All Sides to an Oval: Properties, Parameters, and Borromini's Mysterious Construction PDF
Preview All Sides to an Oval: Properties, Parameters, and Borromini's Mysterious Construction
Angelo Alessandro Mazzotti All Sides to an Oval Properties, Parameters, and Borromini’s Mysterious Construction All Sides to an Oval Angelo Alessandro Mazzotti All Sides to an Oval Properties, Parameters, and Borromini’s Mysterious Construction AngeloAlessandroMazzotti IstitutodiIstruzioneSuperiore “I.T.C.DiVittorio–I.T.I.Lattanzio” Roma,Italy ISBN978-3-319-39374-2 ISBN978-3-319-39375-9 (eBook) DOI10.1007/978-3-319-39375-9 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2017933470 #SpringerInternationalPublishingAG2017 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. 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Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAG Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland To Sophie, Lilian and Anton, my greatest joy Acknowledgements I should like to thank Lydia Colin for her proofreading, Edoardo Dotto for his enthusiasm, Kim Williams for her encouragement and Sophie Püschmann for her technicalandspiritualsupport. vii Contents 1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2 PropertiesofaPolycentricOval. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.1 Four-CentreOvals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3 Ruler/CompassConstructionsofSimpleOvals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3.1 OvalswithGivenSymmetryAxisLines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3.2 OvalswithUnknownAxisLines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 3.3 InscribingandCircumscribingOvals:TheFrameProblem. . . . . 49 3.4 TheStadiumProblemandtheRunningTrack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 4 ParameterFormulasforSimpleOvalsandApplications. . . . . . . . 61 4.1 ParameterFormulasforSimpleOvals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 4.2 LimitationsfortheFrameProblem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.3 MeasuringaFour-CentreOval. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 4.4 ConcentricOvals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 5 OptimisationProblemsforOvals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 6 RemarkableFour-CentreOvalShapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 7 Borromini’sOvalsintheDomeofSanCarloalleQuattroFontane inRome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 7.1 The1998Survey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 7.2 TheProjectfortheDome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 7.2.1 TheDimensionsoftheDome.. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 124 7.2.2 TheImpostOvalandtheLanternOval. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 ix x Contents 7.2.3 DeterminingtheHeightoftheRingsofCoffers. . . . . . . 131 7.2.4 TheOvalsoftheRingsofCoffers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 7.3 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 8 Ovalswith4nCentresandtheGroundPlanoftheColosseum. . . . 145 8.1 TheConstructionofOvalswith4nCentres. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 8.2 TheOvalsintheGroundPlanoftheColosseum. . . . . . . . . . . . 148 8.2.1 ReferencesandDataUsed:TheTwo-StepMethod. . . . . 148 8.2.2 TheFour-CentreOvalGuideline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 8.2.3 FromaFour-CentretoanEight-CentreOval. . . . . . . . . 152 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 1 Introduction Whenwritingaboutovalsthefirstthingtodoistomakesurethatthereaderknows what you are talking about. The word oval has, both in common and in technical language,anambiguousmeaning.Itmaybeanyshaperesemblingacirclestretched fromtwooppositesides,sometimesevenmoretoonesidethantotheother.Whenit comes to mathematics you have to be precise if you don’t want to talk about ellipses,oraboutnon-convexshapes,oraboutformswithasinglesymmetryaxis. Polycentric ovals are convex, with two symmetry axes, and are made of arcs of circle connected in a way that allows for a common tangent at every connection point.Thisformdoesn’thaveanelegantequationasdotheellipse,Cassini’sOval, orCartesianOvals.Butithasbeenusedprobablymorethananyothersimilarshape tobuildarches,bridges,amphitheatres,churchesandwindowswheneverthecircle was considered not convenient or simply uninteresting. The ellipse is nature, it is howtheplanetsmove,whiletheovalishuman,itisimperfect.Ithasoftenbeenan artist’sattempttoapproximatetheellipse,tocomeclosetoperfection.Buttheoval allowsforfreedom,becausechoicesofpropertiesandshapestoinscribeorcircum- scribe can be made by the creator. The fusion between the predictiveness of the circle and the arbitrariness of how and when this changes into another circle is described in the biography of the violin-maker Martin Schleske: “Ovals describe neither a mathematical function (as the ellipse does) nor an arbitrary shape. [...] Two elements mesh here in a fantastic dialectic: familiarity and surprise. They formaharmoniccontrast.[...]Inthisshapetheonecannotexistwithouttheother.” (ourtranslationfromtheGerman,[15],pp.47–48). Polycentric ovals are and have been used by architects, painters, craftsmen, engineers,graphicdesignersandmanyotherartistsandspecialists,buttheknowl- edgeneededtodrawthedesiredshapehasbeen—mostlyinthepast—eitherspread bywordofmouthorfoundoutbymethodsoftrialanderror.Thequestionofwhat wasknownaboutovalsinancienttimeshasregainedinterestinthelast20years.In [4] the idea of a missing chapter about amphitheatres in Vitruvius treatise De Architectura Libri Decem is put forward by Duvernoy and Rosin, while in [7] Lo´pezMozoarguesthatatthetimetheEscorialwasbuilttheknow-howhadtobe #SpringerInternationalPublishingAG2017 1 A.A.Mazzotti,AllSidestoanOval,DOI10.1007/978-3-319-39375-9_1 2 1 Introduction better than whatappears lookingat the sourcesavailable today. In[6]the authors showhowtheovalshapehasbeenusedinthedesignofSpanishmilitarydefense, while in [8] the author suggests that methods of drawing ovals with any given proportion were within reach, if not known, at the time Francesco Borromini planned the dome for S.Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, since they only required a basic knowledge of Euclidean geometry (the whole of Chap. 7 of this book is dedicatedtothisconstruction).Inanycase,tracesofpolycentriccurvesdateback thousands of years (see for example Huerta’s extensive work on oval domes [5]). For everything that has come down to us in terms of treatises on the generic oval shape(laformaovataasshecallsit),withconstructionsexplainedbythearchitects intheirownwords,thebookbyZerlenga[17]isamust. Theideaofthisbookisnottodisputewhetherandwhenpolycentricovalswere usedinthepast.Itistocreateacompactandstructuredsetofdata,bothgeometric andalgebraic,coveringthesingletopicofpolycentricovalsinallitsmathematical aspects,andthentoillustratetwoveryimportantcasestudies.Basicconstructions andequationshavebeenusedand/orderivedbythosewhoneededthem,butsucha collectionhas—tothebestofourknowledge—neverbeenputtogether.Andthisis why this book can help those using the oval shape to make objects and to design buildings,aswellasthoseusingitasameansoftheirartisticcreation,tomasterand optimise the shape to fit their technical and/or artistic requirements. The author wentdeepintothesubjectandthebookcontainsmanyofhiscontributions,someof whichapparentlynotinvestigatedbefore. The style chosen is that of mathematical rigour combined with easy-to-follow passages, and this could only have been done because basic Euclidean geometry, analyticgeometry,trigonometryandcalculushavebeenused.Non-mathematicians whocanbenefitfromtheconstructionsand/orformulasondisplaywillthusbeable, with a bit of work, to understand where these constructions and formulas comefrom. Themainpublishedcontributionstothisworkhavebeen:theauthor’spaperon theconstructionofovals[8],Rosin’spapersonfamousovalconstructions[11,13], and onthe comparison ofan ellipse with an oval [11–14],Dotto’ssurvey on oval constructions[2]andhisbookonHarmonicOvals[3],Lo´pezMozo’spaperonthe variousgeneralpurposeconstructionsofpolycentricovalsinhistory[7],Ragazzo’s works on ovals and polycentric curves [9, 10]—which triggered the author’s interestinboththesubjects—andfinallythemonographontheColosseum[1]. TotallynewtopicsdisplayedinthismonographareConstructions10and11,the organisedcollectionofformulasinChap.4,theinscriptionandcircumscriptionof rectangles and rhombi with ovals, the Frame Problems and the constructions of ovalsminimisingtheratioandthedifferenceoftheradiiforanychoiceofaxes.An organizedapproachtotheproblemofnestedovalsisalsopresented,whattheauthor calls the Stadium Problem, as well as a new oval form by the author. The main contribution is though the study on Borromini’s dome in the church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome: together with Margherita Caputo a whole new hypothesis on the steps which Borromini took in his mysterious project for his complicatedovaldomeisputforward.
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