Tevolozze in Borromini's Imaginative Constructions

Broken and salvaged bricks were employed since Imperial Roman times as a key ingredient in opus caementicium. In the 16th century, broken bricks, by then known as tevolozza, constituted a primary material in cortina (curtain) wall construction. It was not until the 17th century, however, that the brick left-over was transformed into spatial expressions in their own right, appearing particularly in the architecture of Francesco Borromini, who used the fragmented and broken brickwork to explore new solutions in form and plastic space. Covered with a thin layer of marble dust and lime stucco, tevolozza is the critical apparatus concealed beneath his well-known use of geometry and symbolism. This paper argues that Borromini's use of broken bricks was not just a practical building solution, as it had been a century before him. Rather, the implementation of tevolozza had a fundamental agency in conceiving an innovative architecture that relied on continuity, supple light, and inflected space.