When is art a tool of war? On the blog BLDGBLOG, a historical
anecdote drawn from architectural historian Massimo Scolari’s
new book “Oblique Drawing” gives a remarkable example. The story
dates from the 1529 siege of Florence: “During the night,
Tribolo and an assistant secretly built an accurate relief model
in cork, several meters wide, of the city and its
fortifications. It was smuggled out of the besieged city in
various pieces concealed inside bales of wool. This allowed the
pope, aided by Baldassarre Peruzzi, to direct operations from a
distance.” The ruse worked. After laying siege for 10 months,
papal forces—aided by their cork model—retook the renegade
Republic of Florence on Aug. 10, 1530. Tribolo, the creator of
the model, went on to enjoy a life of patronage under the
grateful, reinstalled Medici. Art has often been a tool of
espionage, as it turns out. Scolari tells of Goethe, who in 1786
had a sketch he’d made of an abandoned castle confiscated by
suspicious Italian authorities, and of 16th-cen