Carlo Lodoli

Who was Carlo Lodoli?

Carlo Lodoli was an Italian architectural theorist, Franciscan priest, mathematician and teacher, his work anticipated modernist notions of functionalism and truth to materials. 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 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, Abbé Jean-Louis de Cordemoy, Abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier, Lodoli articulated a rational architecture which challenged the prevailing Baroque and Rococo styles.

Girolamo Zanetti records that after 20 years of writing Lodoli finished his treatise on architecture but refused to publish it. Instead Francesco Algarotti endeavoured to publicise Lodoli's thinking in his own work Saggio sopra l'architettura albeit in a somewhat watered down form, emphasising imitation rather than Lodoli's daring anti-Baroque rationalism.