Michelangelo, Templates and the On-site Imagination

This book offers a new reading of the dynamic and sometimes volatile architectural processes of Michelangelo Buonarroti through a study of his ten surviving template drawings from San Lorenzo in Florence. Theorized as a kind of ’tempering’ procedure, where his 1:1 scaled paper templates (called modani) facilitate small adjustments, alterations, or digressions, these artifacts hold a wealth of clues as to the potential of drawing to empower an architect’s imagination through on-site, in-progress alterations. Tempering, or in Italian, temperare, denotes a practice of attunement or harmony. In studying his templates, it becomes clear that Michelangelo understood the San Lorenzo worksite as dynamic, non-linear, and open to constant adjustment. Such discoveries guide the book as it embarks on an inquiry into tempering-as-building, using a range of contemporary sources. For the first time, 15th and 16th century notions of temperance are examined through various practices, such as bell-casting and bodily health, as well as the widely known iconology of Temperanza. Being the first, dedicated study to Michelangelo's modani, and to modani in general, assumptions of how the artist produced his modani are shown to be incorrect. Although Michelangelo is one of the most examined figures of all time, this micro-historical investigation presents surprising new findings for both architects and historians. Relying on these two lines of inquiry - Michelangelo's templates and the idea of tempering - the book crafts an argument that is timely to Michelangelo scholarship as well as to broader architectural theory. On the one hand, the book provides a deeper understanding of his architecture through how he worked, and, on the other, it shows how Michelangelo's use of templates as instruments for micro-interventions demonstrate the potential of dynamic, in-situ material adjustments - of tempering-as-building. The first adds a key text to Michelangelo scholarship in general, and t