Della pianta delle Scale of Guarino Guarini

For the important vertical connection architectural function, the staircase design accompanies always the architecture theory, having been the object of reflection in treatises since antiquity. Sharing the design complexity and the staircase correct geometric representation, the treatise on this subject have experienced theoretical models, provided practical information and formulated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries interesting and articulate spatial solutions. This contribution investigates the models proposed by Guarino Guarini (1624-1683) in his Architettura Civile Treaty (1737). Through the reading of the texts and the support of the few illustrations contained in the treatise, have been elaborated here several three-dimensional graphic models, highlighting the geometric-configuration and spatial features of the presented types. In this context, particular importance assumes the criticism that Guarini advances against the Spanish mathematician Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz (1606-1682) work entitled Architectura Civil Recta y Obliqua (1678-79), which Guarini analyzes in terms of spatial configuration and staircase’s decoration.