Paolo Verzone (1902-1982) A Journey in Time and Space |
History of Architecture-3: Method
"...the best is the enemy of the good" (P. Verzone).
The contents of the archives are particularly significant because they allow us to understand the working method used by the scholar to prepare his writings. Among the material, the Fund preserves the data collected and developed for a study of the late-imperial residences which Verzone worked on during the last thirty years of his life and which constituted the dominant theme of his maturity, in-between interruptions and reprises due to other work commitments. This corpus is the most significant testimony of the complex and endless amount of work behind his publications: unlike other writings, where the preliminary material has gone lost, here the progressive steps from manuscript to final draft have been preserved.
Having gathered all the data necessary for problem definition, and after analysing the literature and everything collected "on the field" (records, notes, surveillance data, photographs), would write the first version of the text on loose-leaf protocol sheets in his uniqueTorino Polytechnic Archive handwriting. This first draft, as yet without notes or at the most with brief references, was followed by others and all were compared and integrated with one another by means of an elaborate and lengthy process of cutting and pasting: a veritable creative collage of papers and writings, sometimes with glued or photocopied prints attached. At this point, a body of notes might have existed but the data was so synthetic to be uninterpretable without the aid of the author.
The composition thus prepared was then typed for subsequent revision and perhaps more cutting and pasting to yield yet another version for typing.
Handwritten pages or notes could still enrich or modify the final versions handed in to the printer; the text to be printed was accompanied by drawings and photographs in which the parts to be excluded (e.g., over-extended skies, overexposures, the photographer’s shadow..) or included were carefully squared off in pen; as for ornamentation details, very often the part for publication was outlined by heavy brush strokes in India ink.
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Istanbul, twin pillars at Bodrum Mosque.
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Ornamental fragment from Alahan Monastery, 1954.
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Verzone's notes showing that his procedures for programming work underwent a long period of examination and thought.
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Fragment of ornamental architecture from the Old Palace, Istanbul.
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"I have decided, in the light of our present knowledge, to focus my analysis on existing works or their visible remains, rather than on those works no longer extant on which Byzantine experts worked."
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