Mathes Roriczer

Mathes Roriczer, also Matthäus Roritzer (approximate dates 1435–1495), was a 15th-century German architect and author of several surviving booklets on medieval architectural design.

It is one of his texts, Büchlein von der Fialen Gerechtigkeit or Booklet Concerning Pinnacle Correctitude, that is sometimes credited with revealing the craft secrets of the German medieval master masons.

[2] It is more likely that no such secrecy existed, and that the scarcity of contemporary writing combined with the rules that prevented masons from working for a non-trained builder have given this erroneous impression.

[9] More recent scholarship suggest that secrecy was not actively enforced and these techniques appear to be craft secrets only because they were taught orally and through apprenticeships and until the end of the 15th century virtually no written record exists.

[13] The text describes the manner in which medieval masons used a "single dimensional unit" to produce a ground plan for a pinnacle that would be used in the construction of churches and cathedrals.