Architecture and Perspective in the Illusory Spaces of Ferdinando Galli Bibiena

Stage design is an articulated system of projective processes, whose aim is to create a purely visual emotion for the spectators when the curtain rises, disclosing that portion of space that is behind the actors. Setting up a scene is a very similar process to architectural planning, made of plans, sections and executive details of each element, in order to create a physical space but having the sole purpose of giving back a global image of itself, exactly coincident with the planned sketch. However, this design complexity is rarely highlighted by scholars, who end up commenting that the sketch is just like a perspective painted image, without reading the need for transposition into the physical space of the stage, that instead affects many compositional choices and exceptions, hidden in the apparent harmony of the general overall picture. In particular, we’ll examine Ferdinando Galli Bibiena’s treatise, L’architettura civile preparata su la geometria e ridotta alle prospettive (1711), which carefully describes the aforementioned stage design complexity.