Euristica dell’errore. La ‘Stonehenge ricostruita’ di Inigo Jones/Error Heuristics: Inigo Jones’ ‘Rebuilt Stonehenge

At the request of King James I, Inigo Jones surveyed the remains of the megalithic complex of Stonehenge in 1620 and proposed a reconstruction published in 1655, after his death, by his assistant John Webb. Jones’ hypothesis was that the megaliths had been erected by the Romans during the period of domination of the British island, according to a rigidly geometric structure similar to those described by Vitruvius and illustrated by the great Italian architects of the Renaissance. Although incorrect, this idea is based on Jones’ passionate knowledge of Italian architecture, especially of Palladio, who must have directly influenced the formulation of this bizarre hypothesis. Similarly, at the end of the sixteenth century, Kepler formulated an imaginative explanation for the configuration of the solar system which was based on a geometric structure intimately linked to the formal characteristics of the five Platonic solids which he, as a scholar of Euclid, knew deeply. The following note takes into consideration the influence that our knowledge has on the ability to formulate complex hypotheses, often leading us to glaring and egregious errors. Despite this, the geometric analyzes carried out by authors of the past, albeit unsuccessful, can allow us to fully understand their way of reasoning and provide us with valuable information on their conceptual and methodological references, making otherwise inaccessible knowledge available.