La regola e lo sguardo. La critica di Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda al libro dei cinque ordini di architettura di Vignola

In 1878 Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda published Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola ed il suo libro dei cinque ordini d’architettura, a booklet where he asserted to be pleased that the architectonic orders according to Vignola’s rules were left out of courses of ministerial studies. Although the estreme clearness of Vignola’s design metod, issued in thousands of books, in Damiani’s opinion it was responsible for taking the students away from the straight study of roman and greek ancient architecture. Differently from Vignola, in his educational works Damiani did not suggest any proportional scheme. Otherwise he taugth to observe with patience and sensitivity the ancient buildings with the aim to detect the deep meaning of figures and shapes. Only by attending directly to the study of greek and roman architecture students would be able to create genuine modern forms. Even in a period marked by a linguistical experimentalism like the end of 18th century, Damiani’s major works, such as the Politeama of Palermo, distinctly show how the revolutionary, joyful and rigorous architectonic style he developed was straightly founded on his deep and scrupulous study of classical forms.