Stairs in the Architecture Notebook of Juan de Portor y Castro: An Insight into Ruled Surfaces

Abstract

Historic treatises on stonecutting of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries contributed to progress in the study and understanding of properties of the different surfaces and the intersections between them. One of the topics that contributed most towards the development of knowledge of the geometry of surfaces was the practical use of ruled surfaces. Defining the geometry of a piece of stone by surfaces that can be cut using a ruler as a guide and a check has always been considered very interesting in the field of stonecutting. This present study focuses on stairs in two Spanish treatises to illustrate how warped surfaces were treated.