him fame as an early hydraulic engineer. Engineer As an architect his engineering skills were firmly to the forefront, rather than an interpretation on the finer and more sophisticated points of rinascimento architecture. Impregnable fortresses such as the Fortezza Medicea at Siena, and bastide towns, and bridges are his trade mark rather than elegant palazzi. This is not to say Lanci was a man lacking in sophistication, one of his more surprising talents was designing some of the sets for the lavish theatrical and dramatical performances for which the Medici court was famed. As with his architecture, though, it was his engineering skills even here which dominated. Long before the Restoration spectaculars of the 17th century Lanci was designing elaborate and complicated theatre sets, using pivoted scenery, with up to three different scenes painted on boards, thus allowing the mood of the production to be altered in an instant. One of the earliest examples of this form of scenic change was recorded in 1568 for a performance of the Fabii produced to celebrate the baptism of a daughter of Francesco de' Medici. One of Lanci's most extravagant productions was for a performance of Giovan Battista Cini's La Vedova (The Widow), staged in Florence in 1569, with amazingly extravagant costumes by Bernardo Buontalenti, the event was recorded by the mathematician Ignazio Danti who was so impressed by Lanci's theatrical engineering he included a drawing of his periaktoi stage. The periaktoi stage setting was basically a series of three sided revolving triangular boards each side with a different scene. Each triangular board was connected, hence there would be one or two flanking the stage, in the wings, and a further section suspended between them on which would be painted skies, cloudy, sunny, dawn or dusk. The entire series of revolving boards were linked to each other by a series of pulleys and machinery, thus allowing scene changes to be almost instantaneous. While Lanci did not invent this mechanism himself (indeed Vitruvius had described these three-sided units revolving in the Roman era) he was instrumental in its further development. Often producing and relocating the settings of the plays, himself, in order that a greater variety of scenery could be included. What in fact Lanci realised and promoted was that a false perspective coupled with a deliberately created illusionary architectural area, was the perfect dramatical setting. References 1510 births 1571 deaths People from Urbino