ABSTRACT
During the Enlightenment notable changes began to occur in architecture's attitude towards the formal model, the changes are very much in evidence in the notorious Essay on Architecture by Marc-Antoine Laugier, which was first published in 1755. The ambition of Le Roy's history of architecture was to show how ideas of buildings, when they are represented as formal models, can be linked together in a chain of morphological development. Le Roy's political attitude is revealed in his suggestion that the ancestral form of the ornate columns of the architectural orders is to be found in this simple row of tree trunks. G. B. Piranesi, Tafuri, Wicked Architect, 1987, 2554, 28. It seems that Piranesi was driven to direct expression because he wanted to make the point that it is he. The importance of Piranesi's political attitude as a motive for turning from building to more direct forms of expression should be understood as something intrinsic to the special.
