755.

It never looks well to see the roofs of a church; they should rather be flat and the water should run off by gutters made in the frieze.

[Footnote:  This text is to the left of the domed church reproduced on Pl.  LXXXVII, No. 2.]

B.  The theory of Dome Architecture.

This subject has been more extensively treated by Leonardo in drawings than in writing.  Still we may fairly assume that it was his purpose, ultimately to embody the results of his investigation in a_ “Trattato delle Cupole.” The amount of materials is remarkably extensive.  MS. B is particularly rich in plans and elevations of churches with one or more domes—­from the simplest form to the most complicated that can be imagined.  Considering the evident connexion between a great number of these sketches, as well as the impossibility of seeing in them designs or preparatory sketches for any building intended to be erected, the conclusion is obvious that they were not designed for any particular monument, but were theoretical and ideal researches, made in order to obtain a clear understanding of the laws which must govern the construction of a great central dome, with smaller ones grouped round it; and with or without the addition of spires, so that each of these parts by itself and in its juxtaposition to the other parts should produce the grandest possible effect.

In these sketches Leonardo seems to have exhausted every imaginable combination. [Footnote 1:  In MS. B, 32b (see Pl.  C III, No. 2) we find eight geometrical patterns, each drawn in a square; and in MS. C.A., fol. 87 to 98 form a whole series of patterns done with the same intention.] The results of some of these problems are perhaps not quite satisfactory; still they cannot be considered to give evidence of a want of taste or of any other defect in Leonardo s architectural capacity.  They were no doubt intended exclusively for his own instruction, and, before all, as it seems, to illustrate the features or consequences resulting from a given principle._

I have already, in another place, [Footnote 1:  Les Projets Primitifs pour la Basilique de St. Pierre de Rome, par Bramante, Raphael etc.,Vol.  I, p. 2.] pointed out the law of construction for buildings crowned by a large dome:  namely, that such a dome, to produce the greatest effect possible, should rise either from the centre of a Greek cross, or from the centre of a structure of which the plan has some symmetrical affinity to a circle, this circle being at the same time the centre of the whole plan of the building.

Leonardo’s sketches show that he was fully aware, as was to be expected, of this truth.  Few of them exhibit the form of a Latin cross, and when this is met with, it generally gives evidence of the determination to assign as prominent a part as possible to the dome in the general effect of the building.

While it is evident, on the one hand, that the greater number of these domes had no particular purpose, not being designed for execution, on the other hand several reasons may be found for Leonardo’s perseverance in his studies of the subject.