I recall Troy Thomas, my art professor at Penn State, extolling the harmonies of interval and proportion in a Renaissance arcade, as if such perfections were a visual elixir, a holy spirit disclosing the mystical geometry of our own humanity. Brunelleschi, we were led to believe, spent as much time on their infinitesimal refinements as Einstein spent on an algebraic formula. Here, in the cloister, monks or nuns strolled, the rhythmic repetition of the columns and arches inducing a state of contemplation the way the sound of waves or a dripping tap may do. Rule of thumb for any minimalist--repetition good, it shears away the superfluous; discloses the essential. Think of Swiss typography. Think of milking cows (an analogy lost on my urban wife).
John Pawson observed that compositions that are based on repetition tend to exhibit the quality of simplicity. This rhythmic repetition instills a sense of order. No surprise that branches of monasticism are called just that, orders.
Confronting you at the top of the stairs leading to the dormitory at San Marco is a bewitching fresco by Fra Angelico--his most famous--of the Annunciation. It takes place, as you can see, in a tranquil arcade that is almost identical to the real arcade at the bottom of the stairs.
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