Translations and dislocations of architectural media at the Fabric of St Peter's, the Vatican

Despite drawing being the first_hand work of the architect, there has not been enough discussion about where architectural drawings and models belong, and the ways in which they move and develop between sites of production, storage, and revision. It is often assumed that the mobility of drawings in the Renaissance period implied the possibility of action at a distance, allowing the architect to be absent from the fabrication site. Earlier Medieval practices of incised stone drawings and plaster drawings traced on floors determined the immobility of drawings, which made them integral parts of the building and assured the presence of the architect. However, an alternate reading is possible, which is that immovable drawings and the presence of models freed the architect, because the tools that guide construction were, in fact,in situ.