QA264 - The ground plan of the Santa Sofia in Benevento (Campania, Italy)
Fig. 264 (p. 329) - The ground plan of the Santa Sofia in Benevento (Campania, Italy) shows a curious irregular polygonal outlay. The church was build around 760 AD.
Beneveto is situated some eighty kilometers north east of Naples, in the Campania region. The city was in the heydays of the Roman Empire an important communication center along the Via Appia (Rome – Beneveto) and the Via Traiana (Beneveto – Brindisi). The Arco di Traiano (114 AD) is a remainder of that important period of the visible visibility of the Roman cultural period.
The early medieval church of Santa Sofia – named after the Hagia Sofia in Constantinople – was studied by Rocco Leonardis (LEONARDIS, 2002), who tried to find the key of its geometrical pattern. There seem to be no fixed division plan and in particular the absence of an axial bilateral symmetry is striking. There is no sign of a rectangle, an octagon, a circle or a square – which where the most common features in church building. The church is truly ‘eccentric’, but Leonardis proved convincingly that the characterization of ‘naivety’ or ‘provincialism’ is not justifiable.
Two theories were proposed by Leonardis to explain the scheme of design based on symbolic geometry. The simpler solution takes a geometric form (like the rotated square, fig. 265) and studied its alterations. This approach gives a reasonable explanation of the overall circular unity and the zigzag lines in the ground plan, but it does not account for the position of the interior columns and piers and the three apses. The more complex approach deals with four geometric symbols superimposed on top of one another and than selectively applied.
LEONARDIS, Rocco (2002) - The Plan of S. Sofia: A View into Early Medieval Design. Pp. 105 – 122 in: Architectura. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Baukunst – Journal of te History of Architecture. Band 32/2002.
quadralectics.wordpress.com/3-contemplation/3-3-churches-...
QA264 - The ground plan of the Santa Sofia in Benevento (Campania, Italy)
Fig. 264 (p. 329) - The ground plan of the Santa Sofia in Benevento (Campania, Italy) shows a curious irregular polygonal outlay. The church was build around 760 AD.
Beneveto is situated some eighty kilometers north east of Naples, in the Campania region. The city was in the heydays of the Roman Empire an important communication center along the Via Appia (Rome – Beneveto) and the Via Traiana (Beneveto – Brindisi). The Arco di Traiano (114 AD) is a remainder of that important period of the visible visibility of the Roman cultural period.
The early medieval church of Santa Sofia – named after the Hagia Sofia in Constantinople – was studied by Rocco Leonardis (LEONARDIS, 2002), who tried to find the key of its geometrical pattern. There seem to be no fixed division plan and in particular the absence of an axial bilateral symmetry is striking. There is no sign of a rectangle, an octagon, a circle or a square – which where the most common features in church building. The church is truly ‘eccentric’, but Leonardis proved convincingly that the characterization of ‘naivety’ or ‘provincialism’ is not justifiable.
Two theories were proposed by Leonardis to explain the scheme of design based on symbolic geometry. The simpler solution takes a geometric form (like the rotated square, fig. 265) and studied its alterations. This approach gives a reasonable explanation of the overall circular unity and the zigzag lines in the ground plan, but it does not account for the position of the interior columns and piers and the three apses. The more complex approach deals with four geometric symbols superimposed on top of one another and than selectively applied.
LEONARDIS, Rocco (2002) - The Plan of S. Sofia: A View into Early Medieval Design. Pp. 105 – 122 in: Architectura. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Baukunst – Journal of te History of Architecture. Band 32/2002.
quadralectics.wordpress.com/3-contemplation/3-3-churches-...