Carlo Lodoli (28 November 1690 – October 27, 1761) was an Italian architectural theorist, Franciscan priest, mathematician and teacher, whose work anticipated modernist notions of functionalism and
truth to materials
Truth to materials is a tenet of modern architecture (as opposed to postmodern architecture), which holds that any material should be used where it is most appropriate and its nature should not be hidden. Concrete, therefore, should not be painted ...
. He claimed that architectural forms and proportions should be derived from the abilities of the material being used. He is sometimes referred to as the
Socrates
Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...
of architecture since his own writings have been lost his theories are only known from the works of others. Together with architects and architectural theorists including
Claude Perrault
Claude Perrault (; 25 September 1613 – 9 October 1688) was a French physician and amateur architect, best known for his participation in the design of the east façade of the Louvre in Paris.Jean-Louis de Cordemoy, Abbé
Marc-Antoine Laugier
Marc-Antoine Laugier (Manosque, Provence, January 22, 1713 – Paris, April 5, 1769) was a Jesuit priest until 1755, then a Benedictine monk. Overlooking Claude Perrault and numerous other figures, Summerson notes,
Laugier is best known for ...
Baroque
The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
and
Rococo
Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...
styles.
Biography
Carlo Lodoli came from a family who had close connections with the
Venetian Arsenal
The Venetian Arsenal () is a complex of former shipyards and Armory (military), armories clustered together in the city of Venice in northern Italy. Owned by the state, the Arsenal was responsible for the bulk of the Republic of Venice, Venetian ...
and military engineering. After completing his initial studies at the monastery of
San Francesco della Vigna
San Francesco della Vigna is a Roman Catholic church in the Sestiere of Castello, Venice, Castello in Venice, northern Italy.
History
Along with Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, this is one of two Franciscan churches in Venice. The site, original ...
Dalmatia
Dalmatia (; ; ) is a historical region located in modern-day Croatia and Montenegro, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. Through time it formed part of several historical states, most notably the Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Croatia (925 ...
.
In 1709 he was transferred to the monastery of
Santa Maria in Ara Coeli
The Basilica of Saint Mary of the Altar in Heaven (, ) is a titular basilica and conventual church of the Franciscan Convent of Aracoeli located the highest summit of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. From 1250–1798 it was the headquarters o ...
in Rome, where he continued his studies in
philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
,
science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
,
theology
Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
and French. He remained in Rome for about four years, during which time he developed his interest in art and architecture; he was then transferred to the monastery of San Biagio in
Forlì
Forlì ( ; ; ; ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) and city in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, and is, together with Cesena, the capital of the Province of Forlì-Cesena.The city is situated along the Via Emilia, to the east of the Montone river, ...
.
From 1715 to 1720 he lived in Verona, where he began teaching
astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...
,
physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
and
mathematics
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
to Veronese noblemen, and philosophy to the novices of the monastery of San Bernardino. Also in Verona he contributed to an edition of the works of the French humanist Marcus Antonius Muretus and began his friendship with the writer Angelo Calogerà and
Francesco Scipione Maffei
Francesco Scipione Maffei (; 1 June 1675 – 11 February 1755) was an Italian writer and art critic, author of many articles and plays. An antiquarian with a humanist education whose publications on Etruscan antiquities stand as incunables of ...
. During this period he probably also visited
Tuscany
Tuscany ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of 3,660,834 inhabitants as of 2025. The capital city is Florence.
Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its in ...
, including
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
, acquiring a profound knowledge of the art of the region.
In 1720 Lodoli was transferred to Venice to teach theology and was immediately at the centre of the city’s cultural life. Also during the 1720s Lodoli was engaged in the extension and reorganization of the library of San Francesco della Vigna and acted as historian of the Franciscan Order and its writers. In the 1730s Lodoli began to teach the sons of Venetian noblemen. Architecture was included in the course of study, and in the garden of San Francesco della Vigna he assembled a collection of architectural fragments for teaching purposes.
From 1739 to 1751 Lodoli held the office of Padre Generale Commissario di Terra Santa in Venice, and he also devoted himself to the restoration (1739–43) of the pilgrim’s hospice attached to the monastery. This project, the only one Lodoli executed, encapsulates the essence of his architectural theories as set out in the only surviving original source: two draft outlines of his unpublished treatise on architecture (untraced), which appeared in the second volume of Andrea Memmo’s ''Elementi d’architettura lodoliana''. In these two draft outlines, Lodoli’s functionalism and rationalism are expressed in condensed form. According to Memmo, Lodoli wanted to find in architecture the same scientific principles that
Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...
had discovered in physics; his architecture thus assumed the character of a science based on certain principles and static rules. It also concerned the search for structural truth, expressed in terms of a building’s solidity, which involved the honest use of materials, especially stone. This concept reflected the
military engineering
Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics b ...
environment of the Venetian Arsenal and the rationalist and anti-Baroque tendencies present in Venice in the early 18th century.
Lodoli argued that proper function and form were the only final, scientific aims of civil architecture, and that nothing should be put on show that is not a working part of the structure. The different architectural systems of antiquity were set out, but
Vitruvius
Vitruvius ( ; ; –70 BC – after ) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled . As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissan ...
’ five orders of architecture were criticized as being inappropriate to stone because they were originally based on timber structures. Following an original classification, the treatise deals with the primary integral elements of architecture, solidity and proportion, as well as with the secondary integral elements, convenience and ornament. Lodoli admitted ornament, except mosaic, and in order to overcome the monotony of continuous imitation of the same forms he encouraged the invention of new ones or the selection from ancient and modern architectural styles, including Gothic and
Moorish
The term Moor is an exonym used in European languages to designate the Muslim populations of North Africa (the Maghreb) and the Iberian Peninsula (particularly al-Andalus) during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defi ...
, of ornament that suited the characteristics of stone. According to Memmo, Lodoli also admitted those elements of the Classical orders that corresponded to a structure’s function and suited the characteristics of stone:
columns
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...
triglyphs
Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric order, Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Dori ...
, metopes and consoles. He particularly favoured ground-floor rustication and included drawings of 16 different types in his treatise. His taste for Doric and Tuscan capitals probably arose from the fact that to him, as later to his friend Piranesi, these represented examples of primitive Italic architecture, the origin of the art.
Passionately keen on
painting
Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
and
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
medieval art
The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, with over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional ar ...
, and his own collection, which included relics of
Hellenistic
In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...
and
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
painting as well as primitive and modern works, was arranged in such a way as to illustrate the development of art.
Works and legacy
Lodoli was hugely influential in the developement of modern architecture. According to
Rudolf Wittkower
Rudolf Wittkower (22 June 1901 – 11 October 1971) was a British art historian specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, who spent much of his career in London, but was educated in Germany, and later moved to the Unit ...
"his personal influence seems to have been more vital than that of any other theorist of architecture of the eighteenth century."
The critical reception of Lodoli’s ideas has had a rather complex history, partly because, with the loss of his original writings, they are known only indirectly through the works of others. Girolamo Zanetti reported that in 1754 , after 20 years, Lodoli finally completed his treatise on architecture, but that he refused to publish it. After an unsuccessful attempt by Federico Foscari,
Francesco Algarotti
Count Francesco Algarotti (11 December 1712 – 3 May 1764) was an Italian polymath, philosopher, poet, essayist, anglophile, art critic and art collector. He was a man of broad knowledge, an expert in Newtonianism, architecture and opera. He w ...
endeavoured to publicise Lodoli's thinking in his own work ''Saggio sopra l'architettura'' (1757) albeit in a somewhat watered down form, emphasising imitation rather than Lodoli's daring anti-Baroque rationalism. It was
Andrea Memmo
Andrea Memmo (29 March 1729 – 27 January 1793) was a Venetian patrician and politician. Tutored by Carlo Lodoli, he was a proponent of Enlightenment values and political reform for the stagnant Republic of Venice. He is well known for his love ...
who attempted to do justice to Lodoli's theories in his work ''Elementi d'architettura lodoliana'' (1786) published one year before the first edition of the only book bearing Lodoli's name, ''Apologhi immaginati'' (1787); a collection remarks and tales, often paradoxical in nature, told to his friends and pupils. Another pupil of Lodoli's, Francesco Milizia (1725–1798) published a long treatise, ''Principles of Civic Architecture'' (1781), which presented an exhaustive architectural system inspired by contemporary science.