86 What is Architectural History?
critical, have over decades adapted extensively from a range
of historical and other analytical practices in order to pene-
trate deeper and deeper into existing historical problems.
Techniques and technologies proper to surveying, engineer-
ing and other fi elds that demand precise measurement of all
manner of dimensions, for instance, have been adapted to
make exact surveys of buildings and archaeological sites –
exactitude being, of course, relative. Centuries-old problems
like the dimensions of columns relative to the theory of
columnar heights and diameters remain, consequently, open
to debate.
In this vein, a recent article by Matthew A. Cohen in the
JSAH documents a new survey of the old Sacristy of the
Basilica of San Lorenzo (Florence, 1420–9), commonly
regarded as Filippo Brunelleschi’s canonical contribution to
the foundation of the Florentine architectural Renaissance.^5
Cohen conducts a ‘rigorous observation’ of the building,
making a fresh study of its elements and general proportional
system. He presents measured drawings and graphic analysis
alongside a historical argument concerning the building’s
authorship, which is based on his empirical fi ndings. He
concludes that responsibility for part of the design of San
Lorenzo lies with Brunelleschi’s predecessor, Prior Matteo di
Bartolommeo Dolfi ni. Cohen’s analysis suggests that, as
much as San Lorenzo might be understood as a building
heralding new beginnings, it ought also to be understood in
terms of the fourteenth-century compositional and construc-
tion practices that endured into the fi fteenth century, and
therefore in terms of a medieval tradition that casts a long
shadow over the Renaissance. If this building can be under-
stood, in part, as medieval, where does that leave the cate-
gory and chronology of the Renaissance? In his conclusion
Cohen goes only as far as recognizing that such questions are
at stake in his ‘critical study of architectural proportion as
historical evidence’. He observes: ‘This integrated, observa-
tion-based approach to the study of architectural history has
the potential to bring to light new knowledge pertaining not
only to architectural proportion, but to many other areas of
architectural theory and practice as well.’^6
The measurement of columnar spacing and dimensions
does not, in itself, lead to a ‘natural’ classifi cation of a build-