Architectural Trivia

Or should that be trivium? Anyway, I love this sort of thing. Years ago as an undergrad studying 15C Florentine history (under the wonderful Prof. Alison Brown), I happened across a theory that the shape of the arches under the lovely Ponte Santa Trinita by Ammanati were inspired by Michelangelo’s plinths in the Medici Chapel of S. Lorenzo, Florence. (The statues they support were not his finest hour!) I’d like to think it’s true.

London’s equivalent – better documented – is the design of the tops of our fast-disappearing red phone boxes. Giles Gilbert Scott, a trustee of Sir John Soane’s museum, as a tribute to the great architect based them on Soane’s designs for his own tomb.