geddes, Watermarks: Leonardo Da Vinci and the Mastery of Nature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020).
[39] On the clock, see Günter Oestmann, The Astronomical Clock of Strasbourg Cathedral: Function and Significance, trans. Bruce W. Irwin (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020), esp. 40-54.
[40] The latter is Conrad Dasypodius, Heron Mechanicus: seu De Mechanicis artibus, atq. disciplinis. Eiusdem Horologii astronimici, Argentorati in summo Templo erecti, descriptio (Strasbourg: Nicolaus Wyriot, 1580).
[41] On that genre, see, for instance, Johnathan Sawday, Engines of the Imagination: Renaissance culture and the rise of the machine (London and New York: Routledge, 2007). 78-124.
[42] See, for example, Werner Oechslin, “Wendel Dietterlin d.Ä.” in Architecturtheorie im deutschsprachigen Kulturraum 1486-1648, ed. Werner Oechslin, Tobias Büchi, and Martin Pozsgai (Basel: Colmena, 2018), 373-376, here 374.
[43] Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 254-255.
[44] Günter Irmscher, “‘OrnamentSinnBild’. Ornamentcapricci in Wendel I Dietterlins Architectvra (Stuttgart/Straßburg 1593/1594),” in Ornament. Motiv-Modus-Bild., ed. Vera Beyer and Christian Spies (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2012), 117-144, here 121.
[45] Pirr, Die Architectura, 82-85.
[46] Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 536, 544, 601.
[47] On Dietterlin’s borrowings from Dürer and Beham, see ibid. 124, 518, 586, 589, 596; on Dietterlin’s reception of Vredeman, see, for example, Pirr, Die Architectura, 25.
[48] See, for instance, Petcu, “La ‘salle de la Loge des maçons et tailleurs de pierre’ de la maison de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame et son décor peint,” in Strasbourg 1560-1600. Le renouveau des arts, d. Cécile Dupeux and Jean-David Huhardeaux Touchais (Strasbourg: Éditions des Musées de Strasbourg, 2024), 101-114 104.
[49] Elizabeth J. Petcu, “Vasari in Renaissance Straßburg,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 82 (2019): 251-282. See also Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 87-102.
[50] See Sylvia Brockstieger, Sprachpatiotismus und Wettstreit der Künste: Johann Fischart im Kontext der Offizin Bernhard Jobin (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2018), esp. 92-96.
[51] On Dietterlin’s response in painting and the Architectura see Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 116-120 and 122.
[52] Wendel Dietterlin, ARCHITECTVRA und Austheulung der V. Seüln. Das Erst Buch. (Stuttgart: s.n., 1593), Strsabourg, Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg, R10002-1, under “TVSCANA. Die Erst Columna , oder Seul”: “[…] etliche Architecti, […] schreiben, Daß dise Seul, weil sie […] vor den andern allen die gröbest un störckeste ist, von dem mechtigen Risen Tuscano (Der in Vatter der Teutschen genandt worden) Ihren Namen bekommen […].”
[53] The Tuscan order is mentioned in Vitruvius, De architectura 4.7.1-5. A lengthier analysis of this print’s iconography is Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 255-260.
[54] On this image as a response to Vasari, see ibid. 122.
[55] On Dietterlin’s citations of the architecture of the Upper Rhine, see Oechslin, “Wendel Dietterlin,” 376. On Uhlberger’s project, see, for example, Petcu, “La salle de la Loge,” 103-104.
[56] See Ohnesorge, Wendel Dietterlin, 40.
[57] On the printed facade as a celebration of the German manner over its Italian counterpart, see Irmscher, "OrnamentSinnBild,'" 104. See also Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 122.
[58] Ibid. 379-380.
[59] See, for instance, ibid. 224-225; Pirr, Die Architectura, 139-142; and Sina Chayenne Bociek, “Die anthropomorphe Ornamentik Wendel Dietterlins inspiriert die Baukunst im Weserraum,” GA 2. Kunstgeschichtliches Journal für studentisches Forschung und Kritik 8, no. 1 (2022): 58-84, https://ojs.ub.rub.de/index.php/GA2/article/view/10003.
[60] See Petcu, “Orders of Elaboration,” 368-375 as well as Kristen Daisy Windmuller-Luna, “Building faith: Ethiopian art and architecture during the Jesuit interlude, 1557-1632,” Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University (2016), https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/building-faith-ethiopian-art-architecture-during/docview/1844973655/se-2, 232; 237-238. A chapter on the reception of Dietterlin’s Architectura in the seventeenth-century Viceroyalty of Peru will appear in Petcu, The Architectural Image.