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>[Talk to] Giannino, the Bombardier, re. the means by which the tower of Ferrara is walled without loopholes (no one really knows what Da Vinci meant by this)
by cushychicken 10y ago
>[Talk to] Giannino, the Bombardier, re. the means by which the tower of Ferrara is walled without loopholes (no one really knows what Da Vinci meant by this)
I thought "loopholes" generally referred to a narrow upright window with wide angles in the interior but little room at the outside. It's designed so that you can shoot arrows out of it with a wide degree of freedom, but hard to get an arrow into.
- kencausey 10y agoOK, let's agree that that defines 'loopholes' in this context but still what is meant by the overall comment? Why ask about building a tower without loopholes?
- sdrothrock 10y agoThe loopholes were for, IIRC, scaffolding/braces used during the construction process; my guess would be that DaVinci wanted to know about the construction process that allowed for the building of a tall building WITHOUT those braces.
- jaclaz 10y agoYes, traditionally all stone/masonry buildings (particularly medieval buildings) had these "holes" (they are called "buche pontaie" in Italian, literally "scaffolding holes") to allow for both the scaffolding and lifting devices to be anchored to the walls while building them (and later for maintenance work): https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buca_pontaia https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buca_pontaia The English word for it is "putlog hole" AFAIK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putlog_hole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putlog_hole
- dreistdreist 10y agohttps://www.italybeyondtheobvious.com/what-are-those-holes-in-italian-buildings-and-towers https://www.italybeyondtheobvious.com/what-are-those-holes-i...
- cushychicken 10y agoInteresting! Thank you for sharing.
- solotronics 10y agomaybe the blocks a tower is built of normally have holes to lift the blocks by rope, and this tower has no such holes in the blocks.