"Telaro" (Frame)
From Inventions
Name adopted by the inventor.
Contents |
Inventor
Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo
Historic Period
1584
Description
Graduated frame invented by Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo "for the utility of professors of this art of ours". The instrument is composed of two vertical rods connected at the top by a crosspiece and fitted with legs. Attached to the rods are two strips of paper with divisions in ounces and minutes. A transverse ruler bearing the same graduation slides along a groove in these rods. The viewing point is established by an iron stand with a string at the top bearing a weight, which simulates the visual ray. The string is pulled until it touches the object to be drawn, as in Dürer’s window, and the transverse graduated rod is positioned tangent to the string. The intersection point, whose coordinates are measured on the graduated scale, is then transcribed onto a sheet of paper fixed to a board graduated like the frame and also carrying a sliding transverse rod. To draw an object to be painted on a vaulted ceiling, Lomazzo also devised a “distorted” frame, that is, curved like the ceiling, in order to measure the intersections directly on a curved surface.
Bibliographical Resources
Lomazzo, Giovanni Paolo. Trattato dell'arte de la pittura: diviso in sette libri ne' quali si contiene tutta la theorica, et la prattica d'essa pittura. In Milano, appresso Paolo Gottardo Pontio, 1584, Lib. VI, cap. XIV, cap. XV.
Lomazzo, Giovanni Paolo. Trattato dell'arte della pittura, scoltura, et architettura. Con una tavola de' nomi de tutti li pitttori , scoltori, architetti, et matematici antichi, et moderni. In Milano, per Paolo Gottardo Pontio, 1585.
Lomazzo, Giovanni Paolo. Scritti sulle arti. A cura di Roberto Paolo Ciardi. Firenze, Marchi & Bertolli, 1973-1974.
Author of the entry: Filippo Camerota
