The Resonance of Vitruvius in the History of Danish Architecture

The resonance of Vitruvius in the history of Danish architecture since the early modern period is prima facie evident from the 16th century building program of Christian IV and, most obviously, in Christian VIs 1735 commission of a Vitruvius Danicus. The Danish Vitruvius is, however, not a treatise on architecture, but a topographical survey of the monumental architecture of Denmark (cf. Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus). The fact that the author, Danish architect Lauritz de Thura (1706–1759), did not make any reference to De Architectura Libri Decem is generally taken as sign of the common knowledge of Vitruvius in Denmark at the time of publication.
The architecture documented in The Danish Vitruvius is, however, of a provincial baroque nature, since architectural education in Denmark were not systematized until the establishment of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in the 18th century. The first Danish architectural textbooks from the 18th century thus testify knowledge of Vitruvian theory, but at the time when Danish architects makes their first contributions to architectural theory, the study of Vitruvius had advanced to a point where the ultimate authority of De Architectura was questioned.
Since the official foundation in 1754 under Frederik V, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts was highly influenced by French neoclassicism. The translation of De Architectura aquired for the Academy’s library by its first professor of architecture, the French architect N-H. Jardin (1720-1799), is generally assumed to be the translation by Perrault, thus echoing La querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. Early Danish artists contributing to theory such as Johannes Wiedewelt (1731–1802) and Nicolai Abildgaard (1743–1809) were also clearly influenced by neoclassical theory.
From the onset, the Danish academic architectural tradition thus had a strong empirical foundation in measured archaeological surveys, and any “vitruvianism”, i.e the orthodox application of Vitruvian theory, appears to be absent in the history of Danish architecture. The spirit of Vitruvius is, however, omnipresent since the early modern period.