Sebastiano Serlio and the Idea of Central Perspective

Sebastian Serlio and the Idea of Central Perspective.

"The greater the hall, the more nearly will

the theatre assume its perfect form." -Sebastiano Serlio.

The above is taken from the second book in Serlio's series entitled Architettura. He took what he was given in Vitruvius's De Architectura and created, in his eyes, the model for what a theatre should be. With his ideas and innovations, Serlio gave the Italian Renaissance the bridge it needed to start building its own theatres and expanding drama to the people of the period. He took Vitruvius and blended the idea of the true classical theatre with the art if the Renaissance and birthed central perspective into theatre. With that, he is able to transcend centuries as we are still using conventions engineered by him in productions today.

Central Perspective.

Serlio's contribution to theatre of his time has transcended the centuries and affects us today. He took what he was seeing in the visual art that had begun a few hundred years before. An artist of this period, Baldassare Peruzzi, had used the idea of perspective in his work. The image featured here is a work of Peruzzi (Absolutearts.com). If you look at this image and those we have of Serlio's designs, there are a lot of similarities. Take special notice of how the center of the image looks father away then the rest of the image, even though it is a flat piece. There is a point that is the farthest away is called the "vanishing point."

The way that the scenery was set up, the eye of the audience is to be drawn to that point. In addition to the idea of the vanishing point, Serlio used a raked stage. The performance