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itecture
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The Architecture of
CO
MICHELANGELO
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JAMES
ACKERMAN
S.
Micbclanqcio Buonarroti was principallv a sculptor that architecture was not his
and always claimed
profession; but, with a sculptor's vision, he
huildinqs as dynamic orcjanisms
human bodv - and
saw
- metaphors
of the
he desiqned some of the most
impressive architecture in all history.
known buildings are
Among
his best-
Chapel and the
the Medici
laurcntian library in Florence; the Capitoline Hill, St Peter's
and
Rome. Monc
the Porta Pia in
work survives just as he envisaged
it; in
of his
architecture,
as in sculpture, his goals were often so grandiose as to
be unattainable.
and
Many
of his
drawings are preserved
record projects such as those for the fortification oj
and
Florence
for the San Giovanni de'Fiorentini in
Rome, which were never executed, but which arc among his most imaqinativc architectural concepts.
This
monoqraph
is
the first in Fnglish in
Michclancjelo's architecture it
is
collected
draws upon the accomplishment
which all oJ
and analysed;
of a centurj of
scholarship in five countries, which has brought to light letters,
documents, notes and drawings of and about
the cjreat Florentine,
as an architect
and has revealed
his true stature
and engineer.
Ihe volume contains a critical review of all the major buildinqs,
and
their theoretical
and
historical
background, for the general reader.
With
I
n
HciH-tone illustrations and 9 text-figures
A
Studio Book
THE VIKING PRESS
NEW YORK
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DATE DUE
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^M
Li.r^
THE ARCHITECTURE OF
MICHELANGELO JAMES
A
S.
ACKERMAN
Studio
Book
THE VIKING PRESS
NEW YORK
TO MY PARENTS
COPYRIGHT
IN ALL
COUNTRIES
OF THE INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT UNION
BY
A.
ZWEMMER
LTD,
LONDON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PUBLISHED IN I96I BY THE VIKING PRESS, INC. 625 MADISON AVENUE,
NEW YORK
22, N. Y.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 61-7886
MADE AND PRINTED BLOCKS ETCHED BY W.
IN
GREAT BRITAIN
SEDGWICK
F.
LTD,
LONDON
TEXT AND ILLUSTRATIONS PRINTED BY PERCY LUND, HUMPHRIES AND CO. LTD, BRADFORD
BOUND BY KEY AND WHITING, LONDON
i U
'^
i
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u
Contents PAGE List
of Plates
List
of Text
vii
Illustrations
Photographic Sources List
of Abbreviations
xvii
xix
xxi
Preface
XXV
Introduction
^I
XV
Michelangelo's "Theory" of Architecture
I
The Facade of San Lorenzo
II
III
The Medici Chapel
21
IV
The Library of San Lorenzo
33
The
45
II
V VI VII VIII
IX
X XI XII
Fortifications
The CapitoHne The
of Florence
Hill
Farnese Palace
The Basihca of
St Peter
54 75
89
San Giovanni de' Fiorentini; The Sforza Chapel
103
The Porta
114
Pia
Santa Maria degh
AngeH
123
Conclusion
129
The
141
Plates
Bibhography
143
Index
153
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List
of Plates
Unless otherwise indicated
la.
fol.
Magha-
42V
C. Cesariano. Plate from Vitruvius, fol.
ic.
works are by Michelangelo
Francesco di Giorgio. Ideal church plan. Florence, Bibl. Naz., Cod. becchiano,
lb.
all
De Architectura,
ed.
Como,
1521, Bk.
Ill,
xHx
Albrecht Diirer. Study of
human
proportion. Bremen, Kunsthalle (after
Lippmann) id.
Profile studies.
Haarlem, Teyler Museum, No. 20v
CASTEL SANt' ANGELO 2a.
2b.
Chapel of Leo X. Exterior
(15 14)
Giovanni Battista da Sangallo. Drawing
Michelangelo's
after
Chapel
exterior
FLORENCE, FACADE OF SAN LORENZO (1515-I520) 3a.
Giuhano da Sangallo or
3b.
Anonymous copy of Michelangelo's
3c.
Facade project. Casa Buonarroti, No. 91
3d.
Facade project. Casa Buonarroti, No. 44
4a.
Facade project. Casa Buonarroti, No. 47
4b.
Aristotile
da Sangallo.
graphische
assistants.
Copy of a
Facade project. first
project
project.
Uffizi, Arch.
277
Casa Buonarroti
by Michelangelo. Munich,
Staatl.
Sammlung, No. 33258
4c.
Antonio da Sangallo the younger. Copy of a project by Michelangelo.
5a.
Facade project. Casa Buonarroti, No. 43
5b.
Wooden
Uffizi, Arch.
6a.
model. Casa Buonarroti
Notes on blocks quarried for the facade. Archivio Buonarroti, Vol. fol.
6b.
7901
Notes on blocks quarried for the facade. Archivio Buonarroti, Vol. fol.
I,
1451
I34v/i35r
window
6c.
Florence, Medici Palace. Ground-floor
6d.
Sketch-plan for the "Altopascio" house. Casa Buonarroti, No. 117
[ca.
15 17)
I,
*
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
viii
THE MEDICI CHAPEL (152O-I534) toward
altar
ya.
Interior,
7b.
The Old
8.
Tomb
9-
Tabernacle over entrance-door
10.
Interior,
iia.
1 2a.
Tomb Tomb Tomb
12b.
Plan project. Archivio Buonarroti, Vol.
I2C.
Tomb
13a.
Vatican, St Peter's.
lib.
San Lorenzo. Filippo Brunelleschi, 1421-1429
Sacristy,
of Giuliano
de'
Medici
toward entrance
project. British
Museum, No.
27r
project. British
Museum, No.
26r
project. British
Museum, No.
28r
project. British
I,
fol. 98, p.
2
Museum, No. 28v
Tomb
of Paul
II,
1470's.
Destroyed
(after
Ciaconius)
CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO 13b.
Project for a
tomb of the Medici popes
in the choir
of San Lorenzo. Casa
Buonarroti, No. 45 14a.
Exterior of the Medici Chapel
14b.
Project
for
the
reHquary tribune,
San Lorenzo.
Oxford, Ashmolean,
No. 311 14c.
San Lorenzo, reliquary tribune (1531-1532)
15-
View of the church, cloister and hbrary from the Cathedral campanile. Photo by courtesy of RoUie McKenna
LAURENTIAN LIBRARY (1523-I559) Interior of the reading room 16. 17-
Interior
of the vestibule looking West
1
8a.
Vestibule stairway
1
8b.
Project for a rare
book study
at
the South end of the library.
Casa
Buonarroti, No. 80
room
Casa Buonarroti, No. 126
19a.
Sketch for the reading
19b.
Project for the elevation of the reading room. Casa Buonarroti,
20a.
Michelangelo or assistant. Project for the vestibule elevation, Haarlem, Teyler Museum, No. 33V
20b.
Plan projects for the vestibule
ceiling.
(bottom) and a chapel
(?
No. 42
top).
Casa
Buonarroti, No. 89V 21.
Study for the West elevation of the vestibule. Casa Buonarroti, No. 48
LIST OF PLATES 22.
IX
and column profdes. Casa Buonarroti,
Studies for the vestibule stairway
No. 92V 23.
Studies for the vestibule stairway and
column
profdes. Casa Buonarroti,
No. 92r 24.
25a.
Vestibule tabernacle
25b.
and
Studies for the basement elevation British
Museum, No.
(centre) section
of the vestibule wall.
36
Study for the entrance portal to the reading room. Casa Buonarroti,
No. Ill
FLORENCE, FORTIFICATIONS (1528-I529) 25c.
Baldassare
Peruzzi.
Plan
of Florence's medieval
fortifications.
Uffizi,
Raccolta topografica (after C. Ricci) 26a.
PreHminary project for the Prato d'Ognissanti. Casa Buonarroti, No.
26b.
Developed project for the Prato d'Ognissanti. Casa Buonarroti, No.
27a.
Project for the Porta
Prato. Casa Buonarroti,
No. 14
27b.
Project for gate fortifications. Casa Buonarroti,
No. 25
28a.
Project for gate fortifications. Casa Buonarroti,
No. 27
28b.
Vauban. Bastioned system with 1689,
al
ravelins [Maniere de Fortifier,
Amsterdam,
)
30a.
Marten van Heemskerk. View,
30b.
H. Cock. View, Antwxrp, 1562)
31a.
Anonymous. View,
ca.
1554-1560. Brunswick, Kupferstichkabinett
31b.
Anonymous. View,
ca.
1554-1560. Louvre, Ecole d'ltahe, No. 11028
32.
Francisco d'OUanda. Statue of
ca.
ca.
153 5-1536 (after Huelsen and Egger)
1547 [Operum antiquorum Romanorum
Statue of
.
.
.
reliquiae,
Marcus AureHus with Michelangelo's pro-
jected base, 153 8/1539. Escorial (after .
13
fig. 8)
CAPITOLINE HILL (1538View 29.
33
15
Tormo)
Marcus AureHus on Michelangelo's base
34a.
Pienza, Cathedral square. Plan (after Mayreder)
34b.
Plan and elevation sketches. Oxford, Ashmolean, No. 332
35a.
Palazzo de' Conservatori, partial elevation. Engraving pubHshed by B. Faleti,
35b.
1568
Palazzo de' Conservatori.
View
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
X 36a.
Modern
36b.
Plan project, after Michelangelo. Engraving published by B.
plan (after Dougill) Falcti,
1567
(partially restored print)
by
37.
Perspective, after Michelangelo. Engraving
38a.
Palazzo de' Conservatori, interior of portico
38b.
38c.
Anonymous
fresco.
Massimo
Colonne
alle
Pagan worship on
Cosmological schema. From a loth
De
Seville,
the
(?)
E. Duperac, 1569
CapitoUne Hill.
Rome,
century manuscript of Isidor of
natura rerum
FARNESE PALACE (1546-
)
39.
Entrance facade
40.
Cornice
41.
Facade and project for the square. Engraved by N. Beatrizet, 1549
42a.
Anonymous. Elevation
42b.
Anonymous. View of the Ulrich
43a.
Pal.
in 1549. Uffizi, Arch.
court,
ca.
4939
15 54-1 560. Brunswick,
Herzog Anton-
Museum
Section and rear court elevation before remodelling. Engraving
by
Ferrerio,
1655? 43b.
Project for the rear wing, after Michelangelo. Engraving pubhshed Lafreri,
by A.
1560
44.
Court
45-
Upper
46a.
Court windows, third story
46b.
Michelangelo or No. 333V
47a.
Workshop of Antonio da
stories
Uffizi, Arch.
of court
assistant.
Study for a
window
frame. Oxford, Ashmolean,
Sangallo the younger. Plan project, 1535-1545.
298
47b.
Anonymous.
48a.
B. Ammanati? Plan project. Uffizi, Arch. 3450
48b.
Anonymous. Longitudinal
Plan, after Sangallo and Michelangelo, 1549. Uffizi, Arch.
4927
Hdz. 41 5 1, 49a.
section, ca.
1
558-1 568. Berlin, Kunstbibliothek,
99
Anonymous. Groundfloor plan, ca. 1558-1568. 41 5 1,
49b.
fol.
fol.
Berlin, Kunstbibliothek,
Hdz.
97V
Anonymous. Plan oii^t piano Hdz. 41 5 1,
fol.
97r
nohile, ca.
1558-1568. Berlin, Kunstbibliothek,
LIST OF PLATES
BASILICA OF ST PETER (1546-
XI
)
50.
Air view
51a.
Caradosso. Medal, 1506, after Bramante's Basilica project
51b.
B, Peruzzi.
Drawing
Bramante's cupola of the Torre Borgia, of 15 13,
after
Florence, Uffizi, Arch. 130 51C.
Antonio da Sangallo the younger. St
52a,
by Salamanca, 1545 Anonymous. View in
52b.
G. Vasari.
53a.
View
Engraving
1544. Vienna, private coll. (after Egger)
Rome,
in 1546.
Anonymous. View,
Peter's project, 1539-1545.
ca. 1
Cancelleria palace
554-1555. Supplement to Heemskerk sketchbook,
Berlin (after Egger) 53b.
Master H.C.B. View in 1565. Engraving
54.
Projects for the
55a.
Michelangelo and Arts,
55b. 56a.
No.
dome and lantern. Haarlem, assistant (?).
Teyler
Study for the dome.
Museum, No. Musee
Lille,
29r
des
Beaux-
93 (after K. Frey)
Sketch for the main lantern. Oxford, Ashmolean, No. 344
Vault of the Cappella del Re, 1557. Arezzo, Casa Vasari
(after
K. Frey,
Nachlass)
56b.
B.Ammanati? Crossing, looking West, ctz. No. 213 II (after Egger)
57a.
G.-A. Dosio.
Dome
Hamburg, Kunsthalle,
15 59-1 561.
project, after Michelangelo,
ca.
1
561-1564, Uffizi,
Arch. 94 57b.
Dome
58a.
Domenico
model,
as altered
by Giacomo
della Porta.
Museo
Petriano
Passignani. Michelangelo presenting his model
to
a Pope, 1620.
Casa Buonarroti 58b.
P. Nogari. Ideal project based
on Michelangelo and
della Porta, ca. 1587.
Vatican Palace 59a.
Exterior elevation. Engraving by V. Luchinus, 1564
59b.
Plan, after Michelangelo.
60.
South elevation, based on Michelangelo. Engraving by E. Duperac, 1569?
61.
Longitudinal section, based on Michelangelo. Engraving by E. Duperac, 1569?
62a.
Anonymous.
Museum
Project
(after
Ashby
Engraving by E. Duperac, 1569
for
the
Basihca based on Michelangelo.
British
191 6)
62b.
Oreste Vannocci Biringucci. Lantern project for the minor domes, Vignola (?). Siena, Bibl. Comunalc, S. IV. i., fol. 45
63.
View from
the Vatican gardens
after
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
Xll 64.
Apse, detail
65a.
Vatican, Nicchione of the Belvedere, with Michelangelo's stairway (1550-
1551)
Boschi. Michelangelo presenting a palace model
65b.
F.
65c.
G.-A. Dosio. The
Cortile del Belvedere,
cci.
to Julius III.
Casa Buonarroti
1 558-1 561. UfFizi, Arch. 2559
SAN GIOVANNI De' FIORENTINI (1559-I560) 66a.
Antonio da Sangallo the younger. Plan
66b.
Plan project, 1559. Casa Buonarroti, No. 124
project,
ca.
1525. Uffizi, Arch. 199
67.
Plan project, 1559. Casa Buonarroti, No. 121
68.
Plan project, 1559. Casa Buonarroti, No. 120
69a.
T. Calcagni. Plan for Michelangelo's final model. Uffizi, Arch. 3185
69b.
Oreste Vannocci Biringucci. Plan Comunale, S. IV. i., fol. 42
70a.
Site
(lower centre, on river bank).
project, after Michelangelo. Siena, Bibl.
From U.
Pinardo,
Rome plan,
pubhshed
1555 70b.
View of Michelangelo's first model. Modena, Bibl. Estense. 140V, 141. Photo by courtesy of E. Luporini Le Mercier. View of Michelangelo's final model. Engraving. Photo by
G.-A. Dosio. ms. 1775,
71a.
J.
fol.
courtesy ot C. de Tolnay 71b.
V. Regnard. View of Michelangelo's fmal model. Engraving
SFORZA CHAPEL 72a.
[ca.
I560)
Plan and cross-section.
From G. G.
de' Rossi, Disegni di varii altari
.
.
.
Rome,
n.d., pi. 13
72b.
Plan and longitudinal section.
Rome,
From G. G.
de' Rossi, Disegni di varii altari
.
n.d., pi. 14
72c.
Plan and elevation studies. Casa Buonarroti, No. I04r
73a.
Right chapel
73b.
Facade (destroyed). C. de Tolnay
73 c.
Detail of
Paris,
Bibhotheque Nationale. Photo by courtesy of
Order
PORTA piA (1561-1565) 74.
City facade
75.
Facade project. Michelangelo and successors. Engraving published by B. Faleti,
1568
LIST OF PLATES
XUl
76a.
The Via
76b.
Initial
77a.
Study for the central
portal.
Casa Buonarroti, No. ppr
77b.
Study for the central
portal.
Casa Buonarroti, No. io6r
78a.
Study for the central
portal.
Casa Buonarroti, No. I02r
78b.
Study for the central portal and other
Concistoro
Pia, ca. 1590. Fresco, Lateran Palace, Sala del
facade project, 1561.
Medal of Pius
IV, reverse
details.
Windsor, Royal Library,
No. 433 79a.
Studies of gate details
79b.
Study for a
8oa.
S. Serlio.
8ob
80C.
S.
.
.
sketches.
Haarlem, Teyler Museum, No.
.,
villa
A
29 bis
of Cardinal Rodolfo Pio of Carpi,
ca.
1565.
No.
From
XXX
Vignola,
1617
Serho. Stage design.
//
secondo libro di prospettiva, Paris, 1545, fol. 69r
SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGELI (15618ia.
Casa Buonarroti, No. io6v
City-gate design, 1551, Estraordinario Libro, Venice, 1560,
Gate to the Regole
portal.
and other
)
Porta Pia and Santa Maria degh AngeU.
From
Rome
E. Duperac,
plan,
pubhshed 1577 8 lb.
F. Martinelli.
from 1700 82a.
View
into the chancel.
Roma
ricercata,
Rome, 1644 (photo
ed.)
G. Franzini. Altar, in
its
original position.
Le
cose meravigliose
.
.
.
di
Roma,
Venice, 1588 82b.
G. A. Dosio. View,
83a.
View of chancel and Rome, 1703 .
83 b.
.
.
The
great hall today
ca.
1565. UfFizi, Arch. 2576
Southeast vestibule.
From
F. Bianchini,
De
kalendario
r>:
r«.
3^i
%' <
%•
:% i
I
List
of Text
Illustrations PAGE
Reconstruction of the Facade of San Lorenzo in Florence from the block-sketches and from the Contract of January, 15 18
19
Florence, the Medici Chapel (after Apolloni)
23
Florence, Church, Library
and Cloister of San Lorenzo
(after
W.
and
E. Paatz)
25
Medici Tombs. Preliminary narrowing of the central bay
(a)
and fmal
(b) versions,
showing the 28
Florence, Laurentian Library, Longitudinal
section
and plan
(after
Apolloni)
37
Structural system of the Library vestibule
40
Typical early bastion trace ("Delle Maddalene", Verona, 1527) d. curtain walls a, face c. casemate e. gorge b. flank
47
Michelangelo's project for the Capitoline Hill engraving of 1568)
(after
the
Duperac 58
9
Rome, Famese Palace. Plan
10.
Reconstruction of the Famese Palace at the time of Michelangelo's
appointment II.
12.
75
as architect (1546)
80
Plans for St Peter's a.
Bramante, 1506
b.
c.
Sangallo, 1539
d.
Bramante-Raphael, 1515-1520 Michelangelo, 1 546-1 564
90
Construction of St Peter's
Under
Sangallo, 153 8-1546
Under Michelangelo,
13.
Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore,
14.
Rome,
1
546-1 564
Santa Maria degli AngeH. Plan, showing
94
no
Sforza Chapel. Plan (in
black) Michel-
angelo's additions to the existing structure of the Baths of Diocletian (after Siebenhiiner)
124
r-
f
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I
Photographic Sources Aliiiari,
Florence: 2a, 3a, 3b, 5a, 6c, 9, 13b, 14a
Mannelli), 17, 21, 25b, 27a,
(coll.
50, 66b, 67, 68, 73a, 77b, 78a
Anderson, Rome: i8a, 40, 45, 46a, 64, 73c
b
Berlin, Kunstbibliothek: 48b, 49a,
Boston Public Library: 43a, 72a, b British
Museum, London:
Brogi, Florence:
8,
iia, b, 12a, c, 25a, 30b, 83a
26a, b, 58a,
63b
Brunswick, Germany, Herzog Anton-Ulrich Museum: 31a, 42b Ciacchi, Florence: 42a, 47b, 48a
Columbia University,
New
York; Avery Library:
35a, 36b, 37, 51c, 59b, 71b,
Sob Florence, Soprintendenza alle Gallerie: 3c, d, 4a, 5b, 6a, b, d, 7a, b, 1
W.
8b, 19a, b, 2ob, 22, 23, 27b, 28a, 57a, 65c, 69a, 72c, 77a, 79a
Gemsheim, Florence: 2b
Haarlem, Teyler Museum: id, 20a,
Harvard University, Cambridge:
54,
79b
la, b, 13a, 75, 8oa, c,
8ib, 82a
Louvre, Paris: 31b
Dr
E. Luporini: 70b
Rollie
McKenna:
15
Leonard von Matt:
29, 33, 44, 63,
New
Metropolitan
Museum,
Mr Sigmund
Morgenroth: 51a
83b
York:
41, 43b, 53b, 59a, 60, 61
Munich, StaatUche graphische Sammlung: 4b
New York
University Institute of Fine Arts: 69b
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum: 14b, 34b, 46b, 55b
Rome, Gabinetto Fotografico
Rome,
Dr
nazionale: 38b (courtesy
W.
Fototeca di Architettura e Topografica: 57b
C. de Tolnay: 12b, 71a, 73b
Vatican, Musei e Gallerie pontificie: 52b, 58b, 65a, 76a, b
John Vincent: 35b,
38a, 39,
Warburg
London: 38c (courtesy H. Bober)
Institute,
74
Lotz)
8, 10, 14c, 16,
XVlll
Windsor
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO Castle Library: 78b (by gracious permission of
Dr Rudolf Wittkower: The
H.M.
the
Queen)
24 (photo made for Tolnay)
author: 47a, 51b, 66a, 62b
The following
Plates
of Plates): 70a, 8ia, 82b (see List
were made from pubhcations indicated
ic, 4c, 25c,
in the captions
28b, 30a, 32, 34a, 36a, 52a, 53a, 55a, 56a, b, 62a,
of Abbreviations
List
Wolf Maurenbrecher,
Aufzeichnungen
angelo Buonarroti
Karl Frey,
Briefe
ed.,
ini
Die Aufzeichnungen
des Michel-
Museum, Leipzig, 1938.
Britischen
Samnilung ausgewdhlter Briefe an Michel-
agniolo Buonarroti, Berlin, 1899.
Condivi
Vita
di
Michelagnolo
Condivi de
Ripa
la
Buonarroti Transone,
per Ascanio
raccolta
Rome,
1553.
Ed. P.
D'Ancona, Milan, 1928, Con.
Gaetano Milanesi, Ange,
Dick.
D. (followed by
ed.,
Les correspondants de Michel-
Sebastiano del Piombo, Paris, 1890.
Karl Frey, roti,
ed..
Die Dichtungen
des Michelagniolo
Buonar-
Berlin, 1897.
Luitpold Dussler, Die Zeichnungen des Michelangelo;
catalogue no.)* F.
I,
kritischer Katalog, Berlin,
(followed by
1959.
Karl Frey, Die Handzeichnungen Michelagniolos Buonar-
catalogue no.)
roti, 3
vols, Berlin, 1909-1911.
The same
designation
is
used for F. Knapp, Nachtrag zu den von K. Frey herausgegebenen drei Banden, Berlin, 1925.
Gaye
Giovanni Gaye, Carteggio
XVI,
3
roti
XIV-
vols, Florence, 1839-1840.
Gaetano Milanesi,
Lettere
inedito d'artisti dei secoli
ed.,
Le
lettere di
pubblicate coi ricordi ed
i
Michelangelo BuonarFlorence,
contratti artistici,
1875.
Karl Frey, Der
Nachlass
Munich, 1923; Pastor, Geschichte
L.
von
literarische
Le
vite
scritte
de'
Adolfo Venturi,
seit dent
Ausgang
ff.
e
pittori, scultori,
Vasari pittore aretino,
Ed. Gaetano Milanesi, 9 Venturi, Storia
B., 1885
i.
piu excellenti
da Giorgio
I,
Munich, 1930.
II,
Pastor, Geschichte der Pdpste
des Mittelalters, Freiburg
Vasari
Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris,
architettori,
Florence, 1568.
vols., Florence,
1906.
Storia dell'arte italiana, 11 vols., Milan,
1901-1948.
* In designating drawings, Dussler's numbering will be cited
most comprehensive.
In citations of drawings
"A" (= Architectural)
at the close
first
since
it is
from the Casa Buonarroti the
of the number has been omitted.
the
letter
Preface one of the delights of art historical studies that our predecessors have not exhausted - or even adequately surveyed - subjects as is
IT
stimulating as Michelangelo's architecture.
A
foundation was laid
by H. von Geymiiller's monograph of 1904 which, however, dealt principally with the Florentine projects, and was already outdated following the systematic pubHcation of drawings and documents by Karl in this field
Frey and Henry Thode before and during the Frey's
book on
Vrussmn Jahrbuch
work on
hensive survey
many
articles
by Charles de Tolnay (notably the of 1930-1932) and Rudolf Wittkower's exemstudies
the Laurentian Hbrary (1934). is
Armando
which contains
otherwise
by
vitiated
La some
Schiavo's
Michelangelo (1953), is
World War. Dagobert
the later buildings (1920) initiated a fifteen-year period of
basic research including
plary
first
The
first
and only compre-
vita e le opere architettoniche di
useful original scholarship but
the author's ignorance of essential writings
pub-
would be impossible even today to solve many of the historical problems raised by Michelangelo's architecture if Charles de Tolnay and Johannes Wilde had not further developed the meticulous lished outside Italy.
It
science of a Karl Frey criticism.
tools It
They
and enriched
it
with rare
are leaving to their successors
sensitivity in analysis
and
an impression that no useful
of Michelangelo's scholarship remain untouched.
seems unjust that
this
book, which owes so
cations, should appear before his
own on
the
much
same
to
Tolnay 's pubh-
subject,
long planned
volume of his Michelangelo monograph; but I trust that the following pages, by their occasional divergence from Tolnay's conclusions as well as by their tokens of the riches to be expected from his writings, may further whet the reader's appetite for the anticipated as
the sixth and fmal
work.
When 1956,
I
I
first
discussed
my
proposed to write a
project with the Editors of this series in critical
Michelangelo's architecture as
it
summary based on knowledge of
had been estabhshed by
others.
But
I
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
xxu
soon found that a thorough re-study of the original sources for each building was needed to answer even basic questions of chronology and author-
The change of emphasis and of scope
ship.
speciahsts alone,
tion
was
and
this neither
composed of
the Editors nor
I
intended; so
my
solu-
both books: a general text for the non-
to write, in a sense,
speciahst,
threatened to appeal to
on Michelangelo's major
essays
designs in the
context of comparable Renaissance structures, and a Catalogue for colleagues and students,
of its design
is
where the
liistory
of each structure and the genesis
reconstructed by the analysis of documents,
letters,
draw-
views and other sources.
ings,
In the text, as in the Catalogue,
have treated each building separately
I
in order to avoid clouding
my
Michelangelo's style and
"evolution". For similar reasons
referred to one
its
conclusions
of the most successful
history - the concept of Mannerism.
by preconceived images of
artifacts
Though
I
have not
of twentieth-century there
is
art
disagreement on
the chronological and geographical hmits of the Mannerist style in architecture, nearly
every definition includes - or begins with - the Lauren tian
hbrary and occasionally other designs of Michelangelo.
I
beheve that
while the concept of Mannerism has facihtated criticism in the
come
past,
by urging us to fmd in the work of art what our definition of it states we must find. The same may be said of the Baroque, a category into which Michelangelo was placed by critics of the period before the invention of Mamierism, While gradually
we do
it
has
to obstruct our perception
find in Michelangelo's buildings characteristics
our definitions of the Baroque, they aroused architects
it is
surely
more
which conform
to
illuminating to say that
of the seventeenth century to emulation rather
than that Michelangelo "anticipated" Baroque architecture or that his design was "proto-Baroque",
ghmpse
as if
into the future. In short,
he had miraculously benefited from a
my
approach has been guided by the
conviction that generaHzations on style should emerge from, rather than
guide the examination of works of art themselves.
To is
simplify reference to the Bibliography and Plates, the Catalogue
being published in a separate volume. Because the Catalogue traces
PREFACE the evolution of each design it
discusses
among
tions
To
minor
as
well
documentary
costs,
illustrations;
we
all
reference
have
made
is
and because
sources,
projects, the reader will
no
the Plates to wliich
reduce production
elsewhere.
by means of graphic
major
as
XXIU
fmd
illustra-
in the text volume.
restricted the size
of
many of the
but a few are handsomely reproduced
The scholarly apparatus has been condensed wherever possible;
Catalogue references are shortened to include only the surname of the author and the date of his work, and
I
hope
to
have lessened the reader's
discomfort by following the same unconventional pattern in the BibHography. Footnotes appear in the text only where
supplement the references in the Catalogue.
I
have
the citation of studies that have been superseded
incorporates their findings
(e.g.,
it
was necessary
also
by recent research which
the classification of drawings
now
[1908-1913] and Berenson [1938],
supplanted - at
- by Dussler, Die Zeichnungen
to
economized on
by Thode
least for architec-
of 1959; the K. Frey catalogue [1909-1911] remains valuable because every entry is tural studies
des Michelangelo,
reproduced in facsimile). While adopting British orthography, retained one Americanism:
of a structure are
what
refer to as the
I
second and
I
have
tliird stories
known abroad as the first and second stories respectively.
With warm gratitude I acknowledge the assistance I have had from many students, colleagues and friends: Carroll Brentano and Ehzabeth Breckenridge
who
helped
me
with research; Frank Krueger, Gustavo
de Roza, and Timothy Kitao, whose draughtsmanship brought hfe to
my
reconstructions,
and the Research Fund of the University of CaH-
fomia, which helped to provide
this aid as
photographic material. Lapses in
my
well
as a large part
of the
chronology of St Peter's were
keenly detected by Susan Mc. Killop.
Walter Gemsheim, Eugenio Luporini, Walter and EHzabeth Paatz, Herbert Siebenhiiner and Charles de Tolnay have generously allowed to reproduce
with
illustrations
their advice.
I
made by
or for
me
them and have otherwise helped
have been graciously
assisted in locating
and procur-
by Luciano Berti, Ulrich Middeldorf, Michelangelo Muraro, James van Derpool, Carl Weinhardt, jun., and particularly
ing photographs
XXIV
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
by Ernest Nash of the
Fototeca di architettura e topografia in
plates by John Vincent reproduced here are
among
Rome. Four
the fruits of a
campaign of architectural photography which he kindly undertook with
me
in the
Summer of
1956; others
I
owe
to the generosity of
Rolhe
McKenna, Sigmund Morgenroth, and Leonard von Matt. I am particularly grateful to Ehzabeth MacDougall for sharing with me her discoveries on the later buildings, especially the Porta Pia, to Wolfgang Lotz for more ideas than I can account for, much less acknowledge, and to John CooHdge for his brilliant intuitions concerning the early works.
When the bulk of my
manuscript was completed,
it
had the rare good
fortune of being read by three scholars supremely qualified to judge
Charles de Tolnay, Johannes
ments have led to
whose wise June, i960.
substantial
criticisms
Wilde and Rudolf Wittkower; improvements,
as
their
have those of
it:
com-
my wife,
of style have saved the reader incalculable anguish. Berkeley, Cahfomia.
Introduction the early years of the sixteenth century the extraordinary power,
IN
Rovere (1503-1513) and of Europe and attracted
wealth, and imagination of the Pope, Juhus
made Rome there the
the artistic centre of Italy
most distinguished
the rise of
Rome
artists
II
della
of his age. Chiefly for poHtical reasons,
coincided with the decline of great centres of fifteenth-
The new
century Itahan culture: Florence, Milan, and Urbino.
had no eminent
painters, sculptors, or architects
of its own, so
import them; and they hardly could afford to stay
at
it
had to
home. This sudden
change in the balance of ItaHan culture had a revolutionary arts;
"capital"
effect
on
the
while the fffteenth-century courts and city-states had produced
"schools" of distinct regional characteristics, the
encourage not so artist
could
fail
new Rome
much a Roman as an ItaHan art. No
to be inspired
tended to
creative Renaissance
and profoundly affected by the experience
of encountering simultaneously the works of ancient architects and sculptors - not only in the ever-present ruins but in dozens of newly
founded museums and collections - and those of poraries. Like Paris at the
his greatest
beginning of the present century,
contem-
Rome
pro-
vided the uniquely favourable conditions for the evolution of new modes
of perception and expression. I
described the results as revolutionary. Since Heinrich Wolfflin's great
work on
this period,
^
the traditional concept of the
High Renaissance
as
the ultimate maturing of the aims of the fifteenth century has been dis-
many of the
placed
by an awareness
artists
were formed
What
Wolfflin saw in the painting and sculpture was characteristic of
that
goals of early sixteenth-century
in vigorous opposition to those
of
their teachers.
architecture, too.
But
there
is
an important difference in the architectural "revolution":
was brought about by one man, Donato Bramante (1444-15 14). This reckless but warranted generaUzation was concocted by a contemporary
it
I.
Heinrich Wolfflin, Die
klassische Ktinst,
Munich, 1899.
i
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
XXVI theorist,
twenty-three years after Bramante's death; Sebastian Serho
man of
called liini "a
authority given architecture,
such
him by
gifts in arcliitecture that,
the Pope, one
may
with the aid and
say that he revived true
which had been buried from the
down
ancients
to that
time". 2 Bramante, like Raphael, was born in Urbino; he was trained as a painter
and ultimately found a position
Lodovico Sforza. Already in his interest in spatial
his first architectural
of Milan under
work of the
late 1470's
volume, three-dimensional massing, and perspective
illusions distinguishes his innovations
at the court
him from
his
was minimized by
contemporaries, though the effect of a conservative
and decorative
treat-
ment of the wall surfaces. When Milan fell to the French at the end of the century, Bramante moved on to Rome, where the impact of his first introduction to the grandiose complexes of ancient architecture rapidly
matured
his style.
The
ruins served to confirm the vahdity of his earher
goals; they offered a vocabulary far better suited to his
monumental aims
than the fussy terra-cotta ornament of Lombardy, and they provided countless models in
which
his ideal
of volumetric space and sculptural
mass were impressively reahzed. Arcliitecture
is
a costly
form of
expression,
and the encounter of
a
uniquely creative imagination with a great tradition could not have been
of
much
consequence without the support of an equally distinguished
patron. That Julius
II
sought to emulate the pohtical grandeur of the
Caesars just as Bramante learned to restore the physical grandeur of
Rome
ancient
continually delights historians, because the occasion
be ascribed with equal conviction to pohtical,
social,
may
or economic deter-
minants, to the chance convergence of great individuals, or to a
crisis
of
style in the arts.
As soon years in
as
Bramante had completed small commissions in
Rome
(e.g.,
the cloister of Santa Maria della Pace, 1500; the
Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, 1502), the
echo of his
own
taste for
monumentahty and
2. 7/ terzo libro di Sehastiano Serlio
1584,
fol.
64V).
his early
Pope saw
in his
lost interest in
hoh^nese, Venice, 1540 (quoted
from the
work
the
Giuhano da
edition of Venice,
INTRODUCTION Sangallo, the brilliant but
more
he had consistently patronized to the pontificate, Julius
XXVll
conservative Florentine architect
when
whom
A year after his election
a Cardinal.
commissioned Bramante to design a
new
fa9ade
and the huge Cortile del Belvedere; in the follow-
for the Vatican Palace
ing year, 1505, he requested plans for the
new
St Peter's, to replace the
decaying fourth-century Basihca. Another commission of unknown date
of Justice" that would have
initiated projects for a "Palace
Vatican
if
had been
it
The new
rivalled the
finished.
papal buildings confirm the decisive break with early Renais-
sance architecture already announced in the Tempietto. This building,
though one of the smallest architecture because
forms of a
new
it
age.
Rome,
in
is
the
key to High Renaissance
preserves traditional ideals while estabhshing the
It is
traditional in being a perfect central plan, a
composition of two abstract geometrical forms: the cyHnder and the hemisphere. But fifteenth-century geometry had never (except in the
drawings of Leonardo, which surely influenced Bramante) dealt so
with soHds: buildings before Bramante, even those with
successfully
some
sense
of plasticity, seem to be composed of planes,
circles
and
angles rather than of cyhnders and cubes, and to be articulated rather than its
by forms.
In the Tempietto the third dimension
is
rect-
by hnes
fully reahzed;
made more convincing by deep niches that reveal of the wall. Members are designed to mould hght
geometric soHds are
the mass and density
and shade so
as to
convey an impression of body.
the earlier architect
drew
buildings,
We
sense that
Bramante modelled them. Because
the Tempietto recites the vocabulary of ancient architecture
pulously than
of a
Roman
its
predecessors,
it is
where
more
scru-
often misinterpreted as an imitation
temple. But just the feature that so profoundly influenced
the future - the high
drum and
hemispherical
dome -
is
without prece-
dent in antiquity, a triumph of the imagination. In the projects for St Peter's maturity. Here for the
first
(Pi. 51a, Fig.
iia) the
new
style attains
time Bramante manages to coordinate
volumetric control of space and his modelling of mass. The key to
achievement
is
a
new
concept of the relationship between void and
his this
solid.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
XXVUl
Space ceases to be a mere absence of mass and becomes a dynamic force that pushes against the sohds
from
all
now
forms never dreamed of by geometricians. The wall, malleable,
is
them
directions, squeezing
into
completely
an expression of an equihbrium between the equally dynamic
demands of space and
Nothing remains of the
structural necessity.
fifteenth-century concept of the wall as a plane, because the goal of the architect
is
no longer
to
produce an abstract harmony but rather a
sequence of purely visual spatial
volumes.
It is this
(as
accent
opposed to
on
intellectual)
the eye rather than
experiences of
on
the
mind
that
gives precedence to voids over planes.
Bramante's handling of the wall
Roman
as a
malleable
body was
inspired
by
by the great Baths, but this concept of form could not be revived without the technique that made it possible.
The
architecture, in particular
of the Baths was brick-faced concrete, the most
structural basis
plastic material available to builders.
For the
Roman
architect brick
was
simply the material that gave rigidity to the concrete, and protected surface. In the
Middle Ages the and
art
now
of making used
as
for stone blocks, lost the flexibiHty afforded
by
virtually forgotten,
bricks,
must have rediscovered the
lost art
a strong concrete
its
was
an inexpensive substitute a concrete core.
of the Romans. The
Bramante
irrational shapes
of the plan of St Peter's (Fig. iia) - giant shces of toast half eaten by a voracious space - are inconceivable without the cohesiveness of concrete construction, as are the great naves of the Basihca,
which could not have
been vaulted by early Renaissance structural methods. ^ Bramante willed to Michelangelo
for the
and
his
contemporaries an indispensable technical tool
development of enriched forms.
Bramante
In the evolution of the design of St Peter's,
left
for Michel-
angelo the reaUzation of an important potential in the malleability of concrete-brick construction; for in spite of his flowing forms, the major spatial
volumes of
his
plan are
chapels in the angles of the 3.
On Bramante's
pp. 277
K-
f.
revival
still
main
from one another. The and, more obviously, the four
isolated
cross
of Roman vaulting technique,
see
O.
Forster, Bramante,
Munich, 1956,
INTRODUCTION
XXIX
corner towers, are added to the core rather than fused into
more The dynamic
may
as
be
clearly in elevations (Pi. 51a).
seen
when he was concerned was the nature of
the surface
by
pediments, arcades,
which was the essence
characterization of space and mass
of Bramante's revolution
it
it,
is
equally evident in his secular buildings, even
primarily with facades. In the fifteenth century
a fa9ade to be planar, but
Bramante
virtually hid
window
sculptural projections (half-columns, balconies,
heavy
and
rustications)
and loggias on the upper
spatial
recessions
story, as in the court
(ground floor
of the Belvedere
and the facade of the Vatican). These innovations are not motivated by
mere
distaste for the flat
positive awareness
forms of the early Renaissance fa9ade but by a
of the range of expression available in a varied use of
hght. His projections capture the sun in brilHant high-hghts and cast deep
shadows;
his
half-columns softly model the hght; his loggias create dark
columnar supports. In the
fields that silhouette their
interior
design.
become
of St
The
dehghts of vision inspire the
philosophical impulse of fifteenth-century architecture had
sensual.
Bramante's ture.
Peter's, the purely sensual
facades, as in the
style rapidly
changed the course of Renaissance architec-
This was due not only to
situation created
by
in the Renaissance architectural firm architects
its
novelty, but to the unprecedented
the great size of his papal projects: for the it
became necessary
to organize a
first
modem
time
type of
with a master in charge of a large number of younger
who were
in
Almost every eminent
one sense junior partners, in another sense architect
of the
first
pupils.
half of the sixteenth century,
Michelangelo excepted, worked under Bramante in the Vatican "office": Baldassare Peruzzi, Raphael, Antonio da Sangallo,
perhaps Jacopo Sansovino.
GiuHo Romano, and
Of these only Peruzzi actually practised archiFamesina in Rome, 1509); the Vatican and later developed
tecture before Bramante's death (e.g. the Villa
the others learned their profession at
Bramante's innovations into individual quarter of the century. Siena,
The
effect
was
styles that
felt all
over
dominated the second Italy:
Peruzzi built in
Raphael in Florence, Sansovino in Venice, Giulio in Mantua, and
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
XXX
The death of Juhus II in 1 5 1 3 and of Bramante in 15 14 simultaneously removed the co-authors of High Renaissance architecture, leaving the monumental Basihca and palaces Sangallo throughout the Papal States.
in such an inchoate state that the next generation
mine
precisely
what
found
it
hard to deter-
the original intentions had been. Paradoxically, this
was a favourable misfortune, because
it
hberated the imagination of the
architects just as they reached maturity. Raphael, Peruzzi
younger
Sangallo, inheriting the leadership of St Peter's and the Vatican, free to
compose variations on
the
theme of their master, and were
encouraged to do so by successive popes
own
of their
The
to
JuHus
an
arcliitect
began in
15 16
is
toward
Bramante kept him out of architecture during Bramante's
But the II,
actually
patronage.
directly related to this historical scene. Michelangelo's animosity
lifetime.
were
who wanted distinctive evidence
fact that Michelangelo's career as
the powerful
and
election
of a Medici, Leo
X (151 3-1 521), as the successor
provided opportunities in Florence. Leo, although he chose
Bramante's chief
disciple,
Raphael, to continue the Vatican projects,
needed an architect to complete the construction of San Lorenzo, the major Medici monument in Florence. Michelangelo was the obvious choice for this job because he was not only the leading Florentine
artist
but also a sculptor-painter, ideally equipped to carry out the halffigurative, half-architectural
programme envisaged by
the Medici family.
commission served the dual purpose of removing Michelangelo from Rome (Leo said: "he is frightening, one cannot deal with him") and of frustrating the completion of the Tomb of JuHus II, which
Besides, the
would have competed with Medici
splendour.
Although Michelangelo's achievements
was
as
eminent in architecture
as in the
in Florence
other
arts,
proved that he
he was excluded from
Roman commissions so long as any member of Bramante's circle was aUve. When Antonio da Sangallo died in 1546, the only member of the circle who survived was GiuHo Romano (Raphael d. 1520, any important
Peruzzi d. 1536), and Giulio
from Mantua
it is
significant that the Fabbrica
of St Peter's called
to forestall Michelangelo's appointment as chief
Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com
INTRODUCTION architect.
But
the field
open
his death,
immediately following Sangallo's,
why
now
to Michelangelo,
Yet Michelangelo's personal explain
XXXI
the intrigues that
finally left
71 years old.
conflict
with Bramante cannot by
itself
engendered were so successful in ex-
it
this
him from architectural commissions in Rome. That the popes of period - Leo X; another Medici, Clement VII (1523-15 34); and Paul
III,
Farnese (1534-1549) - recognized Michelangelo's pre-eminence
cluding
proven by the
fact that they tried to
monopohze
is
his services as a painter
The Medici were even wiUing to retain him as an architect in Florence after he had fought against them for the independence of the city. The long delay in recognition at Rome must be attributed to the unorthodoxy of his style. It lacked what Vitruvius called decorum: a and
sculptor.
And
respect for classical traditions.
vated
Roman
taste
classic context.
was attuned
in the
first
half of the century culti-
to a correct antique vocabulary in a
Bramante had formed
this taste,
and
it
took a generation
to assimilate his innovations.
Raphael was the ideal successor to Bramante. That
his
concerns
as a
painter for massive forms and volumetric space in simple compositions
of geometric sohds were a counterpart of Bramante's architectural goals
may
be seen in such architectural frescoes
Expulsion ofHeliodorus. Consequently, post he could pursue his as
own interests
Bramante would have done
had been
less
if he
as
the School of Athens and the
when he and
at the
succeeded to Bramante's
same time design almost
had hved another
sympathetic to his master, his architecture would certainly
be better known. But in major Vatican works,
Damaso and
six years. If Raphael
Belvedere, the
two
at the Cortile di
San
designers are indistinguishable, and
uncertainty about the authorship of projects for St Peter's has always
worried
us.
In his
CaffarelH, Palazzo
work
outside the papal circle
Branconio d'Aquila, Villa
- Palazzo Vidoni-
Madama
in
Rome, and
Palazzo Pandolfmi in Florence - Raphael developed Bramantesque principles
for
its
and vocabulary into a more individuahzed expression notable
greater sophistication, elegance
in binding into a unity masses
of decoration, and for
its
success
and spaces that Bramante had tended
to
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
XXXll
The propriety of Raphael's shown by the fact that the very
individualize. is
further
from
- moderation,
his predecessor
and elegance, unification of patron,
A
Leo X, from Juhus
accession to Bramante's throne
which
quahties
respect for continuity, sophistication
discrete elements
-
also
distinguish his
II.
who
worked with
often
the linear and planar
of fifteenth-century architecture while concentrating
on exploring new forms and rhythms to exploit the oval plan
than in
his native Siena
him
him
comparable poetic justice guided the careers of other Bramante
followers. Peruzzi,
first
distinguish
in plan
his great
means
ingenuity
and elevation (he was the
and curved facade), was employed more
in
Rome. That medieval town must have valued
rather for his superficial conservatism than for the extraordinary
inventiveness
which had too
little
opportunity for expression, and which
now can only be appreciated properly in hundreds of drawings preserved in the UfFizi Gallery.
GiuHo Romano, whose three or four small Roman
palaces represent a
revolt against Bramante's grandeur in the direction of repression, tightness,
and an apparently polemic rejection of plasticity and volume, found
himself more
at
home
tensions induced
Rome,
outside
in the court
of Mantua, where the
by the weakness of humanist duchies
in a
world of
power-states could be given expression in a Mannerist architecture of neurotic fantasy (The Ducal Palace, Palazzo del Te).
So the
Rome which
rejected Michelangelo
to other non-classic architects.
was frequently given
Though
was equally inhospitable
Peruzzi, as a
a chance to aid in the design
Bramante follower,
of St Peter's and the
Vatican and to compete ior major commissions (the great hospital of
Giacomo
S.
chosen
degli Incurabili, San Giovanni dei Fiorentini), he never
as a chief architect.
the Younger,
who
The
gave the
victor
classic
was always Antonio da Sangallo
movement
its
definitive form.
Sangallo's dictatorship in the style of 1 520-1 545 can be explained
by
his propriety
of Bramante's
than by his eminence; he was probably the
pupils.
The
first
was
more
least gifted
major Renaissance architect to be trained
exclusively in the profession, he began as a carpenter at the Vatican in
INTRODUCTION
XXXUl
the early years of the century. His practice never
commissions in the other
arts
had to be
set aside for
and, being a gifted organizer and entre-
preneur, he was able not only to undertake
the important civil and
all
mihtary commissions of the papacy but those of private famihes,
them
the Farnese, as well. Nearly a thousand surviving drawings in the
of vast building
Uffizi are evidence is
among
distinguished
less
throughout central
activity
Italy.
He
for his innovations than for his capacity to apply the
experiments and aesthetic of the High Renaissance to the complete repertory of Renaissance building types. in
Rome is the uninspired source
the
Banco
di Santo Spirito
The
facade of Santo Spirito in Sassia
of later sixteenth-century facade design;
(Rome) has
a
two
a drafted basement in a context that dehghted
story colossal order over
Baroque
never been entirely abandoned; the Farnese palace secular structure
of the
Roman
(Pi.
architects
architecture
may
Peter's that the
be seen
(Pi. 51c, Fig. 11).
The
project
is
obese,
is
in the plans
it is
unassailable
on
confusing in
its
numbers of small members compete
and negate the grandeur of scale required by the
dome
It is
symptomatic weakness of Antonio's
the grounds of structure or of Vitruvian decorum, but
multipHcity: infinite
the definitive
Renaissance, though major components
of its design were anticipated by Bramante and Raphael.
and models of St
is
39)
and has
size
for attention
of the building; the
and the ten-storied campaniH are Towers of Babel.
Antonio's superior technical and archaeological knowledge proved to be
no guarantee of ability
to achieve coherence or to control fully such
materials of architecture as space, proportion, hght
Sangallo, as the
first
knew more than construction. He was sion,
architect his
and
raw
scale.
of the Renaissance trained in
his profes-
contemporaries about the technical aspects of
frequently called
upon
to right
major
faults in
Bramante's structures: to fortify the piers of St Peter's and the foundations
of the Vatican facade, to rebuild the loggie of the Belvedere, which
collapsed in 1536,
But
technical
all
of necessity to the detriment of the original design.
competence was not
a pre-eminent quahfication in the
eyes of Renaissance critics: Bramante, though called maestro ruinante in allusion to his engineering failures,
was universally recognized
as the
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
XXXIV
Of course,
superior architect.
may be attributed simply to a difference whatever one may call it, but it raises an
this
in creative abihty, or genius, or
important question for Renaissance architecture, and for Michelangelo in particular:
was
it
of Humanism, for an individual
possible, in the age
to be fully successful as a speciahst? Sangallo, in gaining the advantage of a long apprenticeship in architectural construction, lost the benefits of a
body of
generalized
passed
on
theoretical
in the studios
knowledge and
of painters and
sculptors.
principles traditionally
Problems of proportion,
perspective (the control of space), composition, hghting, etc, as encountered in the figurative arts,
were more important
in the
development of
Renaissance arcliitecture than structural concerns, partly because, by contrast to the Gothic period or to the nineteenth century, technology
was
minor
restricted to a
In our day,
whelm
all
when
role.
the concern for technique has threatened to over-
other values in architecture,
it
is
difficult to appreciate the
Renaissance view that sculptors and painters were uniquely quahficd architects
by
their
as
understanding of universal formal problems. The view
was vindicated by the fact that it was the artist who made major technical advances - the technician merely interpreted traditional practices.
The Renaissance principles in
First
into a preoccupation with broad
of
all,
he had to find a
of pagan grandeur in a Christian
way
to
society; this involved,
other dilemmas, a rationahzation of the conflicting architectural
principles
by
was forced
one way or another.
justify a revival
among
arcliitect
of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Further,
as is
demonstrated
Sangallo's failure to construct a theory out of devoted study of
Roman monuments, antiquity itself taught no clear and body of principles. To give order to a chaos of inherited con-
Vitruvius and consistent cepts,
many
Renaissance architects - Alberti, Francesco di Giorgio and
others in the fifteenth century, Palladio in the sixteenth - developed and
pubhshed theories of architecture of a metaphysical-mathematical
cast.
But formahzed pliilosophies were not the sole solution; it is intriguing that nothing was written about architecture (or any other art) in the High Renaissance. This reveals a desire to solve the same problems in a
INTRODUCTION new way;
a reaction in
fifteenth century
all
XXXV
the arts against the abstract principles of the
produced a temporary
shift
from
intellectual-philo-
sophical precepts to visual and psychological ones that could better be
expressed in
form than
in words. This change of emphasis
Michelangelo's acliievement, and for this reason
work with some ideas.
observations
I
is
a
key to
begin the study of his
on what we know of
his architectural
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CHAPTER
I
Michelangelo's ''Theory" of Architecture
MICHELANGELO,
One of the greatest creative geniuses in the
history of architecture, frequently claimed that he
an architect.^ The claim
of modesty: conceived
it is
key
a
as if the
to
tire
more than
is
was not
a sculptor's expression
understanding of his buildings, which are
masses of a structure were organic forms capable of
being moulded and carved, of expressing movement, of forming sym-
The only
phonies of light, shadow and texture, likej^^tatue.
evidence of Michelangelo's theory of architecture letter
of unknown date and destination in wliich
tecture with painting
and sculpture
is
is
the fragment of a
this identity
expressed in a
surviving
of archi-
manner unique
in
the Renaissance:
Rodolfo Pio?): When a plan has diverse parts, all those of one kind of quality and quantity must be adorned in the same way, and in the same style, and likewise the portions that correspond [e.g. portions
Reverend
Sir (Cardinal
(parts) that are
in w^hich a feature of the plan
But where the plan
is
is
entirely
mirrored,
changed
as in the
in form,
four equal arms of St Peter's]. it
is
not only permissible but
necessary in consequence entirely to change the adornments and Hkewise their
corresponding portions; the means are unrestricted (and [or: as the
face, has
may
adornments require]; similarly the nose, which
no commitment
either to
is
be chosen)
at will
in the centre of the
one or the other eye, but one hand
is
reaUy
obliged to be like the other and one eye like the other in relation to the sides (of the
And surely, the architectural members from human members. Whoever has not been or is not a good
body), and to [dipendono]
its
correspondences.
of the figure and Hkewise of anatomy cannot understand (anything) of it
derive
master .
.
.^
For a general view of Michelangelo's theories of art, see E. Panofsky, Idea ., Leipzig and Berlin, 1924 (2nd ed., Berlin, i960), pp. 64 ff.; Idem, "The History of Proportions as a Reflection of the History of Styles", Meaning in the Visual Arts, N.Y., 1955, esp. pp. 88-107; C. de Tolnay, Werk und Welthild des Michelangelo, Zurich, 1949, pp. 87-110. Reflections of Michelangelo's theories appear in Vincenzo Danti, // priiiio libro del trattato delle perfette proporzioni, Florence, 1567. 1. Lettere, p. 431; Wflde 1953, pp. 109 f Condivi, ch. lhi. .
.
;
2. Lettere, p.
554; Schiavo 1949, Fig. 96 (facsimile). Interpreted
by Tolnay
1949, p. 95.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
2
not unusual for Renaissance theorists to relate architectural forms
It is
to those
of the human body; in one way or another
which may be traced back appears in
angelo
is
all
theories
to ancient Greece
and
is
this association,
echoed in Vitruvius,
of the age of Humanism. What
is
unique in Michel-
the conception of the simile as a relationship wliich might be
called organic, in distinction to the abstract
Renaissance architects and writers.
It is
one proposed by other
anatomy, rather than number and
geometry, that becomes the basic discipline for the architect; the parts
of a building are compared, not to the
human body nose,
but, significantly, to
its
ideal overall proportions
functions.
The
of the
reference to eyes,
and arms even suggests an imphcation of mobihty; the building
hves and breathes. This scrap of a tecture: in fact,
letter
it
have been called
cannot be taken
expresses an attitude
anti-theoretical.
of a sculptor, and
it
may
be used
But as a
evidence of a theory of archi-
as
which
there
key
is
in the Renaissance
more
in
it
might
than the fantasy
to the individuahty of Michel-
angelo's architectural style, primarily because
it
defnies his conscious
and
thoroughgoing break with the principles of early Renaissance architecture.
When
fifteenth-century writers spoke of deriving architectural forms
from the human body, they did not think of the body as a hving organism, but as a microcosm of the universe, a form created in God's image, and created with the same perfect harmony that determines the movement of the spheres or musical consonances. ^ This harmony could not be discovered empirically, since but
it
it
was an
ideal unattainable in actuality,
could be symbohzed mathematically. Thus the ideal
human form
either in numerical or geometrical formulae: numerical
was expressed
body that determined simple relationships between the parts and the whole (e.g., head body=i :7) or the body was inscribed within a square or a circle or some combination proportions were estabhshed for the
:
3. On fifteenth-century theory, see: R. Wittkowcr, Architectural Principles in the Aqe of Humanism, London, 1949; H. Saalman, "Early Renaissance Architectural Theory and Practice in Antonio
Filarete's Trattato
.
.
.",
Art Bulletin, XLI, 1959, pp. 89
ff.
MICHELANGELO
THEORY
S
OF ARCHITECTURE
of the two, sometimes with the navel exactly tectural proportions
formulae (PL
and forms could then be associated with these
la),
pecuharly abstract, for rather than actually deriving useful
made mathema-
symbols and proportions from a study of the body,
forced the
Tliis entirely intellectual it
in the centre. Archi-
tical
body,
attempt to humanize architecture really
like Procrustes, into figures already
ideahzed by a long meta-
physical tradition traceable to Plato and Pythagoras
mathematical figures and
ratios
it
(Pi. ib).
The
perfect
and the way in which they were used to
form and proportions of buildings remained quite unaffected
establish the
by tliis attempt to "humanize" them. But if reference to the human body was superfluous in practice, it gave fifteenth-century architects a timely philosophical justification for their method and helped to transform them from medieval craftsmen to Renaissance humanists. If the human body was to be adapted by the fifteenth-century theorist to a system of proportions,
it
had
to be treated as a static object to be
analysed into a complex of numerically or geometrically interrelated parts. Tliis
method
harmony among
inevitably emphasized units: the
discrete
members.
By contrast,
whole became a
Michelangelo's
demand
on anatomyjwas motivated by a desire to restore of the human-form, a unity to be found in the function
for an architecture based
the indivisibihty
of the brain and of the nerve and muscle systems, rather than in external appearances.
Michelangelo was fully aware of the significance of these differences
and
felt
compelled to attack the abstract analytical principles of his pre-
decessors and contemporaries. Condivi noted (ch. LII): I
know
well that
when he
read Albrecht Diirer,*
thing, seeing with his (great) insight
own
it
seemed
how much more
to
him
beautiful
a very weak and useful was
problem [the human figure]. And to teU the truth, Albrecht deals only with the measurement and variety of bodies, concerning which no sure rule can be given, conceiving his figures upright like posts (Pi. ic). But what is more important, he says not a word about human actions and gestures. his
concept of
4. Vier Biicher
1943, pp. 260
f.
this
von menschlicher Proportion,
Numberg,
1528. Cf. E. Panofsky, Diirer, Princeton,
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO At
the
treatise
same time, Condivi speaks of Michelangelo's
on anatomy with emphasis on human
desire to write a
and apparenze.
moti
would not have made use of abstract ratio and geometry; nor would it have been the more empirical one that Leonardo might have written; for the words moti (suggesting "emotions" as well as "motions") and apparenze imply that Michelangelo would have Obviously
this treatise
emphasized the psychological and visual
ejfects
of bodily functions.
Michelangelo sensed the necessary relationship between the figurative penetration into force,
and
human
beings that gave his art
a literal penetration that
would
its
unique psychological
reveal the workings of nerves,
muscles and bones. His study of anatomy, in contrast to Leonardo's, was
motivated by an incalculably important
shift
from an
objective to a
subjective approach to reality.
Early Renaissance theories of proportion,
when apphed
produced architecture that was abstract in the sense that
was
to achieve ideal mathematical harmonies out
of the parts of a building. Simple
geom etrica l
of the
figures
its
primary aim
interrelationsliip
were preferred
and openings were thought of as rectangles
the plan; walls
to buildings,
for
that could be
given a desired quahty through the ratio of height to width. Given the basic concept
of well-proportioned planes, the ultimate aim of archi-
tectural design
was
to
produce
a three-dimensional structure in
which the
planes would be harmonically interrelated. At its best, this principle of 'X design produced a highly sophisticated and subtle architecture, but it ÂĽ
/s>
was vulnerable
to the
same
criticism that Michelangelo directed against
the contemporary system of figural proportion.
and
failed to take into
account the
effect
on
It
emphasized the unit
the character of forms
brought about by movement - in architecture, the movement of the observer through and around buildings - and by environmental conditions, particularly light.
It
could easily produce a paper architecture
more successful on the drawing board than in three dimensions. Toward the end of the fifteenth century, architects and painters began to be more concerned with three-dimensional effects, particularly those produced by soUd forms emphasized by gradations of Hght and shadow.
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MICHELANGELO
THEORY
S
OF ARCHITECTURE
5
Leonardo pioneered in the movement away from the planar concept of architecture in a series of drawings which, while effect
on mathematical
ratios,
still
dependent for their
employed the forms of
solid, rather
than
of plane geometry: cubes, cylinders, hemispheres. Leonardo's theoretical experiments
must have inspired the extraordinary innovations
Bramante discussed mass and
stituted
taken
as
in the Introduction.
spatial
volume
of
These innovations, which sub-
for planar design cannot, however, be
evidence of a fundamental change in arcliitectural theory.
beheve that Bramante demonstrated by
still
thought in terms of proportion and
ratio, as
tendency to emphasize the interplay of
his
distinct
parts in a building. In his project for St Peter's the exterior masses
interior spaces are semi-independent units
and
harmoniously related to the
central core (PL 51a).
Seen in
.
Micbelangelo^^approach to architecture
perspective,
this
appeaj:s-as--a^adical departure
oÂŁarchitecture to the tion, a
from Renaissance
human form was no
mathematical inetaphqr.
By
a system
whic h members ^oyver. In this
way
'
longer a philosophical abstrac-
thinking of buildings
of predetermined proportions to
wo uld
.
tradiTionTTFiis association v
as
he changed the concept of architectural design from the
produced by
I
a
organisms, static
onT'
dynamic one
in
be integrated by the suggest ion of muscular
the action and reaction of structural forces in a
building - which today
we
describe as tension, compression,
- could be interpreted in humanized terms. But,
stress, etc,
if structural forces
gave
Michelangelo a theme, he refused to be confined to expressing the ways in
which they
statics in his
dome of
actually operated: humanization
designs to the point at
St Peter's can appear to
rise,
which
a
overcame the laws of
mass
as
weighty
as the
or a relatively light attic-facing to
oppress.
While
fifteenth-century architecture required of the observer a certain
degree of intellectual contemplation to appreciate ships,
its
symbolic relation-
Michelangelo's was to suggest an immediate identification of our
own physical functions with those
of the building. This organic approach
suggests the injection of the principle of
empathy
into Renaissance
)
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
6 aesthetics
by
bond between
search for a physical and psychological
its
observer and object.
we
In Michelangelo's drawings
how
can see
the concept
was put into
practice.^ Initial studies for a building are vigorous impressions
whole which search for the structural system the exigencies of fantasy. Details at that
is
a certain quality
determined
(Pis.
of sculptural form even before 3d, 68).
which enter only
statics,
remain indeterminate
of a
Often they even deny
at a later stage to discipline
until the overall
form
is
fixed, but
point they are designed with that sense of coherence with an
unseen whole wliich
we
fnid in Michelangelo's sketches of disembodied
hands or heads. Drawings of windows, doors, cornices are intended to
convey
to the
mason
a vivid experience rather than calculated
instructions for carvings
would
(Pis.
46b, 79b).
Where
liis
measured
contemporaries
ora channel to a tdrUs, evocation of physical power (Pi. id);
sketch profiles to assure the proper ratio
Michelangelo worked for the
where they copied
Roman
capitals
and entablatures among the ruins to
achieve a certain orthodoxy of detail, Michelangelo's occasional copies
highly personalized reinterpretations of just those remains that
are
mirrored tects
his
own
taste for
Rome
dynamic form.
provided^oiher archi-
with a corpus of rules but gave Michelangelo a spark fox explosions
of fancy,
a standard that
he honoured more in the breach than in the
observance.
This indifference to antique canons shocked Michelangelo's contem-
who felt that it was the unique distinction of their Roman architecture. They interpreted a comparable
poraries,
age to have
revived
indifference
in fifteenth-century architects as evidence
of
a faltering, quasi-medieval
search for the classic perfection of the early 1500's. Imphcit in humanist
philosophy was the concept that the goal of endeavour, whether in
government, or
science,
was
to equal
- not
Thus, Michelangelo's bizarre variations on 5.
On
art,
to surpass
- the ancients.
classic orders,
coming on the
the development of architectural drawing in the Renaissance, see
W.
Lotz,
"Das Raum-
bild in der italienischen Arcliitckturzeiclinung der Renaissance", Mitt, des Kunsthist. Inst, in Florcnz,
vn, 1956, pp. 193
if.;
J.
Ackcrman, "Architectural Practice
Architectural Historians, xiri, 1954, pp.
3 ff.
in the Italian Renaissance", JoMrÂŤ. Soc.
MICHELANGELO heels
THEORY
S
OF ARCHITECTURE
of the cHmactic achievements of Bramante and Raphael, frightened
Vasari,
who
dared not find fault with the Master, but worried that others
When Michelangelo claimed for his design of San Fiorentini in Rome that it surpassed] both the Greeks and
might emulate him.^ Giovanni dei the
Romans, the Renaissance concept was already
ment any improvement on for a
modem
antiquity
obsolete; for the
conceivable, the door
is
is
mo-
opened
philosophy of free experiment and Hmitless progress.
Michelangelo's plan studies appear as organisms capable of motion:
obey
the fortification drawings
imperative
(Pis.
a biological rather than a structural
But even in more orthodox
26a-28a).
plans
(Pis.
66b-68)
the masses swell and contract as if in response to the effort of support.
Elevation sketches minimize the planes of the wall to accent plastic
forms - columns,
pilasters, entablatures,
the interaction of load tural
members, seen
and support.
as
guished from
its
which dramatize
say "dramatize" because the sculp-
bones and muscles, create an imagined epic of
conflicting forces, while
job of stabihzing the
I
frames, etc. -
it is
the
anonymous wall
that does the
structure. In building, the wall
expressive articulation
by
is
mundane
further distin-
the choice and treatment of
materials.
By contrast to
contemporaries trained in fifteenth-century proportions,
Michelangelo rarely indicated measurements or
scale
on
his
drawings,
never worked to a module, and avoided the ruler and compass until the design was finally determined.
From
the start he dealt with quahties
rather than quantities. In choosing ink washes
and chalk rather than the
pen/he evoked the quality of stone, and the most
tentative
sketches are likely to contain indications of hght and
46bjrthe observer
is
there before the building
is
prehminary
shadow
(Pis.
19b,
designed.
Michelangelo rarely made perspective sketches, because he thought
of the observer froiii^
as
being in motion and hesitated to visuaHze buildings
a fixed point.
models.
The
To
study three-dimensional
introduction
ormodelhng
effects
he made clay
into architectural practice again
demonstrates the identity of sculpture and architecture in Michelangelo's 6.
See the quotation from Vasari
on
p. 22.
Âť
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO mind.
It
also a further sign
is
principles, since the malleabihty
of mathematical the
of
of the material precludes any suggestion
relationships or even
whole could be studied
The
where
Sangallo,
environment
architectural drawings
only
exists
show
the
as a
same
contrast to those of Bramante or
drawn around
lines are
of mass rather^an of enclosed
spatial
communicate mass by
only
parts:
We can infer that when Michel-
effects
where the
receptacle for the bodies.
preference; they
any independence of
in terra-cotta.
angelo used clay models he sought space, as in his paintings,
revok against early Renaissance
his
spaces.
This approach to architecture, being
s culptural,
inevitably
was
rein-
I
by
forced
a special sensitivity to matefialsand to effects
of light. Michel-
angelo capitalized upon the structure of his materials because of his desire
maximum
to get a
contrast
between members used
tension and "neutral" wall surfaces. liarities
of surface materials such
and fmished the the quahty
plastic
members
He
invariably minimized the pecu-
as stucco
in order to
and texture of the stone
(Pis.
parable sensitivity to the character of
to express force or
and
brick, while he carved
evoke - even to exaggerate -
35b, 46a).
No_one^had^ com-
the traditional
Travertine, the pitted striations of which
became
Roman
masonry,
richly expressive in his
design.
In speaking of
modem
architecture
we
often associate sensitivity to
materials with an exposition of their technical functions, but in Michel-
angelo's
work
the latter
is
characteristically absent. In laying
masonry,
Michelangelo notably avoided any emphasis on the unit (block or brick).
He
disguised joints as
much as
possible in order to avoid conflict
between
the part and the whole, and to sustain the experience of the building as
an organism iise
(Pi. 64).
He was
quoins, and he rarely
the only architect of his time
employed
who
did not
rusticated or drafted masonry, the
favoured Renaissance means of stressing the individuahty of the block. If his buildings
had
were
to
communicate muscular
force, the cubic pieces
to be disguised.
Light, for Michelangelo,
forms;
it
was not merely
was an element of form itself. The
a
plastic
means of illuminating
members of a building
MICHELANGELO were not designed
S
OF ARCHITECTURE
THEORY
to be seen as stable
and defined elements but
ing conformations of highlight and shadow.
unorthodoxy in the use of antique to increase the versatiHty
completed according to
effects. If more
of light
his design,
beheve
I
It is
of his
an interior canopy
as
chang-
liis
interiors
desire
had been
we would fmd an astounding
moods
quite
fascinating to imagine, for example,
of St Peter's might have been
as
of Michelangelo's
can be explained by
detail
variety of compositions in hght, creating
Renaissance.
Much
9
what
in the
the interior
had been screened by
like if the lantern
Michelangelo planned
unknown
57a, 61).
(Pis.
No
doubt
Michelangelo's sympathetic 'adjustment to the briUiance of the Mediter-
ranean sun was a factor that inhibited the exportation of his style to hazier northern countries,
much
where the
intellectual reserve
of Palladio was
preferred.
The common practice in the sixteenth century of building from large wooden scale models, rather than from drawings, explains the absence of any complete plans or elevations among Michelangelo's surviving sketches.
But
these sketches differ
designers in one significant respect: represents even a small detail as
from those of other Renaissance with two or three exceptions none
was ultimately
it
built. It w^as
Michel-
angelo's habit to keep his design in a constant state of flux until every detail
was ready
for carving, a
method
entirely consistent 'with his
organic approach. His conception of a building literally grew, and a
The wooden model for
change in any part involved sympathetic changes in other final solution
St Peter's
was not reached even
was executed without an
in the model: the attic,
parts.
and probably without a facade
or dome, in order to permit Michelangelo to alter those portions in
body of the building as it was constructFamese palace, wooden mockups of cornices were
response to his impressions of the ed.
There and
made
at the
to full scale
and hoisted into position to enable the
judge, and possibly to redesign, his project at the
last
architect to
moment; had funds
been available he doubtless would have destroyed portions already finished in order to all his
improve them,
work he seems
to
he did with
his later sculptures.
In
have carried the generative drive to a point
at
as
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
10
which that
it
became an
most of his
obstacle to completion, an obstacle so frustrating
architectural projects
were not executed, and no building
was completed according to liis plans. So contemporary engravers had to record his projects by combining scattered records of different stages in the process is
the
of conception with touches of pure fancy.
same for the modern
historian.
what Michelangelo's unexecuted completed - were to have been;
We
projects
shall
never
And the problem know for certain
- whether abandoned or partly
in fact, the attempt to
do so impHes
the outset a misunderstanding of his conception of architecture. ize
any of Michelangelo's
minate solution, but the
designs,
spirit
we must
at
To visual-
seek to capture not a deter-
and the goals of a process.
CHAPTER
II
The Facade of San Lorenzo
in Florence
NOTHING troubled medieval and Renaissance as facades.
Among
the great cathedrals of Gothic Italy only-
one - Siena - has a facade that
is
not largely modern, and the
churches of Florence hide behind anonymous walls of stone or the
finest brittle
veneers of nineteenth-century antiquarians.
rarely happened; the facade
dominating the town and ture,
much
architects as
and with
its
more complex
Beyond
the Alps this
was the showpiece of the Gothic with
fields
great portals
cathedral,
twin towers fused into the struc-
its
and rose window becoming progressively
in order to carry the
panorama of the Old and
New
Testaments in sculpture and painting.
The meant
differences are deeply rooted in
to
called for spirit
have luxurious facades
by
as a
custom and
taste.
Itahan
cities
pious obhgation, but they were not
of the architecture. The
either the aesthetic or the structure
of the Early Christian church survived with
its
splendidly decorated
inner walls and simple geometric exteriors. Since narthexes and sculp-
tured portals were never widely adopted in
Italy,
and campaniH were
never integrated with the church structure, the facade
became no more
than a protective screen where the building stopped growing, having
no organic by masons elegance.
relation to the structural system.
in the
So
it is
hope
that
it
It
could be laid up hastily
would be clothed
later in a thin coat
of
not strange that surviving drawings for Itahan Gothic
fa9ades are barely distinguishable
from those painted
triptychs
period with expanses of flat surface bordered by dehcate
gilt
of the
frames and
pinnacles.
Since Italy
became the pre-eminent centre of culture
at the close
of
the medieval period, one of the shortcomings of her Gotliic churches naturally
became
a
major problem for Renaissance architecture. The
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
12
problem was church, with
by
intensified its
liigh
a conflict of traditions:
nave and low
the medieval basilica, but the
new
the Renaissance
of
side aisles, preserved the outlines
required that
taste
the forms of the ancient temple with
its
columns
be dressed in
it
(or pilasters), entabla-
and pediment. Antiquity prescribed fixed proportions for the
tures,
Orders; if more than one story had to be faced with columns or
members had
either these
Order had difficult to
to be greatly
to be superimposed
broadened to gain height, or one
upon
another. Consequently
achieve a uniform system as a facing for the
high nave of a church. But
this
pilasters,
was not
low
aisles
Brunelleschi's San Lorenzo, into three levels
- columns or
and clerestory - of which the second or arch
on
and
the only problem; the interior
nave elevation of Renaissance churches tended to be divided,
substantially less high than the others.
was
it
Such
level
was
as
piers, arches,
was by
its
nature
em-
a division could not be
the exterior while preserving the vocabulary of the
ployed
easily
Roman
temple, since the second of the three levels was too narrow to
admit a proper Order of
were
its
own.
If,
on
the other hand, the elevation stories
was
Starting with Alberti's ingenious experiments, architects of the
fif-
to be disguised behind a two-story facade,
apt to
become disproportionately
one of these
high.
teenth century tried every solution for the problem, but the very variety
of
results
facades -
-
in notable contrast to the uniformity of later Renaissance
testifies to their failure to
reach a viable standard. This
due partly to the unsuccessful attempt to abandon the
basilical
may
be
form
in
favour of central plan churches, where facade design, though equally challenging,
was
at least
not compHcated by reminiscences of medieval
forms.
This
is
one explanation of the absence of
a facade
on San Lorenzo,
a
church which Medici patronage had in other respects made one of the
most splendid
Leo
X
in Florence (Pi. 15, Fig. 3).
When
the
first
Medici Pope,
(1513-1521), decided to finish the church, Florentine architects
swarmed
to the Vatican to get the commission, because the
to construction, in addition to the prestige
sum
assigned
of the patron, assured
it
of
THE FACADE OF SAN LORENZO IN FLORENCE
I3
being the most important basilical fa9ade of the generation. Michelangelo,
normally modest about
his
work,
of architecture and sculpture of
said that
all Italy".
he could make
There was
it
"the mirror
a competition for
the design in 15 15, Vasari says, involving Antonio da Sangallo (Elder),
Andrea and Jacopo Sansovino, Raphael and
in addition
others,
to
Michelangelo.
We
would know much more about Renaissance
competing projects had survived, but unfortunately drawings by Giuhano da Sangallo, a candidate
These are the they
last
show his one
abihty to
extremely
tall
is
we
have only a few
whom Vasari overlooked.
records of the aged Quattrocento architect, and ^vhile rise to
the
demands of the new Roman
style,
they
He
offers
two
also betray his insecurity in the face
solutions:
architecture if the
of the old problems.
a three-story elevation (Uffizi, Arch. 276, 281)
lower Order,
set
forward
as a
with an
porch, a rather squashed
upper one, and between them a mezzanine with stunted unclassical pilasters; the
stories
for a
other (Uffizi, Arch. 280)
of equal height and
low pediment
also
successful,
proposing two
of equal width, a solution which, except
that covers only the central bays, disguises the differ-
ence in elevation between the side includes a pair of five-story
would have
more
is
and the nave. The
aisles
campanih loosely
latter
design
related to the facade,
which
clashed with the scale of the church. These are important
because Michelangelo seems to have studied them for his project, together
with another drawing by Giuhano
though made to the
Pope
at
an
at the
earlier date for
3a; Uffizi, Arch.
(Pi.
277) which,
another church, probably was
time of the competition. Like the
first
shown
solution,
it
has
a mezzanine, but of the same width as the lower Order, since the latter
does not project forward from the plane of the facade. Here the disproportionate heights of the lower and upper Orders are minimized raising the
ground
floor pilasters
Apparently Michelangelo was sculpture, while others
commission.
on high
socles.
initially
engaged to
were invited
Ultimately
his
to
inabihty
brought him both jobs, but whether
direct the facade
compete for the to
by
collaborate
architectural
with anybody
this attests to the success
of
his
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
14
designs or of his intrigues
though lacking previous saged the facade
uncertain. In any event, he
is
was appointed,
Pope enviand rehefs. Nobody-
architectural experience, because the
as a great
framework
for statues
had had such an idea in Quattrocento Tuscany;
it
was too
pictorial to
appeal to humanists and rather suggests late medieval practice (Giovanni
Pisano
at Siena)
North Itahan Renaissance (Ccrtosa of
or the
Pavia).
Perhaps boredom with fifteenth-century purism explains the change
of
evident in Giuliano da Sangallo's drawing originally
taste already
done for JuHus II (Pi. 3 a). The pictorial style gained impetus from a rapidly growing interest in theatre design, from the new vogue for painted palace facades, and from temporary festival architecture such as
the facade erected
Leo
X
on the Cathedral of Florence
The Cathedral
in 15 15.
scheme for San Lorenzo
that
decoration
may have
would make
the
for the entry of
suggested to Leo a
most of Michelangelo's
genius.
In the
first
the sculpture
of three stages in the development of the design is
really
more important than
a skeleton for reHef panels
for abandoning
tliis
and
project
statue niches;
was
we
can trust
compare the drawings raised
probably one of the reasons
some of the sculptures would have were dispersed without much cohe-
weak
at all the
copies that are preserved.
architectural solution at this stage to
(Pi. 3a)
which
it
which becomes
that
been monstrously big while others sion, if
the building,
(Pi. 3b),
We
may
one of Sangallo's
some obvious ways: the lower Order upper Order in the guise of a somewhat
echoes in
high on socles and the
stunted temple front; alternation of recessed entrance bays and projecting
bays with paired pilasters or half columns; the outermost bays crowned
by curved pediments; the profusion of sculpture; etc. Yet Michelangelo grappled more seriously with the facade problem; his project succeeds in being at the same time two and three stories high by the dissimilar design of the central and outer bays, and avoids the disruption of Giuhano's nave portion of the facade by giving the four central columns a single entablature - a device retained in all subsequent mezzanine;
studies.
it
unifies the
Though
the solution
is
far
from
perfect,
Michelangelo from the
THE FACADE OF SAN LORENZO IN FLORENCE
I5
beginning of his architectural career exhibited an abiHty to fuse discrete
members into a convincing whole. The far more experienced GiuHano was unable to keep the parts of his facade from scattering; he was too and
interested in the individual pilasters
In
courses.
remaining schemes, Michelangelo chose a three-story system in
all
which the second story was whole width of the facade; his surviving
by muting solution
drawings
a
kind of mezzanine or
a
little
(Pi. 3 c)
sketch that
3b)
was encouraged by the
extending the
may have been
from
the
first
of
undue prominence
gives the mezzanine
vertical accents. This departure
(Pi.
attic
the unity of the original
of BruneUeschi's
side elevations
church, which had an emphatic three-story elevation accented by three cornices
all
around; the height of the mezzanine level was dictated by the
height of the nave arches. Pi.
3
b was abandoned because of the divisions
of its outer bays, which did not correspond to those of the church and
would have caused confusion
at the corners
elevations could be seen together.
system was that
it
A further advantage
produced three ample bays of
accommodate rehef panels, and four rights,
where the fa9ade and
of the mezzanine
like
dimensions to
between the up-
spaces for statues
without interfering with the architectural character
scheme tended to do. The solution
may have been
side
inspired
as the first
by
the attic
design of Roman triumphal arches, such as that of Constantine. In Pi. 3d, the better features of the preceding designs
were combined,
so that the outer tabernacles could be retained without
abandoning the
may have been
toying with the
mezzanine. In
this
sketch Michelangelo
idea of bringing the central bays forward under a gabled roof to create a Pantheon-like porch. All
of these ideas reach maturity in
could well be the design that
won
he went to see the Pope
end of 15 16. Cohesion
at the
Michelangelo the commission
the device, already foreseen in the initial scheme, of
and three-story elevation; but here
Order
that
three
it is
embraces the mezzanine.
accommodation
Pi. 4a,
is
which
when
regained here by
combining a two-
the upper rather than the lower
Now
there
is
a well-distributed
for ten statues in niches, as requested
by
the Pope, for
major reHefs in the mezzanine, and for minor ones on the lower
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
i6 Story.
Only one problem remained unsolved:
measurements of the church, the upper have had to be so
much
taller
of the actual
in terms
pilasters
of the Order would
and hence broader than the columns
beneath them that even Michelangelo might have paused to classical canons.
Yet
a design close to this
at the affront
one probably became the
of the model made by Baccio d'Agnolo early in 15 17.
basis
Michelangelo would not accept Baccio' s model, even altered according to his instructions. his inability to
work with anyone
Although
this
that he
had conceived an
after
it
had been
can be explained by
except subordinates and by his appa-
rently unreasonable suspicion of Baccio's loyalty, the
was
(?)
entirely
new
most
likely reason
kind of facade, the nature of
which he had kept secret even from Rome the clay model he had made
his
announced without any explanation
that the cost
patron (he refused to send to
in the spring
of 15 17, and even
would be
increased
by over a third). The new design, while it retained many superficial elements of the preceding studies, was fundamentally different. It was no longer a veneer to be attached to the surface
structure in
from the
its
own
narthex that was to project forward one bay
right, a
existing church
of the old fa9ade, but a three-dimensional
and thus would have three
one. This proposal appears in the angelo's drawings
(Pi. 5a),
the projections of
by
well
last
where the
members on
faces rather than
and most impressive of Michelside elevations are suggested
the far right.
Now
the lateral bays as
as the centre are three stories in height, a solution that
structurally imperative
building.
also
reheved the
the obligation to express the unequal heights of nave and level
is
accentuated;
it
no longer has
within the upper or lower Order of columns or raising vertical
became
with the decision to erect a semi-independent
The independence of the narthex
Again the mezzanine
only
of the outer bays to the
full
arcliitect
aisles
to be
pilasters
of
behind.
embraced
because the
height of the facade adds sufficient
emphasis to counterbalance the strong horizontal (compare
Pis.
4a and
two
levels
5a).
of
The mezzanine
pilaster-strips in
is
divided by an emphatic coniice into
order to urge us to read the upper level
THE FACADE OF SAN LORENZO IN FLORENCE of the
as part
Order above,
pilaster
should not appear to be
comparable design
as
squashed
so that the proportions as
they are in
Pi.
I7
of this Order
3d or in G. Sangallo's
(Pi. 3 a).
This solved most of the problems that bedevilled earHer architects;
it
did not deny the existence of a three-aisled, three-storied basihca beliind; it
had no
made
false fronts that
would
conflict
with the
legitimate use of classical vocabulary
side elevations;
by adding
to the
and
it
normal
superposition of Orders an adaptation of the triumphal-arch attic to solve
dilemma of the narrow intermediate Order. Furthermore, the design was ideally suited to the sculptural programme, allowing space for six the
statues
on
on each of the
the side facades)
;
three stories (counting those that
for
two round rehef panels
would be placed
in the lateral bays
of the
upper story; and for five rectangular ones - three in the mezzanine and
two above
new
the tondi. These reasons, coupled with the practical fact that
foundations were required anyway, motivated the adoption of a
narthex scheme;
we need not
search for profound philosophical or pres-
sing Hturgical causes.
There was
Leone
a precedent for Michelangelo's decision in the
who,
Battista Alberti
after
two
early experiments with veneer
facades (San Francesco in Rimini, Santa
produced narthex designs in
Andrea
in
motif Furthermore, narthex or porch
as
Alberti,
an
Maria Novella in Florence),
his last years
Mantua) because they were essential
(San Sebastiano and Sant'
easier to
and other
(Pi. 5b),
which
the one accepted it
too; but the
redrawn
by
adapt to the temple-front
theorists after
him, spoke of the
element of the church.
Everyone admires Michelangelo's drawing
model
(Pi.
5a)
more than
rehefs (See Pi.
the
represents a revised version of the project close to
the
Pope
in 15 18.
drawing has serious
No
doubt Michelangelo preferred
practical drawbacks. If the design
to scale, the total height diminishes so that the
the mezzanine
work of
no longer
is
lower part of
retains well-proportioned spaces for statues
and
4b where the disadvantages are somewhat exaggerated).
Consequently, Michelangelo decided to unify the two levels of the mezzanine, thus gaining space for over-hfe-size seated statues.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
i8 It is
not the unified mezzanine that makes the model
less successful,
but an arid linear quahty often found in Florentine Mannerist architecture.
The fault does not necessarily originate in the
could not have been very different
due partly to the small modelling into
line
scale,
if
it
design, since the
had been made from
v^hich inevitably changes
and the apertures into
dull planes,
model
Pi. 5a. It is
much of
the
and partly to the
absence of the eighteen statues and seven rehefs which justify the formal
composition.
On
material; marble
of
that
the other hand, a certain brittleness is
bound
softer stones. In
to
produce an
judging
this
effect sharper
model
v^e
inlierent in the
is
and colder than
might ask
if a
the Medici tombs at the same scale and without sculpture
model of
would not
have been equally unexciting. There are some minor differences between the 15
model and
the measurements given in the final contract of January
18 for the construction of the fa9ade, so
made by Michelangelo. But even
the one
good record of the design
We
we if
cannot be sure that
it
was
a
copy
it is
it
was
a fairly
(Fig. i).
get closer to Michelangelo's
final
purpose by analysing the
measurements in the contract and those on the sketches made in Carrara
from
the facade blocks as they
were cut
to
measure
(see catalogue,
The reconstruction drawing shows the result of this analysis The major differences from the model are the broadening of
pp. 14-17). (Fig.
i).
the central portal-bay at the expense of the lateral ones and the raising
of the mezzanine
at the
expense of the upper pilaster Order. Both of
these solutions are anticipated in Pi. 5a, so that
model-maker, and not Michelangelo,
who
it
may
tried the
have been the
more
contracted
scheme.
Whether we speak of the drawing,
the model, or the reconstruction,
the unique virtue of Michelangelo's design
though the membering makes the facade tals
and
verticals, there
cially apt, the
of
members
is still
a
is
the equilibrium of its parts;
comphcated grid of horizon-
an impression of unity and, what
is
espe-
serve a dual function of symbolizing the structure
a post-and-lintel system
sculptured panels. Usually
and of providing frames for apertures and
when
Renaissance arcliitecture was aUied
THE FAgADE OF SAN LORENZO IN FLORENCE
19
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
20
closely to sculpture the tectonic quality
was
Furthermore, Michel-
lost.
angelo brings to the architectural design a sculptural character previously
unknown;
his facade
is
not a plane cut up into rectangles but an organiza-
tion of bodies that project
of a narthex he had made
and recede. Even before he thought his outer
in terms
bays semi-independent forms that
by their nature were suited to being echoed in the side elevations. Yet
we
cannot judge the facade
as
we
see
it
in either the
model or
drawing, for Michelangelo would not have subordinated the profusion
of huge figures and panels to the architecture. The narrative might not have overwhelmed ceiling,
the
its
setting to the extent that
but perhaps sufficiently to produce an
terribilita
of Michelangelo's figural
his architectural design.
style
it
effect
does in the Sistine
determined more by
than by the equilibrium of
CHAPTER
III
The Medici Chapel of Michelangelo's architectural commissions there was restricting condition - some predetermined and unchangeable
almost
IN
a
all
factor in the design.
by
At one
time, the proportions
Lorenzo facade, San Giovanni
existing foundations (San
fixed
de' Fioren-
removed (Laurentian half-fmished building would be left by
tini), at
another, existing buildings could not be
library,
Capitohne
a
Hill);
would be
another architect (Farnese palace, St Peter's), or a complete structure
would have
new
to be transformed to serve a
degli Angeh).
tempting to speculate on what Michelangelo might
It is
have done without
function (Santa Maria
obstacles, but apparently
he liked them, perhaps even
sought them out; these buildings he worked on with fervour, while not a drawing,
much
less a stone,
commissions (Rialto bridge,
remains to
II
Gesu
recall his
major unencumbered
Rome).
in
Perhaps Michelangelo needed some limitation to direct and restrain his
imagination just
tures.
Some of
as the
confmes of a stone block controlled
his greatest
marble figures were formed in response to
confining conditions: the second-hand block given to
was astonishingly
thin. In architecture as in sculpture,
tension between pre-existing, static boundaries, and strain against
vey
in
any
his sculp-
him
for the
David
he could evoke a
dynamic forms
that
them. Consciously or not, Michelangelo managed to con-
art his
view of the human body
as the career terreno, the earthly
prison that confines the flight of the soul. In the Medici chapel there are
two
distinct
architectural systems
(Pis. ya, lo). One, the masonry construction of the sacristy itself, is faced inside with white stucco and articulated by membering in the grey pietra
serena of Tuscany; the other,
made
entirely
belongs to the tombs of the Medici and
is
of veined white marble,
fitted into recesses
framed by
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
22 the
serena members.
pietra
The
system constitutes one of
Sacristy
Michelangelo's predetermined encumbrances: the chapel was to be a sister, if
not a twin of Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy on the opposite side
of the transept of San Lorenzo, In plan,
it
built in
1421-1429
(Pis. 7, 15; Fig. 3 [2-3]).
had to be roughly of the same dimensions; the materials had
to be the same,
and the
fluted Corinthian pilaster Order,
though shghtly
modernized, was to remain basically Brunelleschian. Vasari, in his account
of the chapel, noted the tension between the
conservative Sacristy system and the unprecedented
tomb
architecture
(VII, p. 193):
and because he wanted to make Filippo Brunellcschi had made, but with ".
.
.
it
of the old sacristy which order of ornaments [the marble
in imitation
a different
by Brimcllcschi], he made on the interior an ornament composed mamicr more varied and novel than ancient or modem masters had been able
veneer, not used in a
to achieve at capitals
and
any time; because
proportion, composition, and rules
mon
of such beautiful cornices, and tombs he proceeded quite differently in from what others had done following com-
in the innovations
bases, doors, tabernacles
and antiquity, fearing to add anytliing [of
practice, Vitruvius
This Ucense greatly encouraged those shortly
new
fantasies
who saw
appeared in their
work ornament, more his
their
to try to imitate
own]. and
it,
grotesque than rational
or disciplined. Whence, artisans have been infmitely and perpetually indebted to him because he broke the bonds and chains of a way of working that had become habitual
by
common
The marble
usage."
architecture of the chapel
may not seem so shocking today;
but Vasari, in mixing admiration with apprehension, reminds us that
was one of the in
which the
first
it
works of a generation obsessed with Roman antiquity
classical
canon was ignored, even violated. The tabernacles
and entablatures which belong to no recognizable Order appear especially peculiar in their
Quattrocento framework.
when Michelangelo planned to put a free standing mausoleum centre of the chapel, he may have visualized the architecture as a copy of the Old Sacristy. But when he was ordered to design
In 1520, in the Hteral
wall-tombs early in the following year, he had to change the architecture to
accommodate them. Niches were needed
and the three-bay system
that Brunelleschi
in the thickness
of the
walls,
had used only on the choir
23
Fig. 2.
Florence, the Medici Chapel (after Apolloni).
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
24
wall had to be repeated on
He
four walls of the
New
shifted the pilasters nearer to the
comers without, however,
adding to the width of the central bays, since he pier
where
out of
his
(compare
Sacristy
Michelangelo did not keep the proportions of Brunelleschi's
Pis. ya, 7b).
bays.
all
Brunelleschi's pilasters
way
had been.
to squeeze the entrances
Characteristically, he
went
without thereby gaining equi-
Now
valent breathing-space for the tombs.
a plain pietra serena
left
both were constricted, by
virtue of an innovation that increased the already confining pressure of
upon the new. The most important innovation was the
the old arcliitectural system
between the entrance
level
addition of an entire story
and the dome. While Brunelleschi had put
pendentives on the entablature of the
first
Order, Michelangelo inserted
an intermediate zone with windows flanking the arches. pendentives to a higher zone with central
on them
a coffered
dome and
windows
He
elevated the
(Fig. 2)
and
a lantern entirely different in style
raised
from
the
exotic orientalism of Brunelleschi's design.
Michelangelo's contribution to the form of the chapel increased proportionately with altitude. story
is
The
entire pietra serena
Brunelleschian - but closer to the late Quattrocento nave of San
Lorenzo than to the Old
Sacristy.
Most of
have been carved before Michelangelo's as
Order of the lower
Tolnay noticed, look
like those
the intermediate
arrival, too; the
of Cronaca
(d.
windows which,
1508), could have been
designed only by a reactionary architect in 1520. There tinctively sixteenth century in the pilasters or arches
though the projecting
strips in the
Order may
is
notliing dis-
of this
level, either,
spandrel above the arch are a novel
device for reducing the wall mass and breaking the
monotony of plane
surfaces.
Michelangelo's contribution
window
is
evident at the third level, where the
frames were done after his drawings.
They
are
vigorous
counterparts of the frames in the Laurentian library, but they are unique in diminishing in breadth
toward the top,
as if in a
perspective with
its
vanishing point at the lantern; the canted lines continue those of the cupola.
The
coffering of the cupola, distantly related to that of the
N a
W
o N c ;-!
O C rt
00
<^
O ;-i
O
U >^ i-i i-i
(J
u
^ PU
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
26 Pantheon,
unusually small, and the ingenious pattern of recessions
is
around the oculus helps to accentuate the grid between the
coffers,
introducing a Hvely dialogue between circular and radial accents, in
which the
latter
^The lantern
come
14a)
(Pi.
to the exterior
is
maximum
one of the
first
Michelangelo's only important contribution
animated fantasy inspired della Porta's
Its
minor domes of St
Peter's. Large, simple
windows
of Hght, and the Order of freestanding colonnettes
in the Renaissance to carry a projection of the entabla-
dramatic impression of a radiating cornice in the form of
ture, giving a a
is
of the chapel.
lantern design for the attract a
to appear as structural ribs.
cogwheel casting varied shadows. This sharp angularity
contrasts
with
the fleshy curves of a concave cone that holds aloft a gilded polyhedron^
seems, in short, that Michelangelo tried to influence the design of
It
the chapel as
little as
possible,
though two changes were
essential to his
aim: the tombs had to be given enough depth, and the overall height
had to be
increased.
Wherever
these innovations permitted, he retained
the Brunelleschian vocabulary as an antithesis to
liis
Michelangelo's metamorphosis from sculptor to fully
consummated
for the sculptures
and
their settings
The power of the composition their architectural
of the pietra conflict
is
invention.
arcliitect
was not
in the design of the Medici chapel. In our admiration
we
gratefully overlook the failure
of the chapel to evoke a moving or even
and
own
is
a coherent spatial experience.
generated by the vigour of the figures
framework, and heightened by the compression
serena members. In Michelangelo's
made more
effective
by
later arcliitecture the
the implication of tension between
organically related parts.
Here the marble architecture
different species than that
of the chapel, and there
is
is
patently of a
even a lack of cohe-
rence within the marble system: the tombs seem isolated from the lateral tabernacles
by
a shift in style
and in
scale.
The upper
stories
might have
been quite different without fundamentally affecting the tombs, and, the projected
unity of the
if
programme of fresco decoration had been completed, the chapel would probably have been further compromised.
THE MEDICI CHAPEL
Maybe
for this reason the garlands painted
on
27
dome by Giovanni da
the
Udine were quickly hidden by whitewash. In making the architectural membering of the lower Order of marble, Michelangelo associated
it
with the sculptured sarcophagi and figures
rather than with the structure of the building referred to
it
as
ornament;
it is
a veneer
self-sufficient structure and, as such,
is
(Pi.
hung onto
8).
Vasari rightly
the walls of an already
freed of the responsibihty of per-
forming any tectonic function. Furthermore,
it
has
no
utihtarian function
except to provide doors to adjoining areas - doors significantly over-
powered by the more expressive tabernacles above them. The conception of a rehef independent from the chapel in structure and materials was
a purely sculptural one,
and the extensive use of an architectural
vocabulary was a matter of choice, not of necessity. But the choice was almost predetermined by the tradition of funerary wall monuments: a
system of architectural niches not only offered the most convenient setting for efiigies, but
ciated
had carried
since ancient times a
symbohsm,
asso-
with the baldachin or aedicula, of apotheosis, originally the prero-
gative of deities
and
rulers.
some of the preparatory drawings and
by Michelangelo's followers, the niches alongside the effigies of the Dukes are filled with allegories, and studies such as Pi. iia indicate that the upper portion was to have been a monumental crown, rich with symbolic figures, thrones (of which only the bases were executed, Pi. 8), and a complex composition of arms and tropliies. It is difficult to judge the tombs without these important complements, which would have altered completely their effect and their relationship to the chapel. The crown, for example, projecting into the zone of the entablature, would have exaggerated the In
in sketches
independence of the tombs from the chapel architecture.
The
was the Italy.
tomb in the form of a semi-independent architectural rehef commonest type of funerary monument in fifteenth-century
wall
Michelangelo, in placing tombs into a recessed arched niche
divided vertically into three bays behind an ornate freestanding sarco-
phagus
(Pis.
10, iia), respected a tradition that
had inspired the
finest
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
28
of early Renaissance Tuscan
efforts
may
Medici monuments
Pope Paul
Fiesole in the 1470's (Pi. 13a).
by
elements of the
by Giovanni Dalmatia and Mino da
Even Michelangelo's
usage, because the Quattrocento
and unconventional in architectural
But
Many
be found, for example, in the original tomb of
in St Peter's, carved
II
sculptors.^
tomb was
detail than
fantasy
far
was hallowed
more experimental
contemporary buildings.
in the early sixteenth centur)^ imaginative sepulchral designs
to give
way
to proper
and often dull
classical solutions,
such
which
the earher freedom,
partly explains
why Vasari
those of
as
Andrea Sansovino; Michelangelo must have aimed consciously
began
to revive
congratulated
him
for his liberating influence.
4a Fig. 4.
Medici Tombs. Preliminary (a) and fmal (b) versions, showing the narrowing of the central bav.
The
surviving preparatory drawings for the tombs aftirm a Quattro-
cento inspiration a
(Pis. 11,
12) in representing isolated rehefs designed for
frame of given proportions and indicating nothing of the architectural
setting or flanking bays.
Yet these
solution, to reflect in the design
wall into which they are (Pi.
1 1
a),
the
tomb
set.
I.
sulla
is
the fmal
of the tombs the arrangement of the
Ducal monument
repeats the pattern of the wall as a
bay (B,b)
C. de Tolnay, "Srudi
more than
In the last project for a
the relationship of the wall bays in both, the central
studies aim, far
whole
(Fig. 4):
tomb bays
(ABA)
is
larger,
almost a square, and the side bays
repeated in the
Cappella Medicea", L'Artc, V, 1934,
p. 5.
(aba);
THE MEDICI CHAPEL
29
(A, a) contain tabernacles with segmental pediments; even the entrance
doors are reflected in the rectangular panels beneath the tomb-tabernacles. This doors;
may it is
explain the overpowering scale of the tabernacles over the
outcome of enlarging the smaller tomb
the
tabernacles accord-
ing to the ratio established in the overall composition:
B:A=b:a.
A
comparable proportioning of tabernacles to tombs was planned for the
monument
Magnifici
rhythm was changed: central
the
in the entrance wall (Pi. 12a, c), but here the
the side tabernacles
bay rather than in the
lateral
two sarcophagi planned
central axis,
it
a solution also
at
all,
for this wall
prompted by the project
to place the
was
lost;
Since the
central aedicula,
Madonna
the Magnifici
there.
tomb was
and the Ducal tombs were entirely altered in proportion.
drawn
as if to
fill
the pilasters, but in the final version (Pi.
were crowded between the
pilasters
the entire opening between
8, Fig.
4b) pietra serena piers
and the tombs, narrowing the whole
design. Michelangelo chose to subtract the lost
central section
AbAbA.
removed the emphasis from
had to be restored by accentuating the
In Pi. II a (Fig. 4a), they are
tomb
to be reflected in the
bays of the tomb, thus:
In execution, this rhythmical unity
not built
were
of the tombs, changing
it
from
width from the
a square panel to a
tall
niche enclosing the efligy. This solution disrupted the continuity be-
tween the entrance bays and the tomb, and made the former seem proportionately large. since there are
no
We
studies
do not know what prompted the change,
of the wall elevation
as a
whole: perhaps purely
structural considerations, since the piers support reHeving arches
the
tomb
if Pi. II a
niches.
may
there
had been drawn for
later addition
to a
But
more
have been expressive motivations
also:
of a third story might have suggested confining the tombs
vertical
two on
over
a two-story chapel like Brunelleschi's, the
frame consonant with the higher elevation; whether
the decision to put only one effigy at the centre of each has
dis-
a level with the sarcophagus),
vertical composition,
was a cause or
not be determined. The
also
(Pi.
iia
produced a more
of narrowing the tomb, can-
of architectural coherence in the
final design
was concerned primarily with the
sculpture.
loss
suggests that Michelangelo
a result
which
tomb
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
30
the sculpture rather than the marble architecture that gives the
It is
interior space
its
The dynamic forces generated the two lateral walls - forces that
three-dimensional unity.
by the figures and sarcophagi organize would have been intensified had Michelangelo finished the river-gods at the base of Pi. iia, which initiate an upward and outward movement. The side walls are bound to the entrance wall across the intervening space by the intense gazes of the Dukes and by the gestures of the allegories, which focus attention on the Madonna (Tolnay) (Pi. lo). The dissimilarity in style between the architectural members of the chapel and those of the tombs
Marble
is
is
partly due to differences in material.
particularly suited to sculptural refinements
with the most meticulous to such finesse.
detail,
may be carved
and
while pietra serena does not lend
Yet the sharp precision of Michelangelo's treatment
itself is
not
implicit in the nature
of marble, which
modelled forms,
tomb figures show; the emphasis on Hne, plane, outcome of a purposeful effort to accentuate by
and
fine detail
as
the
was the
is
equally congenial to softly
contrast the plasticity of the figures. Modelling architecture as far as possible: there are so
narrow
more than
recessions.
is
reinforced
Such Unearity
is
wore used
more
plastic
it is
not found
more
in later
forms appear; projecting columns
in the initial drawings for the Magnifici
they appear
by
another indication of the
same degree in Michelangelo's subsequent work. Already
designs for the chapel
are
from high above, which favours
revival of later fifteenth-century arcliitectural sculpture; to the
in the
no columns, and mouldings
that they appear as hnes, an impression that
the soft, uniform diffusion of light surfaces
was avoided
distinctly in later copies;
tomb
12a, c);
(Pi.
and a mid-century plan of the
chapel shows a revised version with deep niches containing encased
columns comparable
to those
of the hbrary vestibule
Michelangelo came to re-evaluate architecture in the process
his conservative
(Pi. 17).
Apparently
approach to the chapel
of designing the hbrary in the mid-1520's.
would Yet few
In the light of Vasari's comments, the term "conservative"
appear to be applicable only to the treatment of the material.
of the architectural elements are
radical in design: the pilaster system
THE MEDICI CHAPEL
31
and the flanking aediculas with segmental pediments on brackets are sober, ahnost canonical
by
contrast to the extraordinary tabernacles over
the doors (Pi. 9). These tabernacles are a sign of Michelangelo's emanci-
pation from the proprieties of Vitruvian rule and ancient models and
was
estabhsh a fantastic theme that for doors
and windows. The
phned by the reahzation
that
to re-appear in
fantasy, its
effect
however,
is
all
his later designs
always
strictly disci-
depends on the variation of tradi-
were abandoned for uncontrolled innovation. The tabernacle pediments are broken at the base and jut forward at the crown, and yet are adequately supported by pilasters tional
forms and would be
which we recognize the niche
is
as
lost if these
such in spite of the absence of definable capitals;
conventional in
its
deepest recession, but in a nearer plane
it
independence of parts by expanding horizontally and vertically beyond its proper limits. Where the inventiveness of
violates the expected
Quattrocento sculptors had been manifested in the free embeUishment
of famihar forms, Michelangelo penetrated into the nature of the forms themselves to give
formed from an
them unprecedented
significance: the wall
is
trans-
many-layered epidermis, and
inert plane to a vital,
elements formerly assembled - niche, frame, pediment - are
now
inex-
bound together by an architectural anatomy. The tabernacles signify an abandonment of traditional expression, and, by this token, a fundamental departure from the spirit of the tombs. The absence of any Quattrocento model for the entrance bays partly explains the differences,
tricably
we must also suppose a substantial passage of time between the designs of the tombs and tabernacles. The tombs were planned in 1521, when
but
quarrying began, but drawings for the tabernacles were sent to the patron
only in 1524, and even then Michelangelo refused for more than a year to send specific instructions to the quarries.
tabernacle design
was determined four or
The likeHhood
that the final
five years later than that
of the
to the reading-room
tombs
is
portals
of the Laurentian hbrary, drawn in 1526. The Magnifici tomb on
strengthened by
its
similarity in style
the entrance wall, started only in 1533, style to the
would
hbrary than to the Ducal tombs.
also
have been closer in
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
32
In the Medici Chapel, then, as in
all
of Michelangelo's
an idea changes and matures before our eyes to another.
Here the change
is
drastic,
as
because
we it is
glance the
development from the acceptance of an old tradition of a
new one
which, while
it is
later buildings,
from one
part
outcome of rapid
to the formulation
barely suggested in the chapel, was ulti-
mately to create a unity of ornament and structure never surpassed in architecture.
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CHAPTER
The
THE
Library of San Lorenzo
pioneers
superficial
IV
of modern architecture vigorously attacked the
adaptation of ancient and Renaissance forms that
typified late nineteenth-century design and, in their effort to
express a itself.
new
technology and
social order, lost interest in the Renaissance
Preoccupied with structural and
problems, they fol-
utilitarian
lowed the lead of Ruskin and VioUet-le-Duc in
criticizing Renaissance
architecture as "dishonest", unconcerned with the practical aspects
of
building, and devoted solely to impressing the eye with facades
of
borrowed ornament. architects
more
came
modern design
Tliis
won acceptance,
gradually
to feel sufficiently secure to approach the Renaissance
sympathetically, particularly for
of space, and
critics
Later, as
principles
its
monumental planning, control
of scale and proportion.
change in attitude
is
partly due to the efforts
whose discovery of new dimensions
historians
and
in Renaissance theory
and
practice has encouraged a deeper understanding.
But even the
of the Renaissance have submitted unconsciously arguing that purely visual deHght
is
of
apologists
to the old bias; in
a proper function
of architecture,
they have tacitly allowed that Renaissance buildings could not be de-
fended on technical or practical grounds. ^ Criticism of the Laurentian hbrary has been affected
an extent that the building
is
commonly
by
this bias to
interpreted as if
it
were
simply an essay in sculptural form and space-manipulation. But in this case
purely formal analysis
is
especially unjustified, for a constant
and guiding concern with problems of utiHty and structure
is
docu-
mented by an extensive correspondence between the patron and the architect. I.
E.g., Geoffrey Scott,
The
Architecture of Humanism,
London, 1914.
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
34
A
curious
mixture of medieval and modern ideas motivated the
commissioning of the Laurentian Hbrary. The decision to build cloister
of a reHgious estabHshment
v^as surely
prompted by
it
in the
the role
of
monasteries as major centres for the conservation and acquisition of
manuscripts in the Middle Ages.
of the
fifteenth century
ultimately
formed
From monastic
hbraries the humanists
their private collections
by printing ancient manuscripts.
When
by copying and humanists were
absorbed into the church, their books returned with them; to the library
of Sixtus IV in the Vatican; or to the Piccolomini hbrary in the Cathedral
of Siena. The Medici
by Lorenzo the Magnificentury, was preserved in the family
library, greatly enlarged
cent at the close of the fifteenth
palace as one of the major embelhshments of a worldly court; to the cloister of San Lorenzo
symboHzed the
its
shift in the roots
removal
of Medici
power from mercantile to ecclesiastical activity. But the decision was more than a symboHc gesture; it also involved a change in the role of the library from a private mark of distinction to a public institution, thus announcing a transition from the Age of Humanism to the Age of the power state, in which institutions for commoners were conferred by princes as a palliative for tyranny. The new role put more emphasis on utihty than had been customary before; the library had to be designed for the convenience of readers as well as for the conservation of books.
might be
a civic ornament, like the great Quattrocento palaces
and
It
villas,
no longer could be its chief function; as if to accentuate the change, its expressive effects were kept inside, for the benefit of scholars, while the exterior remained anonymous (Pis. 15-17; Figs. 3, 5). Correspondence between Pope Clement VII in Rome and Michelangelo in Florence reveals the new approach; as in modern practice, the patron was constantly concerned with the utihtarian programme but
this
while the architect strove for a
maximum
of expressive
effect
within
its
of 1524, economy and convenience and preoccupation with utihty moulded
confines. In the initial instructions
were guides
to the choice
of site,
the plan; separation of Latin and Greek books in the
first
scheme, later
the isolation of rare books into small studies, finally the amalgamation
THE LIBRARY OF SAN LORENZO of the
studies into a large rare-book
35
room. Michelangelo met the
re-
quirements readily, but constantly sought to guide decisions toward aesthetic goals. spite
A
site
on
the church square, for example, he rejected in
of its convenience for construction because the
new
building
would
have hampered the view of the facade.
Having
selected the present
and vaulting library
the
site,
(for fire prevention)
Pope demanded
the strengthening
of the monastic quarters beneath the
with minimal disturbance of
their
customary functions. In the
Spring of 1524 Michelangelo concentrated on sustaining the weight of
new
the
structure without substantially thickening the walls
of the
His solution was a buttress system apphed to the exterior which seen between the facade
windows
(Pi. 15)
and on the opposite
old.
may be
side,
where
a Romanesque device of blind arcades was appHed to the old building. This method imposed two hmiting controls on the design:
first, it
did
not greatly thicken the walls below, so that the Hbrary walls had to be as thin as
would be compatible with
security,
and second,
its
regularly
spaced buttresses estabhshed a bay-system which controlled the placement
of the windows and the minants in the design of his
interior articulation.
late
These are major deter-
medieval buildings and Michelangelo,
Gothic predecessors, responded to them by submitting
forms to the
discipline
This discipline Fig.
5)
is
his expressive
of structure.
most evident in the reading room
where the bay-system of the
interior (Pi. 16,
buttresses determines not only
treatment of the wall elevations, but of the ceihng and floor
The
ceiling,
designed
like
as if its
as well.
decorative partitions were set within a
skeleton of longitudinal and transverse beams, appears to be supported
by
the wall pilasters. EarHer Renaissance ceilings
abstract patterns
were composed in
of coffers independent of the supporting
wall.
The Pope was aware of this difference; he started by demanding a ceihng which would differ from those in the Vatican, and when Michelangelo sent him a drawing, he was disturbed that the skeleton did not appear to conform to the wall membering. Though the skeleton is only a symbol of actual structure,
it
must conform
closely to the
beams and
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
36 ties
of the roof trusses above, because the walls between the
too thin for support.
(Fig. 5, plan).
This
uncommon
pilasters are
thinness
is
a res-
ponse to structural imperatives which did not occur to Michelangelo in /^
his initial designs. In
an early sketch, motivated more by purely expres-
sive impulses (Pi. 19b),
thicker at the base, but this
which would
drawing preceded the
buttressing system. This
able
is
may have
he proposed a wall which
is
been no
surely have been heavier. Apparently
structural solutions, since
it
ignores the final
what
familiar Renaissance practice;
that such a marvellous invention should
have been
is
remark-
cast aside in
favour of a quite different one under pressure of structural and practical requirements.
room
In the fmal design for the reading
placed closer together and brought
roof allowed it
(Pi. 15).
down
windows were low as the cloister
(Fig. 5) the
to a level as
This change, which increased the light and brought
closer to the reading desks,
was prompted
also
by
a
change in the
position of the desks; Pi. 19b shows the articulation starting at the floor,
and was drawn with free-standing desks in mind, placed
was
them
flush to the wall (Pi. 16).
Now even
wliile the fmal
the
wooden
scheme
furniture
to play a part in the structural system, as a visual support for the
pilasters; in
response to the
new
relationship,
Michelangelo abandoned
the massive, sculptural handling of his sketch in favour of a typically
membering and emphasis on planes. The second design reduced the wall mass to a minimum. Frames for windows and niches were not the usual sculptural aediculas projecting from the surFlorentine dehcacy of
face,
but were placed in rectangular recessions behind the wall plane so
that a greater part
than the
window
of the area between the
embrasure, a mere screen
plan). In compensation, the pilasters
pilasters
less
became no deeper
than a foot thick
were not used
as
(Fig. 5,
ornaments hung
on the surface in the usual fashion, but as structural members - interior compHments to the buttresses - bracing the wall sufficiently to reheve the thin panels between them of a bearing function. In every detail Michelangelo gave formal expression to the hghtness
of the structure: the
window
frames are composed of
lines rather
than
•a
o o u
too
a o
•a
3 a
t9A
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
38
of masses;
their attenuated volutes are weightless
The
rather than to sustain.
though potentially
baluster-like
forms on the tabernacles above,
sculptural, are studiously confined within the planes
of the frame. There
a rococo grace in the ceiling panels,
is
recessed so slightly that they have hardly
preparatory sketches first
into
and sccni to hang
19a).
(Pi.
The
more body than
which
are
the sheet of
entrance door, like the walls, was
drawn in heavy, modelled forms (Pi. 25b) and later compressed a framework composed of thin layers. In every detail, the evolution
of the design tended
to give the
room
a
more calm and
regular character
conducive to study.
The
emphasis on planes first
(Pi.
20a) to a sculptural treatment resembling the
study for the reading
between the two rooms as
from an
vestibule design developed in the opposite direction,
room
19b and 21). The ultimate contrast
(Pis.
signifies their difference in
purpose; the vestibule,
an area assigned only to communication, imposed fewer
expression.
But
like the
reading room,
ed wall thickness though, because
it
it
had to be designed to
was higher,
this
on
restraints
a restrict-
was
tliickness
slightly increased (Fig. 5, plan).
Michelangelo met serious practical problems from the attempt to unify the vestibule and reading
room
members and openings
at the
(Pi.
base of great height
around the
all
same height
interiors
an
start;
initial
by putting
the
20a) produced a spiritless
vestibule. Later his
hope of unifying
two rooms under a common roof had to be abandoned, Wittkower discovered that before the modem restoration
the exterior of the
too
(Pi. 21).
of the
when
exterior,
masonry showed
window
frames were added, the
a change in plan: the vestibule cornice
height of the reading present height.
the three upper
The
room
cornice and later
flat
dows
in the centre
raised
early project appears in Pi. 21,
vault the height of the reading
has a
was
of each of its
sides.
room
Much
ceiling
of the
all
reduced, which
made
it
started at the
about
where
3
m.
to
its
the vestibule
with small win-
final design
fixed in this drawing, but because the overall height
proportions are
was
is
is
much
already less,
the
possible to put pilasters
between the columns and the tabernacles of the main Order, and
to use a
THE LIBRARY OF SAN LORENZO complete entablature. The scheme had to be changed for structural reasons,
proposed
and
a
wooden
heavy
a substitute for the
as
ceiling
Pope objected
a problem, because the
and the only possible solution was to
39 at the
end of 1525
with overhead skyHghts was
vault.
Now
lighting
became
to the unprecedented skyhghts,
admit orthodox
raise the walls to
windows, thereby destroying the overall unity of the hbrary design. The heightening of the vestibule changed its proportions (Pi. 17, Fig.
5):
were greatly heightened and correspondingly
the columns
broadened, so that there was no longer
room
motif returned, however, on the inner
(the pilaster
these alterations reduced the horizontal accents
in combination with the
point
columns
The
may have
appeared
of a strange,
practical
tall
clerestory
of the early design and,
windows, increased
verticaHty; at
(Pis. 17, 25a).
width and expanded height of the vestibule made an
pointless to discuss
is
of the column
additional vertical motif of the volutes beneath the
the
restricted
interior
form;
faces
and the entablature was reduced to a thin moulding. Each of
niches),
this
for the flanking pilasters
unique in the Renaissance.
irrational quaHty,
whether
It is
compelling space was the product of
this
Ughting requirements or Michelangelo's abstract search for
like all great architecture
more than
either.
it
owes
its
distinction to the fact that
it
Michelangelo did not simply submit to the rejection
of his original scheme, but used the demand for heightened proportions as
an inspiration to conjure a
new
spirit
from
existing motifs.
The
reten-
tion of the basic forms of Pi. 21 in the fmal design illustrates Michel-
angelo's organic approach to design.
grew
as the
body grows: with
The
pilasters,
and tabernacles
the heightening of the walls, the
ing expanded; and since here only accents
Columns,
overcame the horizontal
upward growth was
as if
by
possible, vertical
biological necessity.
most extraordinary innovation in the vestibule design
main Order, where columns of the wall
(Pi.
17, Fig. 6). In
(Pi. 5b),
is
in the
are placed in recessions behind the surface
orthodox Renaissance
practice,
project forward to sustain lintels or entablatures as they
Lorenzo fa9ade
member-
do
columns
in the
San
but in the Hbrary the foundations were only as
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
40
Fig. 6.
Structural system of the Library vestibule.
thick as the wall, and could not have supported projecting
Michelangelo's design to be independent
alters the classical role
from
of columns, wliich seem
the architecture, like statues in niches, wliile
But
the projecting wall appears to support the roof. the result of our doxically,
it is
own
the canonical use of the
as a
Gothic
that the wall behind the
nothing without their
pier.
The
columns
is
aid, so that
wall-mass. But they are shafts,
this
impression
is
conditioned responses to the Renaissance: para-
column
ornamental, while Michelangelo's invention
of the structure
members.
more than
is
(Pi.
5b) that
is
entirely
as essential to the stability
isometric projection (Fig. 6) shows a fragile screen that could support
they function
as a substitute for the
a substitute; being
monohthic stone
they are stronger in compression than the brick masonry of the
THE LIBRARY OF SAN LORENZO and Michelangelo capitalized on
walls,
this
41
property by making the
columns the chief support of the roof Before the clerestory got its deceptive facing, one could see that the columns support heavy piers
which
sustain the roof, while over the tabernacles the walls recede to a
accommodates the windows (Fig. 6). In the fmal design, the structural function of column and wall are exactly the opposite
thin plane that then,
of
their visual effects.
Michelangelo disguised
his technical
ingenuity
because he was chiefly concerned with form, which partly justifies the failure
of modern
critics to. detect
the nature of the structure. Like
engineering discoveries, the recessed column device started sive motive; in Pi. pilasters rather (Pi. 13 b) it
19b the
stresses are
a
than on the columns, and contemporary
its
effect.
tomb
designs
But even where
conductor of major forces, the recessed column remained an
efficient substitute for the wall,
than
an expres-
concentrated on the flanking
used the recessed columns for sculptural
was not
as
many
and in
this respect
was more
utiHtarian
projecting cousins.
Everywhere
in the vestibule Michelangelo's hcentious use
of
classical
vocabulary, obscuring the actual relationships of load and support, created paradoxes for his academic contemporaries level, the volutes,
which others used
as
(Pi. 17).
On the lower
supporting members, stand in a
plane well forward of the columns, sustaining nothing but themselves.
The pilaster frames of the tabernacles (Pi. 24) invert the traditional design by narrowing toward the base rather than toward the top, and are crowned by "capitals" which are thinner rather than broader than the just
below the
capitals
appear vestigial
regulae, motifs
shaft;
boldly pilfered
from the eaves of Doric Temples. These and lesser details of the tabernacles, niches, and door frames show an extraordinary fertihty of invention; striking in themselves, they are given more impact by our foreknowledge of the ancient models from which they
Though
Michelangelo's drawings for the vestibule are
of one wall - the west to
err.
working
in line
this
conventional device did not
all
elevations
commit him
and plane: shading and the indication of projection
and recession give them sculptural mass. This consciousness of the third
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
42 dimension
room
the
what made
is is
die design uniquely successful spatially, for
not an assemblage of four walls but an organic unity:
at
the corners the elevations can be described as mating rather than meeting. Furthermore, motifs conceived for the
purpose on the north and south; the recessed columns the door, and
on
may
at the entrance to the
be read
as a
reading
room
monumental framework
for
the wall opposite the door the central bay remains
blank, without a tabernacle.
confmed space have
power of
west wall serve a different
Though
the four walls of this remarkably
three different elevations, unity
is
enforced by the
the insistent and continuous alternation of receding and pro-
jecting elements.
Continuity in the design of the wall heightens the shocking the stairway
(Pi.
i8a. Fig. 5),
which pours out
effect
into the vestibule as an
aHen intruder, a monumental piece of furniture, yet the only feature
by
of the design (Michelangelo intended
constructing
it
in
of 1524;
mounting
at that
model of 15 58-1 5 59,
time two
flights
in
were placed
to a platform before the reading
essential
to emphasize this contrast
wood). The present stairway, executed by
nati after Michelangelo's
of
room
Amman-
no way resembles
plans
against the side walls,
entrance
(Pi.
20b).
The
aim of the early project was to achieve tectonic and visual unity of stairs
would start and end beneath the major bay divisions of the elevation. There was no sense of intrusion or of contrast at that time, and the design was quite practical because it left a maximum and walls
of
so that the flights
free circulation space
between and before the
stairs.
Two
stairways
flanking a central entrance rarely appeared earher in Renaissance architecture,
but the motif was not Michelangelo's invention; a generation
before,
Giuhano da Sangallo had sketched^ exterior entrances
Medici Villa
at
Poggio a Caiano in the form
most drawing of Pi.
The fmal
plan (Fig. 5) departed from both utiUty and tradition. Since
Giuliano's drawing, UfFizi Arch., 1640,
Florence, 1943, Pi.
-Mssim^
that appears in the upper-
22.
the vault beneath the vestibule 2.
for the
II,
Fig. a.
was uniformly is
strong,
no
restrictions
reproduced by G. Marcliini, Giuhano da Sangallo,
THE LIBRARY OF SAN LORENZO were imposed on the placement of the angelo must have regarded
this
stairs,
and
at
an early date Michel-
exceptional freedom as an invitation to
bold expression. Once permitted to abandon the wall to change an area subservient to convenience to
the visitor's experiences.
While
43
flights,
he was able
one which commands
the wall flights, like rehef sculpture,
had
been devised for an estabhshed framework, the free-standing stairway,
Hke sculpture in the round, could be nearly independent from ment. Its modelled, curvilinear motifs and irrational form
its
environ-
signify the
and actually clash with the surrounding walls. The stairway so lavishly fills the room that the hmited remaining space
from
release
is
tectonic laws
wasted for circulation, exaggerating a confmement already impHed
by
the shaft-like proportions and the unattainable height of the windows.
To
the sense of compression
which
factor of frustration: he seeks to
appear to be pouring
this
imposes on the visitor
mount toward
downward and outward.
is
added a
the goal, but the steps
On
the side flights the
upper story of each successive pair projects forward over the lower, while in the centre the softened convex treads appear to advance, spread-
Tolnay phrased
ing out,
as
colour.
The
seem
it,
like a
flow of lava, which they resemble in
globules emerging at their sides fortify this impression; they
to have been forced ahead
by
the pressure of the balustrade. Wliile
the centre flight suggests the discomfort of ascent against the tide, the
more real hazard. There is, after all, a dramatic if not a formal harmony between the stairway and the walls, because both conspire by their aggressiveness against the observer's ease; the wall planes, emerging forward from the side fhghts, being unprotected
by
railings, are a
columns, seem to exert inward pressure on the confmed space in response to the
outward pressure of the
To anyone
stairs.
famihar with Michelangelo's sculpture
surprise to find the evocation
to engender in the visitor the ambivalence
we, in a
we
sense,
imagine
become
should be no
of compression and frustration in
architecture as well. Here, in an enclosed space, he
biHty which
it
his Moses, for
his
had the opportunity
between action and immo-
example, to be experiencing. So
the subjects as well as the observers of the work.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
44
We
may
look
Moses without attempting to share or even to
at the
we
analyse his state of mind, but resistance not to experience
should have to muster
some of the
conflicts that
uncommon
Michelangelo pre-
pared for us in the vestibule.
As
the vestibule design evolved
to an opposition
from an
initial
unity of stairs and walls
of the two, so the concept of the library
developed from a unification to a contrast of the reading tibule.
room and
ves-
As the one was systematically sobered, the other was progressively
dramatized.
The two must be
engender frustration for
its
seen together; the vestibule does not
own
sake,
but rather to intensify the exper-
ience of rehef as one passes into the reading room.
had been
if it
whole
as a
built (Pi. i8b;
The rare-book room,
planned for the south end of the hbrary,
would have added another experience mediating contrasting moods by its combination of static form and
to the left in Fig. 5),
between the
vigorous modelling.
Its
plan reveals Michelangelo's consciousness of the
geometrical sequence of his scheme: square, long rectangle, triangle,
and suggests the psychological
as
well
as the utihtarian aptness
of
his
decision to articulate the upright, vertical vestibule actively, and the
recumbent, horizontal reading
We
can gain from the
room
liistory
passively.
of the Laurentian Hbrary
insight into the relative significance
a singular
of "commodity, firmness, and de-
Hght" in Renaissance architectural design. The aim of
this analysis
has
been to emphasize the neglected factors of utility and technique without sacrificing awareness
pressive
of Michelangelo's constant preoccupation with ex-
and commanding form.
the sixteenth century, that as
it
was not
of any other period, was
a
If this preoccupation
was dominant
in
exclusive; Renaissance architecture, like
product of social and teclinological forces
well as of ideals. Michelangelo himself justified the fantastic design of
his stairway
those 3.
on
by explaining
that the central flight
was
for the ruler
the side for retainers.^
Letter to Vasari in Florence
of
Sept. 28, 1555 {Lettere, p. 548; Nachlass
I,
pp. 419
f.)
and
CHAPTER V
The
WAR
of Florence
Fortifications
was considered an
art in the Renaissance.
cento Condottieri fought for fame and
The Quattro-
money and aimed
to
outwit rather than to destroy one another; they were colleagues in an honourable profession.
But by
the mid-sixteenth century
the aggressive poHtics of great states and the increasing efficiency of
firearms turned
war
into the deadly science that
So, for a century after the introduction of
military
installations
were designed by
knowledge of arms and
has been ever since.
it
heavy
artists;
artillery
but
when
became more important
tactics
{ca.
1450),
technical
qualifications
than imagination and improvisation, mjlitary engineers pre-empted the field.
Art historians rarely have made the distinction between the aesthetic
and the technical age of warfare, and have and designs of the Renaissance
military design
was not only
Moro
in 1482 as a civil
ually that he
of the century 1450-15 50,
recommended himself
to
Lodovico
was a competent
painter.
knew
And Httle
over a half century
caslater
of painting and sculpture,
long study of and experience in fortification qualified him
expert.
as
an
^
Medieval intervals
by
fortifications
with
their
long walls interrupted
high, square projecting towers
after the introduction
I.
artists
and military planner, suggesting only
Michelangelo said that while he his
treatises
major source of income, but a major
a
preoccupation. Leonardo da Vinci il
mihtary
they were irrelevant to the study of
many
personaHty. But for
artistic
as if
set aside the
of heavy mobile siege
See the conversation quoted Vol.
II,
p. 113.
(Pi.
25c)
at regular
became obsolete
artillery in the mid-fifteenth
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
46
century. ^ Early caiinon were powerful
enough
to destroy defences
vulnerable by thinness, height, and sharp angles. defenders could not be manoeuvered
The need
for small arms.
much
was
the artillery of the
narrow parapets designed
for a drastic change in design
of arms
to superiority
of large
batteries
of
was demonstrated
1490's, the success
an
as to
artillery.
of 1476 advised using one cannon for
treatise It
so
potential
tactical
the
by the French invasions of the
to the Itahans
was not due
on
And
made
earlier grasp
of the
(An ItaUan miHtary
a force
a long time before cities could afford to
of which
of 18,000 men.)
do more than
to
lower
old walls and towers and to remove crenellations; the chief problem for early designers
was
to strengthen angles
At
fortresses at strategic points.
and gates or to build compact
the turn of the fifteenth century, the
favoured solution was a fortress of square or triangular plan with low,
heavy round towers interior
comers having gun emplacements
at the
chambers and on the
Variations of this
in vaulted
roof.
method
found in the
are
Leonardo and of Diirer^ and were
of
theoretical studies
built at the Fortresses
of Ostia (1483-
1486 by GiuHano da Sangallo and Baccio PonteUi), the Castel Sant' Angelo in
Rome
nello in
(1490's,
Tuscany
GiuHano and Antonio da Sangallo the (1490's, designer
Elder), Sarza-
unknown), the Port of Civitavecchia
Bramante) and, via Leonardo, influenced the design of the
(1508,
Chateau of Chambord.
The round tower had two advantages over vulnerable to missiles and
2.
On
development of
the
MachiaveUi, L'arte
delle fortificazioni nella spiaggia
Lc
piante
.
.
.
di
Roma
had an unimpeded coverage of
it
Italian fortifications in the fifteenth
delta guerra
e
.
.
.
and sixteenth
it
a
was
less
wide
arc.
centuries, see
N.
(Florence, 1929); A. Gugliclmotti, Storia (Storia dclla wariiia pontificia, V), Rome, 1887; E. Rocclii,
militare
scritti
romana
del secolo
the square;
iiiiiwri
XVI, Turin and Rome, 1902;
Idem, Lejonti storiche delV arclntettura
1908-1918; F. C. Taylor, The Art of Cambridge, 1921;). W. Wright, The Development of the Bastioned System of Permanent Fortifications, 1500-1800, Washington, D.C., 1946 (mimeographed volume); A. R. Hall, "Military Technology", A History of Technology, III, Oxford, 1957, pp. 347-376; H. A. Delacroix, Problems in 16th Century Italian Urbanism: the Radial Plan from Sforzinda to Palmanova, Thesis, U. of California, Berkeley, 1958; J. R. Hale, in The Xew Cambridge Modern History, Cambridge, 1958, Vol. I, Ch. IX; militare,
Rome,
War
in Italy,
Vol.
II,
3.
1908; B. Eberhardt, Die Biirgcn
Ch. XVI.
Italiens, Berlin,
On Michelangelo's fortification drawings, see Tolnay,
Unterricht der Befestigung,
Niimberg, 1527.
1940.
THE FORTIFICATIONS OF FLORENCE But the
interior
47
chambers were made impractical by fumes from the
cannon, and the forward faces of the towers could not be protected from the curtain walls behind, so that the
enemy might
take cover directly
before the towers. This was such a serious drawback that the tower
system was abandoned a few years after the already extinct in Italy
The
alternative
modem
by
was the bastion
platform, level with the walls;
behind.
At
all its
experiments;
it
was
the time of Diirer's pubhcation.
systems of fortification.
shape allowed
first
surfaces to
(Fig. 7),
It
which became the
was not
a
basis
of
tower but a projecting
form was triangular, since this be flanked by fire from the curtain walls
the base the triangle
its
basic
was modified
to provide
emplacements
for gunners to shoot parallel to the curtain walls in case the
enemy came
close.
Fig. 7. a.
The
Typical early bastion trace ("Delle Maddalene", Verona, 1527) e. gorge. d. curtain walls c. casemate face b. flank
bastioned system probably developed out of drawings and for-
by the
script
Trattato di Architettura civile e militare (after
with the
whose manu1482?) was written
Sienese artist Francesco di Giorgio Martini,
tresses
assistance
of the most learned of Quattrocento
condottieri,
Federigo da Montefeltre. Francesco, though a partisan of the round tower, produced a also.
number of fortress
plans including triangular sahents
Perhaps the success of such sahents, built by Francesco in
late
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
48
fifteenth-century fortresses in the
Duchy of Urbino and adopted by
Leonardo, accelerated the development of the bastion. In
view of the
historical
importance of the bastion,
the effort to determine w^hen and v^here after the initial researches
it
was
first
it is
curious that
used was abandoned
of nineteenth-century mihtar)^
writers.
It
may
have been invented by members of the Sangallo family in the service of the papacy at the turn of the sixteenth century; primitive versions appear
sketchbook of GiuHano da Sangallo dating before 1503; and two small coastal forts in papal territory - at Civita Castellana (1494-1497)
in the Siena
and Nettuno form.
(i
501-1502) - reveal successive stages in the evolution of the
A few years after the French invasions,
the flurry of fortress build-
ing subsided, and until the eve of the Imperial invasion of 1527 that
ended with the Sack of Rome, we know of only two major defensive systems raised in Italy - the first to encompass whole cities - at Ferrara ini 5 1 2 and at the Port of Civitavecchia ini5i5-i5i9.The Ferrara enceinte
which Michelangelo inspected was modernized
in preparation for defending Florence,
later in the century,
and no earher plans have been
pubhshed; but projects for Civitavecchia by Antonio da Sangallo the
Younger are preserved in the Uffizi and show an irregular enceinte in which the bastioned system appears to be fully developed. The younger Antonio subsequently became a leading ItaHan authority on fortifications; in 1526,
with Michele Saninichele, he surveyed the defences of the papal
territories in the
invited
Marches and the Po Valley for Clement VII, and was
by MachiaveUi
to consult
on the Florence
fortifications; three
years later, as chief engineer of the Imperial forces, he
was
pitted against
Michelangelo in the siege of Florence and afterwards was commissioned to build the
Sanmichele,
permanent defences and the Fortezza d'Abasso
who was
probably
a disciple
(15 34-).
of Sangallo, was credited by
Vasari with the invention of the bastion and with the design of the earhest
surviving example called "delle Maddalene" in Verona, in 1527 (Fig.
7).
Recently the engineer Michele da Leone was found to be the designer; round tower-bastions had been raised at Verona as late as 1525, and Leone's innovations were refmed by Sanmichele in completing the
city's
THE FORTIFICATIONS OF FLORENCE
49
enceinte after his arrival in 15 29-1 5 30.* These bastions remained for
decades the most advanced in Italy because of their large vaulted and ventilated interiors, covered passages
Verona changed
by Baldassare
designs Italy
modern
to the
and
retired flanks. In the year that
on
system, Siena also built six bastions
many of the major
Peruzzi. In the 1530's
cities in
followed the lead: Ancona (1532), Turin (1536), Castro (i537)Âť
Naples (1538), Perugia and Nepi (1540). The Httle we know of the early history of the bastioned system
enough
to
show
that a lethargic
was suddenly
sixteenth century 1
development in the
first
quarter of the
accelerated throughout Italy in the years
among
526-1 5 30. This places Michelangelo's fortification projects
incunabula of inventive
modem
moment
in
mihtary architecture, just
its
history, at a time
no proven formula of
lished
at the
when
this
is
most
were of
most
affect buildings are in the field
invention of concrete in ancient
in the last century his
Rome
As
of the automobile.
which
a mechanical innovation
is
of structure
ing but which affects the
way
it is
used,
is
modem architect
Artillery, like
not a part of a build-
and consequently the way
fortification
is
to reconcile
two
maximum
security against
defenders only a
enemy
missiles
is
A
design
likely to allow the
minimum of manoeuvrabiHty and
In the Renaissance a satisfactory equilibrium
after a
it
exigencies
of artillery warfare that are incompatible: defence and offence.
versa.
motor
built.
The foremost problem of with
steel
- but the challenge encountered by Michelangelo and
in planning for the requirements
transportation,
a rule,
or of structural
contemporaries was more comparable to that of the
must be
Httle ac-
one of those rare events in the history of architecture when
technical discoveries that as the
and
design. Urdike the situation in other arts,
technological advances altered the basic precepts of design.
- such
fluid
the
experience had estab-
the lessons of antiquity and of preceding generations
count;
is
range, and vice
was reached only
long period of experimentation. The early solutions discussed
4. See the important study of Sanmichele's fortifications, E. Langenskiold, Michele Sanmichele, Uppsala, 1938, Ch. VIII.
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
50
here were overbalanced on the side of defence; Michelangelo's designs
were the
first
to suggest the full potentialities of offensive planning.
The drawings eloquently testify to Michelangelo's concentration on the power of the defenders; his bastions spring from the walls like crustacean monsters eager to crush the enemy in their claws (Pis. 26a-28a). Compared to the blunt and massive blocks of the Sangallos and Sanmichele
(Pi.
3b), they
symbohze than rently this
is
seem
to be fantastic visions created rather to
implement the
to
the impression they
terrifying
power of
firearms.
made on contemporaries,
Appa-
for further
evolution of sixteenth-century fortification followed the path of the other architects;
but the fact that Baroque fortification ultimately produced
designs similar in
many
respects to Michelangelo's impels us to
fmd
in
these drawings not only their unparalleled expressive force but the special
grasp of military functions that
made them
prophetic if not influential.
Part of the motivation for the aggressive biological forms in these
drawings bastions
is
certainly purely formal: the curved orillons
(Pi.
27a) are
monumental
of some of the
versions of the stairway motifs in the
Laurentian library; in other designs what Scully has aptly called the *
'reflex
diagonal" has the dynamic
allegories
spirit
of the Medici tomb sarcophagi
and of the stairways of the Capitoline
an analysis of the nature of
and Belvedere. But
Hill
defence reveals a pecuhar practical
artillery
justification for such forms.
While
civil
and religious buildings are planned to
use them, fortifications must be planned to suit guns.
motion or
visualize people in
at rest,
who The architect may
suit the
and in the Quattrocento he chose
the latter; but he must visuahze guns in action, since they are
constantly propelling missiles.
modem fortifications
On
people
this
no
use unless
account, the development of
aided the radical change from a
static to a
dynamic
conception of architecture which came about in the course of the sixteenth century.
Though most
special implications
of planning for
artillery,
were slow
to see the
Michelangelo was prepared
them immediately, because his projects for the Laurentian represent the first dynamic planning of the Renaissance in that
to grasp
library
military architects
THE FORTIFICATIONS OF FLORENCE
51
they urged the visitor to pass through the building rather than to seek a static
vantage point.
The uniqueness of Michelangelo's fortification drav^ings is the result of his concentration on the aggressive action of heavy missiles as they explode outv^ard from a defensive nucleus. These are the only mihtary designs of the age - w^ith the exception of a few of Leonardo's sketches that consistently specify the trajectories
angelo's bastions
and to
to house
form
is
structures themselves
The pecuHarly organic
character of Michel-
due to the
release
What
which
also
they are envisaged
fact that
dynamic
to mechanical forces
airplanes,
is
forces.
A
artillery
as a
framework
comparable adjustment of
found in the "streamlining" of modern
produces certain zoomorphic suggestions.
Michelangelo did not consider in
powerful
v^ith
and power; the
a vigour that evokes their spread
take shape around them..
of cannon; they are stroked
of the enemy: the
hurtling into, as well as
away from
httle part in his thinking.
Had he
his plans
fact that
was the equally
cannon
balls
would be
the bastions seems to have played
given more attention to
this
inescapable
condition of defensive action, prudence might have dictated a
more sober
expression.
His
many
sharp and attenuated sahents are comparable to small and
hghtly armed
commando
units;
they provide
maximum
versatihty but are not calculated to sustain prolonged attack
centrated forces. Since bastions are devices offensive, Michelangelo's ideas
contemporaries,
who
by nature more
were not destined
In the most zoomorphic of the projects the faces of the bastions
positions later (?)
defensive than
to be accepted; but his
(Pi.
(Pis.
his
drawings.
26a, 27b) there are curves
which cannot be flanked by
and so give cover to an enemy drawings
from con-
thought almost exclusively of defence, would have
found better balanced solutions had they studied
on
range and
fire
from other
some of the eHminated, which may
close to the walls. In
28a) these blind spots are
be due both to criticism from miHtary experts and to Michelangelo's habit of starting with a formal statement and later adjusting tural
and functional conditions.
it
to struc-
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
52
in these "later"
It is
of Baroque
drawings that Michelangelo anticipates the forms
fortifications. Plans
such
as Pi.
28a are strikingly similar to
by
ideal bastions suggested in the Maniere de Fortifier (1689)
French miUtary engineer Vauban ravelins, the isolation
triangular trace.
Michelangelo
But
we may
fire
comparing
in fail
fortress plan in
from adjacent
28b), particularly in the use of
(Pi.
of the several sahents, and the acute, attenuated
fate
of the
latter:
Vauban's system
which every bastion
is
is
part
of
supported by flanking
sahents and bastions, while Michelangelo's
added to the curtain wall, which must fend for
unit,
by Vauban and between the two
isolated bastions
to detect a crucial difference
which explains the obscure an overall
the great
is
an isolated
The
itself.
attitude
by Bonaiuto Lorini in criticizing his French colleagues:^ "Since (the bastions) were small in size and the curtain walls were long, the defenders were hampered both by the distance between bastions and by the restricted space, which of contemporaries toward
this deficiency is
became congested; thus the
easily
fended
.
.
.".
faces
expressed
of the bastions remained unde-
In the perfected late Renaissance system the mutual support
of all saHent elements was taken for granted.
We
do not know whether the temporary earthworks that Michelangelo hurriedly erected for the Siege of Florence in 1529-1530 resembled his drawings, which were projects for permanent installations, probably done
a year earlier.
Antonio da Sangallo the Younger,
earthworks with masonry in the
much of Michelangelo's typical examples of his
later 1530's
who
could not have retained
system, since the permanent installations were
more
cautious style.
It is
ironic that Michelangelo's
remarkable experiments should have reached posterity the hands of his worst that
enemy and most unsympathetic
Vauban himself should have
as authentic
replaced the
filtered
through
compatriot, and
studied the later defences of Florence
documents of Michelangelo's work.
The drawings never were
circulated. Military historians
have not
dis-
covered them yet, and have interpreted Michelangelo on the grounds of his 5.
dubious contribution to the defences of the Vatican and the papal Dclle Fortificationi, Venice, 1597, pp. T40-141.
THE FORTIFICATIONS OF FLORENCE ports,
and from
53
of the Siege of Florence. But the
literary chronicles
chroniclers, brief as they are, left a record
of Michelangelo's temporary
They
defences that adds a dimension to the data in the drawings.
des-
cribe curtains and saHents of packed earth and straw covered with un-
baked bricks made of organic materials, the principle of which was to nuUify by absorption the shock of missiles on exposed surfaces. The theory of
defence opposed the current preference for massive
elastic
and was conceptually attuned to the supple, zoomorphic character of the drawings which, in fact, have frequent indications of earthen escarpments serving the same purpose along the curtains (Pis. rigid walls,
27a, 28a
marked
"terra").
Thus Michelangelo apphed
his
organic theory
of design both to the offensive and defensive problems of mihtary architecture.
If the tions,
drawings had no chance to
style.
The
in constant radial
remove from
tions
necessity to find an architectural solution for projectiles
motion along
his
mind
the
infinitely varied paths
last vestiges
of the
of the Quattrocento. The experience was
in the Laurentian hbrary, still
of fortifica-
they were an important factor in the formation of Michelangelo's
mature
to
affect the future history
where the
visitor
must have helped
static figures
and propor-
a catalyst to ideas tested
was impelled
to
move, but
along a fixed axis and through independent spaces; the next
represented Fiorentini,
by
stage,,
the Capitoline Hill and the projects for San Giovanni dei
imposed a variety of radial axes on
the visitor a multiple choice of
Perhaps the study of
human motion.
artillery
a unified space, allowing
movements (compare
suggested
this
Pis.
28a and 36b).
new way of
dealing with
CHAPTER
The
VI
Capitoline Hill
MEDIEVAL Rome had no
centre.
Other Itahan towns
been smaller in antiquity grew in squares, while
Rome
clusters
that
had
about their ancient
gradually shrank until
its
fora
and major
churches were on the outskirts, and the remnants of a metropohs settled in compressed disorder along the banks
government decided it
chose the deserted
to raise a site
communal
of the Tiber.
When
the city
palace in the twelfth century,
of the Tabularium on the slope of the Capitoline
RepubHcan Forum. The decision must have been dream of renovatio - the restoration of ancient glory -
Hill overlooking the
dictated as the
by
the
had been the
liill
site
of the Arx of the earhest
settlers
and of the
major temples of Imperial Rome.^ Isolated from the everyday hfe of the city
on
as the
a
summit without paved
Romans
called
it,
accesses, the Capitol, or
failed until the sixteenth century to
sufficient civic pride to foster the construction
munal piazza such Middle Ages.
We
tural compositions
as
nearly every major Itahan city had produced in the
owe
to this delay
one of the most imposing architec-
of all time; nowhere but in
It
life
arouse
of a monumental com-
Rome
had a Renaissance
architect been given the opportunity to create a grandiose
for the political
Campidogho
of a great
environment
city.
was lack of opportunity rather than of
desire that deterred early
Renaissance designers from executing ambitious civic schemes. Every architectural theorist
of the Renaissance was
a philosopher
of urbanism;
Alberti and Leonardo thought primarily of improving the appearance
and convenience of existing towns;
I.
A. Graf,
Schramm,
and Francesco
di
Giorgio
Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginazioni del iiicdio evo, 2nd ed., Turin, 1923; P. Rom Renovatio, Leipzig, 1925; F. Sclineider, Rom imd Romgedanke im Mittelalter,
Kaiser,
Munich, 1926.
Filarete
ti.
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THE CAPITOLINE HILL drew
ideal,
55
geometrically perfect projects to be raised anew. But their
schemes remained on paper, and only in occasional provincial such
as Pienza,
villages,
Cortemaggiore, or Vigevano, or in the refurbishing of
existing squares, could
modern
ideas be tested. Unfortunately, the largest
town Younger
planning project of the sixteenth century was totally destroyed: the
of Castro, for
raised in the wilderness
Pope Paul
The
III as
the capital of a
by Antonio da Sangallo the
Duchy
fabricated for the Pope's son.^
square at Pienza, of 1456/1458 - 1464
(Pi.
34a),
is
the only
Quat-
Campidogho. Built for Pope Pius II by Alberti's follower Bernardo Rossellino, it was the core of the town's Hfe, containing the Cathedral at the centre, and on three sides, the palaces trocento scheme comparable to the
of the Bishop, the Piccolomini family, and the the plan
is
Commune. By ^
trapezoidal, like Michelangelo's (Pi. 36b), because
of the pre-existing
streets
on
either side,
chance,
of the axes
and because the expansion in
width opened prospects past the Cathedral transepts over a panorama of Tuscan valleys and
hills.
Though
the major street runs through the
base of the trapezoid, a lesser one enters, Hke the Capitoline cordonata,
on
the principal axis. Rossellino divided the piazza into rectangles
horizontal and vertical bands
which help
to
draw together
by
the fa9ades.
and lead the eye toward the Cathedral. The projects of Rossellino and Michelangelo have similar devices: the regular plan, symmetrically organized about the entrance axis of the central building; the systematization of the entrance
ways
into the piazza,
lated to integrate the several buildings.
and the pavement pattern calcu-
But the
effect
quite different;,
is
the Pienza buildings are diverse in size and scale, and above the sole
placed
monument
on
within the square - a wellhead -
the right edge.
The harmonious
tion 2.
on
On
the individual buildings, and spatial effects
Ch.
I),
were
a
indepen-
focused atten-
by-product of
Renaissance urbanisni, see G. Giovannoni, Saggi suWarchitettura del Rinascimento, Milan,
1935. PP- 265-304; on Medieval planning, see Toskana, Berlin, 1953. 3.
(cf.
in style;
eccentrically
among
relationship
dent units, characteristic of the Quattrocento
is
all,
L. Heydcnreich, "Pius
pp. 105-146.
II als
W.
Braunfels, Mittelakerliche Stadtbaukiinst in der
Bauherr von Pienza",
Zcitschrift
fiir
Kunstgeschichtc, VI, 193 7..
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
56
the design of the enframing masses.
Only
in the last generation
fifteenth century did architects begin to think
of the
of single elements
as a
function of the whole - to regard a given environment not merely as a neutral repository for a v^ork of art, but as something that inight be
formed and controlled by the manipulation of voids and the co-ordination
of masses. The difference
change in the music of
this
in
approach
is
illuminated
by
a similar
generation; the polyphonic structure v^liich
produced harmonies through the superposition of independent melodies
began
to give
way
to
homophonic forms
which
in
were
the several hnes
subordinate to harmonies constructed vertically, in chords; a concordance
of voices became primary.*
The new
spirit,
foreseen in certain sketches of Francesco di Giorgio,
appeared in the planning schemes of Leonardo and GiuHano da Sangallo, but was
first
appHed
in practice
by Bramante.
In his plan of 1502 for the
precinct of the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, the central building
was not intended
to stand isolated in a neutral space as
of
to be the nucleus
scheme which controlled the
a
which formed palpable in such a
way
spatial
volumes
would be
that the observer
well
as
it
does today, but
total
as architectural bodies,
entirely enveloped in a
position that he could grasp only as a whole.
Two
years later
applied the principles of environmental control to the most
programme of the material
was an
age, the Cortile del Belvedere (PL 65c).
entire
authority of intellect
mountain
upon
environment,
side; his
nature. Inspired
ciples
by
of organization were:
design had to impose the
by antique
a centralized
form and framed by
first,
Bramante
monumental Here his raw
precedents, he
devised a sequence of rectangular courts on ascending levels, stairways and ramps of varying
com-
bound by
loggias. His prin-
emphasis on the central axis (marked
monumental fountain
in the lowest court, a central
stairway and niche in the central court, and a focal one-story exedra in the garden at the upper level, the
last
already destroyed
in Pi. 65c; second, the symmetrical design
of the
by Michelangelo
lateral facades;
and
4. See E. Lewinsky, "The Concept of Musical Space in the Renaissance", Papers of the American Musicologkal Society Annual Meeting, 1941, Richmond, 1946, pp. 57 ff.
THE CAPITOLINE HILL third,
57
an
a perspective construction in three dimensions devised for
observer in a fixed position within the Papal Stanze, and reinforced by the diminishing heights of the loggias as they recede toward the "vanish-
ing point" at the rear/
Michelangelo must have borrowed certain elements of his composition
from
the Belvedere; the fact that he used a repHca of the Senatore stair-
case in remodelling Bramante's exedra in 155 1 (Pis. 29
awareness of the similarity of the
his
two
plans.
and 65a) indicates
Both required
the
regularization of roUing hillsides, the integration of pre-existing buildings,
and covered porticoes on
either side. Several
of Bramante's devices were
apphcable to the Campidoglio, particularly the central
monument and
stairway used for axial emphasis, and the niche centred in a triangular plane formed
by ramps. Bramante's
static
perspective construction
was
was anyhow uncongenial movement through space; but the Campi-
unsuitable to the Capitohne topography, and to Michelangelo's interest in
dogho plan does
him
fix the observer's
to enter the piazza
on
viewpoint momentarily by forcing
the central axis at the only point
from which
the composition can be viewed as a whole.
The common feature of the two plans is a unity achieved by the organization more than by the character of the component parts, a unity imposed by general principles - axis, symmetry, convergence - which command the voids as well as the architectural bodies. The actual form of certain elements might be changed without disturbing the organization - for example, the Marcus Aurehus monument could be a fountain;
and
of
this illuminates
said in speaking
axial compositions (p. i): "the means are unrestricted
chosen is
what Michelangelo meant when he
at will".
What
that his choice of
distinguishes Michelangelo
means more
organization and binds the
from
and
may
his predecessor
effectively reinforces the principles
Campidogho
be
of
into a coherent unity. His
individuaHty emerges in dynamic composition; the elements in the
5. See J. Ackerman, The Cortile del Belvedere, Vatican, 1954, pp. 121 fF.; and the broader treatment of planning concepts by B. Lowr\% "High Renaissance Architecture", College Art Journal, XVII,
1958, pp. 115
fF.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
58
Campidoglio do not produce die toward
are directed
a dramatic climax at the portal
and
verticals
offer diversions
toward the
of the Belvedere, but
of the Senators' palace.
of equally potent forms - horizonin the facades; oval and trapezoid in the pavement -
up by
Internal tensions built tals
restful progression
contrasts
and ambiguities that only amphfy the ultimate confluence
goal.
This crescendo of forms was destined to become
archetypal in civic planning; though the vigour and ingenuity of the
Campidoglio have rarely been equalled, the U-shaped
plan, the conver-
gence of low wings toward a dominant central accent, the double-
ramped stairway and the centrahzed monument were to become characteristic components of urban and villa design in the following centuries.
On December a
lo, 1537,
"Master Michelangelo, sculptor", appeared on
of foreigners awarded
list
Capitol;"
two
Roman
citizenship in a
years later he gave his opinion
of Marcus Aurehus, which Pope Paul
statue
against his advice.
No
more
is
known of the
on
III
ceremony
the placement of the
had brought
to the hiU
circumstances leading to his
project for the piazza; but certain conditions of the commission
deduced from knowledge of the
site
at the
in these years.
placed in an uneven plateau in the saddle of the
hill
The
statue
may
be
had been
between the northern
peak occupied by the church of Santa Maria in AracoeH and the southern rise
toward the Tarpeian Rock
(Pi.
30a).
plateau: the medieval Senators' palace
Conservators' palace
on
the south.
on
Two
structures bordered the
the east, and the Quattrocento
The only paved
access
was
a stairway
descending from the transept of the Aracoeli; toward the city the slope
of the west.
by muddy footpaths (Pi. 31b), fell sharply off to Michelangelo must have been asked to submit proposals, first, hill,
creased
an entrance from the a level
paved
area,
city,
the for
second, for the conversion of the plateau into
and
third, for a
modest restoration of the dilapidated
by
Gregorovius,
R. Accad.
palaces. 6. 1
Document
publisher',
876-1 877, pp. 314
ff.
F.
iii
del Liticei,
cl.
di scicnze luorali etc., Atti, III
THE CAPITOLINE HILL The plan
that transformed the disorderly
59
complex
into a symmetrical
composition unifying five entrances, a piazza, and three palace fronts
was too extraordinary to have been foreseen by lay administrators; Michelangelo must have found in their mundane programme an inspiration for a design the grandiose character of which (Pis.
36b, 37; Fig. 8)
persuaded them to
raise their goals.
assented easily: their budget
was
The Conservators may not have
restricted
throughout the sixteenth
new
century, and they cannot have anticipated proposals to build a
campanile simply to emphasize the the
left side
axis,
and to
raise a third palace
of the square the function of which was to be purely
Yet without the "Palazzo Nuovo" practical purpose),
(the
name
along
aesthetic.
indicates the absence
no order could be imposed on
the scheme;
it
of a
achieved
precisely the goal that Michelangelo so vigorously defined in the letter
quoted on page the
i,
human body
where he affirmed the
relationship
of architecture to of the eyes and
in the sense that necessary similarity
uniqueness of the nose imphes that architectural elements to the a central axis
must be mirrored by those on the
right,
left
of
while the central
element must be unique. Aside from the gratuitous addition of a palace front,
economy was
a
major determinant in Michelangelo's solution; he
accepted the condition that the existing palaces were to be retained intact
and merely to be covered with
freedom
new
facades. This
gave
his patrons the
to execute the project in stages, according to their
means; the
Senators' stairway could be finished fifty years before the facade,
and the
Conservators' facade be built in one-bay sections without demolishing the earher fa9ade or interrupting the normal functions of the offices inside.
In accepting the existing conditions, Michelangelo
the accidental orientation of the
an 8o-degree angle. ginative designer
An
two
palaces, the axes
irregularity that
became the
from
scheme; he so masterfully controlled appears quite purposeful.
to rationaUze
of which formed
might have defeated a
catalyst that led
trapezoidal plan and to develop
had
less
ima-
Michelangelo to use a
this figure
this potential
other features of his
disadvantage that
it
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
6o
In the engraved plan and perspectives after Michelangelo's design
36b and 37) only those elements are specified that may be seen by an observer witliin the square: of the five access stairways only the first (Pis.
steps are indicated,
and nothing
is
shown of the
palaces except the facades
and porticoes. Obviously the project was not envisaged individual building blocks, but as an outdoor
This
is
room with
complex of three walls.
a response to topographical conditions that are falsified
gravings and ficially
as a
modern photographs
(Pi.
29)
where the observer
by enis
arti-
suspended in mid-air. In actuahty, one cannot grasp the com-
from
position
piazza, as
a distance;
upon entering
a
it
unfolds only
huge
salone.
upon
arrival at the level
of the
So Michelangelo did not continue
the palace fa9ades around the buildings; they stop short at the comers as if to indicate that
Palazzo
they belong properly to the piazza. Consequently, the
Nuovo was
interior court
is
planned simply
as a
portico with offices; the present
a seventeenth-century interpolation. Michelangelo built
the niched wall that appears in Pi. 31b just at the rear of the offices (note the shallow roof in Pi.
3 7)
Another explanation for the apparent
immemorial function of ceremonies performed in
artificiahty
of the solution
is
the
CampidogHo as the site of solemn pubUc the open air. The piazza was to be the chief
the
locus of civic events, rather than the conference halls, prisons, and tribunal
come to the liill only to demanded an awesome and spectacular setting.
within the palaces. The average citizen would witness
some
ritual that
Perhaps the project was visuaHzed materials
of those
arches, gates,
as
a translation into
and facades of wood and canvas erected
in the sixteenth century for the triumphal entries
great princes. Indeed, an occasion of this kind
of the Capitol; when the Emperor Charles lack of a suitable access to the
permanent
liill
and processions of
prompted the renovation
V entered Rome in
1536, the
forced his cortege to detour around
and frustrated the enactment of the
traditional climax to
it,
an Imperial
The Pope's determination to acquire the statue of Marcus AureUus for the CampidogHo in 1537 appears to have been the initial triumph.
reaction to the embarrassment of the previous year.
THE CAPITOLINE HILL
when it
In order to place the equestrian statue properly
an over-all plan was needed, since
it
had
when
the oval statue base,
its
to be purposefully related to the
which mirrors the proposed form of the
sketchbook of Francisco de Hollanda
piazza, appears in the
oval area, with
vigorous
stellate
pattern
descending to
its
depressed rim,
set
off
(Pi. 32).
The
is
one of the most
by
a ring of three
36b),
(Pi.
imaginative innovations of the Renaissance; steps
arrived in 1538,
must have been produced before
existing buildings. Michelangelo's plan
1539,
6l
in a gentle domical curve to
it rises
the level of the surrounding piazza at the centre.
The
oval was almost
unknown in earlier architecture: Michelangelo had proposed it in projects for the interior of the tomb of JuHus II, and it appears in church and villa sketches
by Baldassare
lar" figures discouraged
its
Peruzzi; but humanistic distaste for "irreguuse.' Further,
it
ments - particularly in outdoor spaces - in grid
form
(Pis.
radiating out
solved
by
traditional to treat pave-
rectilinear patterns, either in
34a and 41) or, in the courts of large palaces, as bands
from the
the trapezoidal
was
centre.
But neither
solution
was adaptable
boundary of the Campidoglio. The problem,
the oval,
phasize the centre
was
to
where the
fmd an organizing statue
was
to be
and yet not counteract
the longitudinal axis of both the piazza and the statue circles, squares,
first
condition, the oval
one form the principles of centrality and axiality;
made
it
so popular in church design.
Michelangelo's figure frame, but
it
While the
As
was
this
combined
dual character
a pure oval, to
in
its
however,
trapezoidal
contains a further refinement: three concave recessions formsteps suggest to the visitor entering
the cordonata the expansion of the piazza
time introduce offer
it
would have conceded nothing
ed in the surrounding ring of
The
itself.
and regular polygons that formed the vocabulary of the
Quattrocento could meet only the
that later
so elegantly
would em-
figure that
set,
to
him
to the choice of
two
toward the
and
at the
same
ascents to the Senators' palace.
of alternative routes imposes an
while the visitor enters the piazza, and
rear,
from
unclassical ambivalence:
later the Senators' palace,
7. For a general discussion of the oval in Renaissance architecture, Kirchenraume des Cinquecento", Rdni.Jhh., VII, 1955, pp. 9 ff.
see
W.
on
axis.
Lotz, "Die ovalen
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
62
his direct progress
to the
two
barred
is
first
double-ramped stairway.
by
He
equally efficient routes, but
pavement
that suggests
paths toward and
the statue,
not only forced to choose between
is
is
by an emphatic
distracted
movement of a
away from
and then by the entrances
stellate
different sort, along curvihnear
the centre.
He
thereby becomes intensely
involved in the arcliitectural setting to a degree never demanded by earher Renaissance planning.
By
forcing the observer into a personal
endowed
solution of this paradox, Michelangelo
of movement in architecture with
The
aesthetic overtones.
stairway to the Senatore palace
was the
in Peruzzi's sketches, facade. Like the oval,
empted
a
great hall
minimum of space on
first
of
(Pi. 37),
several
in the piazza,
the piano nohile, and
it
though
also anticipated
kind to be adapted to a palace
its
form solved
this
the practical function
was the
it
problems
at
once:
it
pre-
gave direct access to the
perfect setting for the reclin-
ing river gods that had previously blocked the entrance to the Conservators' palace (Pi. 30a).
the
dynamic
effect
Its
purpose was expressive
well
as
as practical;
of the triangular form, wliich so powerfully co-
ordinates the three facades and masks their inequality in height, had
been evoked by Michelangelo in organizing the figures of the Medici chapel and in his fortification drawings initially
and 27a); perhaps
it
was
suggested by the analogy of the river gods to the reclining
allegories in the chapel.
The baldachin
which may have been devised of dignitaries,
as a
axis,
the stairway covered
at the
summit of
the flights,
ceremonial setting for the appearance
diverts the angular accents
stream of the central
As
(Pis. 8
of the stairway into the main-
echoing the form of the campanile above.
most of the lower story behind and
raised the
entrance to the level of the piano nohile, the facade could not conform to the three-story Florentine tradition exemphfied (Pi. 39).
The lower
the upper floors;
its
story had to be treated as a
by the Famese palace basement distinct from
drafted facing emphasized this distinction and also
expressed the rude character of the prisons behind. In
became
a two-story structure like those
possible to
on
effect, the
either side, so that
harmonize the composition by adapting
to
all
it
palace
proved
three palaces
THE CAPITOLINE HILL Order with
the colossal
within
this
its
63
heavy cornice and crowning balustrade;
syntax the central palace could be differentiated by the design
of its apertures.
The open
porticoes of the lateral palaces belong, like the loggia
and the Procuratie of St
Brunelleschi's Foundling Hospital in Florence
Mark's Square in Venice,
much
as
to the square as to the buildings.
They
even favour the piazza by screening the entrance portals within, so increase the
dominance
of
of the longitudinal axes over the cross-axes.
as to
They
are extraordinary in structure as well as in form. Early Renaissance
porticoes
had been
a succession
of vaults supported by arches. Though
Alberti insisted that antique precedent
by
piers
demanded
that arches be sustained
while columns should carry only hntels, his advice was ignored
before 1500; Quattrocento arcades are generally columnar. Bramante
reintroduced the column-and-lintel system in open loggias in the Cloister
of Santa Maria della Pace and in the Vatican facade (now Cortile di San
Damaso), but only in upper in
first
where
the interior could be spanned
Massimi palace of 1535 was perhaps revival of the ancient technique of spanning a portico with stone
wood.
the
stories,
Peruzzi's entrance to the
beams, though on a
much more modest
scale
than
at the
Campidogho.
Michelangelo's combination of column and pier provided sufficient bracing to allow expansion of the system to actually precluded the use
monumental
of arches; openings
as
broad
The
scale.
scale
those of the
as
Conservators' palace could not have been arched without penetrating into the pre-existing second story. Furthermore, Michelangelo preferred
the effects of post-and-beam construction; in 1548 he walled
arch over the central lintel (Fig.
window of the
up
Sangallo's
Farnese palace to replace
it
with a
on the one occasion when he used strucof a building - at the Porta Pia, where they
10 and Pi. 42a), and
on the exterior were imperative - he disguised the form tural arches
(Pi. 74).
a static effect uncongenial to Michelangelo's
Semi-circular arches have
powerful interplay of hori-
zontal and vertical forces. In the Conservators' palace, this interplay recalls the effects of a framed structure; the facade construction
is
as close to a skeletal
frame
as it is
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
64
possible to attain in stone.
Where
of San Lorenzo and St Peter's load and
(Pis.
5a and 63) merely express stresses of
by the wall mass, here they
support that actually are absorbed
do the work
really
the columns, pilasters, and entablatures
that they appear to do.
The
is
no longer
major bearer of loads;
a
and takes so
httle stress that della
entire section
with
attention
to the
supported by
it is
itself
supported on beams
Porta was able to replace almost an
Consequently, so httle wall
glass (Pi. 35b).
drawn
is
is
by the columns; the facade
the pilaster-piers and the lower entablature
wall
cornice
members, where
it is
is left
that
held by the contrast of
rugged texture and hght, advancing colour to the smooth surface
their
and receding colour of the brick wall-plane. But the stabihty of the portico and facade
is
not wholly due to the "skeleton";
it
requires
by internal walls perpendicular to the principal axis - those in the rooms above, and especially by those of the lower floor (Pi. 36b), which Michelangelo ingeniously calculated to work both as buttresses
stiffening
and
as partitions
between the guild
offices.
Because the Conservatori design gives the antique Order a structural as
well as a decorative function,
it
may
be used profitably to
illustrate
the relationship of building techniques to expression in Michelangelo's architecture.
The
decision to unify the three palaces
by
a continuity
of
horizontal accents indicated Hntel construction and emphatic cornices. In the final design potentially cals
it
appears that Michelangelo intended to keep the
overwhelming horizontal accents
of equal power: the
stories, interrupt
in check
colossal pilasters
by applying
which, in embracing two
the continuity of the lower entablature and, together
with the columns, window-colonnettes, and balustrade a tense
verti-
equihbrium of forces. But a
figures, estabhsh
structural analysis reverses the process
proving that ingenious devices were necessary to prevent
verticals
from
dominating the facade. The vertical loads are concentrated in heavy masses of masonry extending from the foundations to the cornice, out
of which the these,
pilasters are
Michelangelo made
weight.
The remaining
^fCFMibft^. VfSiiriM*
carved it
(Pis.
35b and 36b).
appear that the
surfaces
pilasters
of the pier-mass on
To
de-emphasize
alone sustain the either side
of the
THE CAPITOLINE HILL pilasters
he disguised
them with
65
bands -
as superficial decorative
first,
by covering
make them seem discontinuous, w^all-surface above the windows hori-
horizontal rehef elements that
and second, by applying
to the
zontal bands of the same dimensions, so that the recessed pier-surfaces
should be read
as part
Order functions
of an applied wall-frame. So the
as
the preponderant verticahty of the similar purpose
when he
first
piers;
perhaps Bramante had a
used the colossal Order on the piers of
had
St Peter's. Conversely, the horizontals tain
colossal pilaster
a means of diminishing rather than of emphasizing
to be exaggerated to
main-
an equihbrium, and again Bramante's inventions were called into
crowning balustrade, which appeared
service: the
of 1502, augments the crown of the building substantially
increasing
Bramante had used
weight;
its
in the
the
first
in the
Tempietto
to nearly six metres without
which
windov^-balconies,
House of Raphael, diminish
the verticahty of
the apertures without obstructing hght.
When
the vocabulary of the Conservators' palace
Senators' facade tural
it
became purely
to the
were no
struc-
31b).
Now
expressive, since there
problems in facing the existing medieval structure
the pier surfaces,
which had
originally
came honestly ornamental; and gests that the design
Moreover,
were
was adapted
it
of the
it is
masqueraded
as
ornament, be-
change in function which sug-
this
lateral palaces
preceded that of the Senators'.
strengthens the hypothesis that the
at least partly
(Pi.
Campidogho
facades
designed before the apses of St Peter's (1546/ 1547);
a similar motif appears there in a context that must be ornamental, since the structure depends
wholly on wall-masses and not on surface
members.
To
appreciate fully the significance of the
must understand what might be
called
its
Campidogho
symbol crete.
in
we
subject matter as well as
architectural character. Like the Cortile del Belvedere,
to rival the great villas of antiquity, the
design
which was
Campidogho was
which the haunting dream of ancient
its
built
monumental grandeur became cona
Like paintings of their time, both were designed to be looked
at
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
66
more than to be used, and both communicated a specific content of a more complex sort than is usually found in architecture.^ Sculpture played a peculiarly formative role in the evolution of the
Belvedere and the CampidogHo. Distinguished collections of antiquities
assembled in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries stimulated the
urge to build; the statues had priority, and the architecture took shape
around them. The Belvedere was planned to the Papal
and approach
the resurgence of the Capitol awaited the
of its equestrian centrepiece.
arrival
The
museum, and
as a setting for
ancient bronzes donated to the people of
Rome by
Sixtus
IV and
Innocent VIII in the fifteenth century were chosen more for their asso-
They were objects of almost totemic power medieval mind had endowed with the responsibility for
ciations than for their beauty.
which
the
sustaining the legal and imperial
symbolism of antiquity.
A figure of the
mother wolf which had nursed Romulus and Remus, mythical founders of Rome, was placed over the entrance of the old Conservators' palace (Pi. 30a) - and to emphasize her significance, a pair of suckling infants
was added by
a
Quattrocento sculptor.
A
colossal Constantinian head,
and a hand from the same figure bearing portico
(Pi.
a sphere,
were placed
in the
30b); the medieval pilgrim's guidebook called the Mirahilia
Romae identified these as the remains of a colossal "Phoebus, that is, god of the Sun, whose feet stood on earth while his head touched heaven, who held a ball in his hand, meaning that Rome ruled the whole world". Both stood by the Lateran, near the Marcus Aurelius, throughUrbis
out the Middle Ages, in a spot of which the Mirahilia says "There the
A
of Hercules, whose relation to the
was
law
is
less
firmly estabhshed, was installed on a base pointedly inscribed "in
final".
third figure
MONUMENTUM ROMANAE 8.
gloriae". Further additions were
On the iconography of the Capitol, see note 13
angelo", J/;t.
d.
;
city
made
in the
H. Sedlmayr, "Die Area Capitolina des Michel-
pp. 176 ff.; H. Siebenliiiner, Das Kapitol in Rom. Idee tind Aeneas Insij^nes Statuas Romano Populo Hck<:chcr, Sixtus IV
Preuss Kunstslg., LII, 193
1,
Munich, 1954, passim; W. The Hague, 1955; J. Ackerman, "Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline Hill", Renaissance News, X, 1957, pp. 69 fF.; F. Saxl, "The Capitol during the Renaissance: A Symbol of the Imperial Idea", Lectures, London, 1957, pp. 200 fF. GestaJt,
Restituendas Censuit,
.
.
.
THE CAPITOLINE HILL sixteenth century:
X
Leo
67
installed the colossal statues
before the Conservators' portico
(Pi. 30a),
of two river gods
and donated
the triumphal procession of Marcus Aurehus onto the
rehefs depicting
hill.
Some of these pieces v^ere integrated into Michelangelo's scheme, and others were moved indoors, but the theme Romanae gloriae was reinforced by new acquisitions, and made expHcit by inscriptions. A tablet alongside the portal of the Conservators' palace reads: "s.p.q.r., imitating as far as possible its ancestors in spirit
and deed, restored the Capitohum
decayed by the ravages of time, the year 2320 city".
But on the opposite
side
of the
after the
founding of the
portal, a similar inscription, dated
"in the year of our salvation 1568" consigns "to Jesus Christ, author of all
care of the people of Rome
good" the
and of the Campidogho "once
The twin tablets are a clue to hidden meanings in the Campidogho and a reminder that a Christian motivation
dedicated to Jove". design of the
underhes the pagan splendour.
was Pope Paul
It
statue
III
rather than the city fathers
of Marcus Aurehus be brought to the
hill
who
insisted that the
against the wishes of its
proper owner, the Chapter of St John in the Lateran. Michelangelo
opposed the
project, but
managed only
to dissuade the
Pope from ex-
propriating the statues of Jupiter's twin sons, Castor and Pollux, with their rearing horses, that
crown of the Quirinal of the Marcus but because
it
to the
Hill (Pi. 76a).
It is difficult
Aurelius, not because the
had
that the statue,
known
had stood throughout the Middle Ages on the
so
many
one of the
meanings. finest
to explain the choice
meaning of the
transfer
The most important,
is
unclear,
perhaps,
is
and best preserved ancient bronzes
Middle Ages, had grown, rather
like the Wolf, into a
sym-
bol of law and government, so that executions and punishments regularly
took place before legal
it.
Consequently, once
it
was
in place,
symbols were removed from the piazza: the Wolf, and the group
with an attacking Lion on the
steps
of the Senator's palace which marked
the spot for the sentencing of criminals far back into the this
two hallowed
penal role, the equestrian group was
known from
in the tenth century as the Cahallus Constantini.
Middle Ages. In
the earHest records
The convenient misnomer.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
68
which combined imperial power and
Christianity, survived
throughout
the Renaissance.
But another legend, nearly as old, identified the rider as il gran' villano ("villein," in Enghsh); it was fostered for poHtical reasons in the twelfth century, at a moment when the Holy Roman Emperor was in bad repute in Rome. It told of a low-born folk hero in RepubHcan - not Imperial -
army and its royal general figure came to symbolize a mix-
days who, singlehanded, captured a besieging
and was honoured with a
statue.
So the
ture of Republican, anti-monarchical virtu and romantic heroism that
reminds one of the iconography of the French Revolution. The
may have
tradition
Simone Martini's
villano
led to the type of early Renaissance equestrians:
Gtiidoriccio,
melata, Verrocchio's Colleoni,
Uccello's Haivkwood, Donatello's Gatta-
and others -
all
soldier adventurers
of low
birth rather than prelates or princes.
The
inscription designed for the statue
rider as
Antoninus Pius
(Pi.
32);
though the correct
been made in the fifteenth century,
and mattered only because
of the
it
bristled
by Michelangelo
it still
to antiquarians. Paul
identification
was not accepted
III
must have
with symboHc significance, recalling
Roman Empire
identifies the
generally,
stolen the statue
at
and of Christianity, republican
once the power
liberties,
and the
romantic hero popular in the ItaHan hterature of the time. This explain
why
there
was no thought of commissioning
Michelangelo or another contemporary sculptor, Aurelius
was not merely
set into the piazza
In Michelangelo's design
(Pis.
a
two
new
and
but inspired
36b, 37) the
river
had
its
statue
why
may from
Marcus
very shape.
gods were given
more imposing setting before the triangular stairway, the form of which must have been influenced by their characteristic attitude of fluvial repose. Yet, if the decision to use the pair was made for formal reasons, it was essential to give it an iconic rationale. One was the Nile, supported by a sphinx; the other was the Tigris, identified by his croucliing tiger; but before being reinstalled by the steps, he became the Tiber, Rome's own river, by the ingenious expedient of replacing his Mesopotamian prop with a new wolf suckling the two founding fathers. According to a
THE CAPITOLINE HILL Pirro Ligorio, the exchange councillor",
was not
was made "through the ignorance of a poor
meaning Michelangelo, one supposes.
Roman culture by If Rome is symbolized as
linking great rivers at the Tiber,
in the central niche should be
Her presence
attributes.
angelo's plan called to
purpose, however,
Its
to please such testy antiquarians as Ligorio, but to suggest the
scope of
urban
69
was
mind
incongruous that the figure
is,
in fact, a makeshift solution; Michel-
The statue would have Optimus Maximus which had stood
to place a Jupiter in the niche.
in antiquity,
and which appears
in the
triumphal reHef displayed in the Conservators' palace. at the
apex of a triangle flanked by the two
rivers, the
have suggested the temple pediment, with the Attention
is
abroad.
Roma, an ancient Minerva suppHed with
the temple of Jupiter
on the Capitoline
it is
home and
at the
Had
the
god been
composition might
titular deity at its apex.
of the piazza by a baldachin or
also attracted to this area
canopy over Jupiter's head
background of the
top of the
to a Renaissance facade. In late antiquity
stairs,
a curious
appendage
and in the Middle Ages
it
was
one of the most universally used symbols of Imperial power. But
it
could be Christian, too: in the sixteenth century one would have seen such a baldachin only over the main altar of a large church.
A visitor's first impression on ascending the hill
is
of the statuary along
the forward edge. In the earlier engraving of Michelangelo's project Fig. 8) four
(cf.
state portraits,
male figures adorn the balcony: they are
and the two
in the centre,
who
all
Imperial
carry spheres, are
Con-
The second version (Pi. 37) replaces two emperors by a pair of horse-trainers. They appear to be the Quirinal Castor and Pollux (Pi. 76a) sought by the Pope thirty years before; but in this respect the engraving is inexact. A second, more stantinian figures
found for Paul
III
in about 1540.
relaxed version of the twins, found near the Capitol in 1560, was ready for
mounting
(Pi.
29).
So the Pope's wish came true posthumously
without despoiUng the Quirinal of its traditional monuments. ask
why Paul had coveted
his wishes? first,
statues
Two
the Dioscures and
why his successors
We
may
respected
answers will be found in any contemporary account:
of the twins were
known
to
have been on the Capitol in
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
70
were protectors of
antiquity, and, second, they
been symbols of Liberty,
But the
tyrants.
symbol, for
by
as practised particularly in the
sixteenth century affixed a
at the
Clement
VII, the
represented as the mythical brothers.
would be kept
the patron,
in
^
had always
overthrow of
new meaning
coronation of Emperor Charles
Paul's predecessor
later, this
Rome who
V
in
Emperor and
to the old
Bologna the
in 1532
Pope were
In planning the Capitol six years
mind, particularly since the Pope,
who was
had not given himself the customary publicity elsewhere in
the scheme.
We cannot be sure that the figures found in 1560 - or even the Constantinian statues
- were
in engravings
made
distaste for
by Michelangelo,
after his death,
and
since they appeared first
since his late poetry
humanistic themes. Part of the iconographic scheme
attributed to after the
selected
contemporary
scholars,
shows a
may
be
made two still-hfes on a
particularly the additions
pubhcation of the engravings, including the
mihtary theme, of Imperial origin, taken from an aqueduct near the city walls (Pi. 29). These
were acquired because they were behevcd
trophies of the victories of the
sources located
on
Repubhcan
the CapitoHne.
The
leader Marius,
to be
which ancient
spurious trophies
would have
reminded contemporaries that the original Capitohne had been the goal of
all
great triumphal processions.
when Marcantonio Colomia,
The
tradition
was revived
in 1571,
the victor over the Turks at Lepanto,
given a glorious triumph in the antique
was
mode which ended in ceremonies
on the piazza. The outermost decorations of the balcony crowd together as many symbohc overtones as is possible in so Httle space. They are columns, symbohc of power, carrying spheres, symbohc of Rome's world-wide rule. To clarify the point, the columns are mileposts from the Via Appia. I*'
The theme
so abundantly illustrated
on the piazza was continued
in the
9. This association was discovered (in the 1612 cd. of Alciati, EmhJcmata) by Leonard Olschki, Dante poeta vcltro, Florence, 1953. Cf. C. de Tolnay, "Michelangelo Architctto", // Cinquecento,
Florence, 1955, pp. 16 10.
f.
G. Borino, A. Galicti, G. Navonc,
Dcp. rom.
di storia patria,
XII, 1938.
"II
Trionfo di Marc' Antonio Colonna", Misc.
dclla
R.
THE CAPITOLINE HILL
71
palace courts, and in the halls of the Conservators' palace, frescoed with scenes
from Roman
To support
the foregoing analysis,
salone
whose
interpretation took the
Roman
of a
which may appear
Cinquecento intended,
allusion than the
witness
history.
palace (PL 38b).
^^
we may
call
to discover
on
a
more
contemporary
form of a frescoed vignette in the The painter of about 1550-1560
depicted the oval piazza with Marcus Aurehus in the centre, the cordonata
and the rear stairway
as
Michelangelo had planned them. But in place of
the Senators' palace are three
huge chapels of pagan
one in baldachin form. There the herm of Jupiter served adoration spirit
on the
part of
two Romans not
of the Counter-Reformation. Yet
it is
divinities, the central is
the object of unre-
imbued with
yet
the
inconceivable that Christian
imagery was absent from the iconographic programme. Our knowledge of Michelangelo's deep rehgious convictions following the period of his with Vittoria Colonna tempts us to
association
see the central Jupiter
figure as an anagogical reference to Christ; the presence of the baldachin
overhead and the absence of any other
member of the Roman pantheon
admits such an interpretation.
Furthermore, the arrangement of the piazza unites the ancient the
Forum and
the
New Rome of the church,
a connection suggested in
the inscriptions quoted above as well as in the engravings
edly
show
the ruins behind the Senators' palace
Rome of
(Pi. 37),
which point-
although they are
not actually visible from any standpoint in or before the piazza
(Pi. 29).^'^
We come finally to the most intriguing and original feature of Michelwhich supports Marcus Aurelius at the gentle domical mound. Tolnay has persuasively suggested that
angelo's design, the central oval
apex of a
the design
may
be connected with the medieval designation of the
Campidogho
as the umbilicus
convex form
is
is
or Caput Mundi;^^ but his behef that the
intended to represent the curve of the
not similarly supported by tradition or
texts.
The
terrestrial
globe
curvilinear grid
I know of this painting through Wolfgang Lotz, who supphed the photograph. This interpretation of the siting was suggested by Richard Krautheimer. 13. "Beitrage zu den spaten architektonischen Projekten Michelangelos", J///>. d. Praiss. Kuustslg.,
11. 12.
LI, 1930, pp. 25
ÂŁ.;
LIII, 1932, pp.
245 f
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
72
dividing die pavement into twelve compartments recalls a symbolism
commonly signs
used in antiquity on the interior of cupolas, where the twelve
Dome
of the zodiac were used to suggest the
Music of the Spheres; ^^
of Heaven or the
in Christian architecture the twelve Apostles
surrounding a central figure of Christ sometimes took the place of the signs.
The twelve-part
pavements
as a
kind of counter-dome. Vitruvius (V,
pavement of
circular
division appeared almost as often in circular 6) advised that the
theatre orchestras be inscribed with four inter-
locking triangles forming a twelve-pointed
star, since
twelve the astronomy of the
celestial signs
calculated
concord of the
parallel traditions
stars".
These
is
domed "Tholos"
While struction
by
the musical
in Cesariano's
reconstructed as a
is
usually
complex
triangles, Michelangelo's
found among a
is
is
number
inscribed within a twelve-pointed star.^^
the duodecimal division in these examples
radiating hues or
from
were fused
Vitruvius edition of 1521, where an entire theatre
round,
"in the
formed by
curvilinear con-
of medieval schemata in circular form
class
used to co-ordinate the lunar cycle with other astronomical inferences
of the number twelve, such one of many, from of St Isidor of that differs
as the
a tenth-century
Seville, in
(?)
manuscript of
which the lunations and
from Michelangelo's
script schemata
Hours and the Zodiac.
Pi.
De
38c
is
only
Natura Reriim
signs appear in a
chiefly in not being oval.
form
The manu-
of Isidor were reproduced in early printed books, estab-
Ushing a contact with the sixteenth century.^ÂŽ
The
fact that the prototypes
explained
as
were round, rather than
an aesthetic prejudice: the
ture prior to the sixteenth century -
circle
and
oval,
was preferred
may
be
in arcliitec-
in astronomy, until Kepler's
time; Michelangelo introduced the oval in a project of the early years of the century, and the the foundation of the 14.
K. Lchmann, "The
first
oval
dome was
built
by Vignola
shortly after
CampidogHo.^'
Dome
of Heaven", Art
Bulletin,
XXVII,
1945, pp.
i
tf.,
with rich bibho-
graphy. R. Bemhcimer, "Theatrum Mundi", Art Bulletin, XXXVIII, 1956, pp. 225 ff. Harry Bober kindly supphed the photographs and much information on medieval schemata. See note 7 and E. Panofsky, Galileo as a Critic of the Arts, The Hague, 1954, esp. pp. 20 ff.
15. Cf. 16.
17.
CAr^.V#VvKMv
THE CAPITOLINE HILL
73
The cosmological pavements and schemata do not hke
of Michelangelo's oval;
rise
the tradition in
meaning
distaste for the oval
well
known
well
as
may
its
convexity adds a
as in
it
to Michelangelo since
appears in
new dimension
to
be found in a type of mihtary shield that was
but had been adopted by the
-
mound-
form. The exception to the ancients'
was represented not only
it
vault stuccoes of the Conservators' portico and
s.p.Q.R.
explain the
Commune
wooden
on
in the
the ''Trofei di Mario",
as the coat
of arms of the
of the Conservators' palace
ceilings
dated 1516-1518 and 1544.;^ÂŽ As was customary with the ornamental
arms of the sixteenth century, these ovals are convex in shape. While ornamental shields cannot be associated with the twelve-part division of Michelangelo's pavement, there was a type of ancient shield the zodiac
was represented. The legendary
shield
of Achilles
upon which was adorned
and Alexander the Great adopted the Achillean type along with the epithet Kosmokrator - ruler of the Universe. ^ ^ The
with the
celestial signs,
and the
title,
Another
shield along
attribute
with
it,
was
of certain Kosmokrator
portraits
the rays of the sun, indicating the resplendent
armoured Imperial
portraits
Roman
transferred to
where the corona
is
is
Emperors.
a corona simulating
powers of Apollo; and not used have images of
Apollo on the breast-plate. Usually the snake Python appears at the centre of these does in non-mihtary representations of the zodiac. associated with the shrine
is
portedly dwelt under a umbilicus,
at
stone
shields
C. Pietrangeli, "Lo
came Stemma
Delphi, where the snake re-
known
to be called the umbilicus).
del
Commune
di
it
The myth of Python as
the omphalos or
which marked the centre of the cosmos. ^o (So the
on mihtary 18.
of Apollo
moundhke
shields, as
Roma",
central boss
The omphalos
Capitolium,
XXVII,
stone
1952, pp. 41
fF.,
XXVIII, 1953, p. 61. 19. O. Brendel, "Der Schild des Achilles", Die Antike, XII, 1936, pp. 273 fF. 20. G. Karo, "Omphalos", Did. des antiquites grecqucs et romaines, IV, i, Paris, 1904; J. Fontenrose Python, Berkeley, 1959, pp. 374 fF., and Fig. 27, a Fresco From the House oF the Vetii, Pompeii, showing Python on an omphalos inscribed with intersecting bands Forming lozenges like those oF the Capitoline pavement. My attention was First drawn to the relationship oF the Zodiac and the omphalos by E. R. Goodenough, "A Jewish-Gnostic Amulet oF the Roman Period", Greek and 143
fF.;
Byzantine Studies,
I,
1958.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
74
became an and
attribute
Roman
The
of Apollo,
appears seated
ancient
Romans moved it
the umbilicus mundi figuratively
remained
until
once more to the Campidogho.^^ Here
it
Michelangelo's pavement, which combined its
moundlike form. Marcus
been
a foreign
element
tion with the umbilicus. tion
upon
him with
upon it in Greek vases
coins.
Delphi to the Forum, where it
who
the
Aurelius,
medieval legend shifted
was permanently fixed at the centre,
might have
had not permitted
his associa-
As Kosmokrator, he succeeded
mound, and
in
zodiacal inferences with
its
mounted
if iconic tradition
from
since the ancient sculptor
to Apollo's posi-
had not equipped
the requisite attributes, Michelangelo placed around his base
the corona of Apollo: the twelve pointed rays starting points
which
also serve as the
of the zodiacal pattern.
21. B. Gamucci, Le antichka dcUa citta di Roma, Venice, 1569, Fol. 10^: "U qual cimento della citta essendo restate come umbilico di quella ..."
colle, nell'accres-
CHAPTER
The
WHEN
Farnese Palace
Cardinal Alessandro Farnese became Pope Paul
on
the Tiber
bank seemed incommensurate with
elevated position; as Vasari said, "he cardinal's,
but a pontiff's palace".
felt
in
He
his
he should no longer build a
immediately had
Antonio da Sangallo enlarge the building from three to court,
III
had been building for seventeen
1534, the palace that he
years
VII
his architect
five bays in the
and from eleven to thirteen on the facades: the rows of shops on
the street
were suppressed
Fig. 9.
as unsuitable to his
Rome, Farnese
eminence; and the narrow
Palace. Plan.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
76
entranceway was transformed into a colonnaded triumphal "atrium" (Fig. 9). Paradoxically, the "pontiff's palace"
who
the Pope,
Pier Luigi, for
had moved
whom
was
to the Vatican, but
by
to be occupied not
by
son
his illegitimate
he fabricated the Duchies of Castro and Nepi
1537) and of Parma (in 1545).
The
palace
was
become
to
a
(in
symbol of the
temporal power which the pontificate had brought to the Famese dynasty - not so
A
much
home as a monumental instrument of propaganda. a new fashion in urban domestic architecture had
a
century earlier
been formed by the
of commerce and pohtics. Florentine
rising elite
merchants of the mid-fifteenth century - the pecially the
symbol of power and of
was the
and most grandiose of
earHest
Florentine streets and it
the Rucellai, and es-
Medici - grasped the potential of monumental
architecture as a
cornice,
Pitti,
The Medici
progress.
all;
palace
towering over medieval
low dweUings and crowned by
a
announced a new era in the evolution of the
to popular belief, early Renaissance architecture
than the beginning of an orderly system of
classicizing
marked
town
huge antique city.
Contrary
the end rather
planning. Medieval
ordinances had severely restricted the height, placement, overhangs, and general design of private houses and palaces in order to gain a uniformity that
may
be appreciated
violently disrupted
maximum
The economic well
as
in the streets
communal as it
was dramatically unique
distinction.
his palace built in imitation
Florence, but he outdid
liis
the small rural diocese
(Pi.
34a).
early Renaissance, but Popes
and
in
Renaissance palace its
environment.
ecclesiastics
At Pienza, Pius
II
vied
Picco-
of the Rucellai Palace in
predecessors in creating an entire city square,
complete with Bishop's palace, town
at
palace style
revolution of the Quattrocento benefited churchmen
Hmini actually had
size
The
merchants; like the Florentine famiUes, high
began
new
controls to substitute an aesthetic of
with one another for architectural
centres
of Siena. The
individuahty for one of conformity.
succeeded in so far
as
still
hall,
Rome
and a cathedral too large for
remained a feudal
city in the
and Cardinals from the richer northern
an early date to challenge the ancient emperors with the
pomp of their
palaces.
The
fashion started in the 1450's
when
THE FARNESE PALACE
77
Pope Paul
the Venetian Cardinal Barbo, later
II,
started the Palazzo
Venezia; and the greatest challenge to the resources of sixteenth-century
competitors was Cardinal Riario's huge palace of the Cancelleria, begun in the 1480's in the after the turn
to build the
larger Palazzo de'
still
chosen by the Famese. Shortly
later
made an unsuccessful attempt Tribunali on Bramante's design, but
of the century, Pope Juhus
was too ambitious even
the project it
neighbourhood
II
and
for his great fortune,
only from drawings and remains of the rusticated ground
The
significance
the Renaissance
of palace .design in the
social
and
we know floor.
of
political struggles
emphasized in a contemporary description of the plan-
is
ning of the Strozzi palace in Florence during the 1480's, which explains
how
"Fihppo
eager
more
[Strozzi]
,1
means of memoriahzing
renown
abroad". Filippo's great
envy of his fellow
his person,
to himself
fear,
citizens,
and to
than better to pursue
enlarged
all his
saying
projects,
who was
all
good and
family in Italy and
He
and goal for no other reason
architects, as
which pleased Fihppo
But the palace was
for
all his
more than
to play
is
their habit,
protestations
a private role,
ruling [Lorenzo de' Medici] wished that the city
the
there-
the while that a comfortable, everyday
be exalted by every kind of ornament, since as the
a structure
prompting them into competition.
he needed. But the masons and
to the contrary".
for "he
it,
all his
make
however, was that he might arouse the
fore "astutely feigned to everyone his wish
all
and being
being naturally inclined to building,
understanding of it, determined to
little
that should bring
house was
his heirs,
fame than wealth, and having no greater nor more secure
for
and having no
having richly provided for
it
seemed
to
him
might
that just
bad depended upon himself, so the beautiful and the
ugly should be attributed to him. Judging that an undertaking of such grandeur and expense could be neither controlled nor exactly envisaged
and that
it
might
[if
not supervised] not only take credit from him
as
often happens to merchants, but even lead to his ruin, he therefore began to interfere I.
"Ricordo
and to want di
Lorenzo
Florence, 1839, p. 354.
to see the designs,
di Filippo di
Matteo Strozzi"
and having seen and studied {ca.
1500), in Gaye, Cartcggio
.
.
.,
I,
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
78
them, he requested
masonry on the he feigned since
it
in
exterior.
irritation,
addition to other expenses that of rusticated
As
and
for Fihppo, the
said that
more he was urged,
on no account did he want
was not proper and too expensive,
utihty, not for
pomp, and wished
for his sons"; in both cases he result that
"one
may
to build
was
that
many
the
more
rustication,
he was building for
shops around the house
grateful to be overruled,
with the
say that Fihppo not only succeeded magnificently,
but surpassed the magnificence of every other Florentine". Naturally, these structures were built to be looked at
hved
more than
to be
splendours of the Medici palace, for example, except for an
in: the
were reserved
elaborate but tiny chapel,
ample
for the street facades and
courtyard. This gave the architect an opportunity to design regular and stately elevation
without
much
regard for internal arrangements, and at
monumental that the inhabitants had to climb stairs to peer over the window sills. The typical elevation was of three stories, usually varied on the exterior in the treatment of wall surfaces and windows. The lower story was devoted to business affairs, storage, kitchens and a scale so
other practical requirements; the second story, or piano
nohile, to
recep-
tion halls, public ceremonies, and hving quarters for the head of the
family; the uppermost housed lesser distinguished
members of
the
the family and
more
retainers. Servants
were
members of
huge retinue of
given dark chambers in mezzanines between the floors or under the roof.
The rooms were mostly rites
grandiose stages for the performance of the
of commercial and pohtical leadership, and
where one often far
slept,
Quattrocento, the Ducal Palace
first
is
hard to imagine
washed, or found privacy. Medieval palaces were
more comfortable, and
air in spite
it
at
the
most congenial residence of the
Urbino, has a characteristically Gothic
of its Renaissance ornament; there the rooms were designed
and the facades took shape around them.
Renaissance domestic architecture has been criticized frequently in recent times for the fact that an emphasis
of the
The
fa(;ade
criticism
made is
it
on
the
symmetry and
regularity
impossible to achieve a "functional" interior plan.
justified so
long
as
we
assume that the
essential function
THE FARNESE PALACE of a dwelling family
life.
accommodate the day-to-day activities of purpose is to awe and to impress, an imposing
invariably to
is
But where the
facade and court are far
more
"functional" than a
bed chamber. Like the nouveaux-riches of
Famese found
79
security in the expression
all
warm and well-hghted
ages, the
Medici and the
of their power - a security that
they would not compromise to gain comfort or privacy. This less difficult
to understand today than
ago in the heyday of functionalist paralleled in
contemporary
it
might have been
a generation
criticism, since the situation
architecture,
though
it
perhaps
is
has shifted
is
closely
from the
domestic to the commercial stage. In the past decades leading industrialists
who were
once committed to architectural conservatism have be-
come aware of the propaganda
potential
of "progressive" monumental
architecture and, like the Renaissance dynasts, have called
upon
the
most
advanced architects to design huge structures without regard to expense or convenience.
The
colossal scale
of Quattrocento enterprises was beyond the reach
of a private family in the early sixteenth century, though imposing plans
and unfinished palaces and
villas
survive to prove that ambitions, at
least,
were not hampered by lack of funds. Sangallo's project for the Cardinal's palace of 15 17
was an enlarged version of a house type based on antique
models which Bramante and Raphael had popularized in the preceding decade.
With
the expanded plan of 1535, the era of moderation in
domestic architecture was brought to a close; the cent version of the Florentine type, celleria
and the Vatican in
Vasari,
who
left
Rome
size
was the
first
new
palace, a magnifi-
to challenge the
autumn Palace would
shortly after Sangallo's death, in the
ever be finished or seem to be the work of one architect (Fig. 10). counts; forty years later
it
was completed
that observers were unable to distinguish the
who
Can-
and elegance.
of 1546, wrote that there appeared to be no hope that the
on both
Roman
so
He erred
homogeneously
work of the
four architects
contributed to the design. Michelangelo, though noted for his
showed remarkable
skill
in
with the portions already
built
by
inabihty to collaborate with colleagues,
harmonizing
his
own dynamic
style
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
80
Fig. 10.
Reconstruction of the Farnese Palace at the time of Michelangelo's appoint-
ment Sangallo.
No two
genial than these;
architects it is
as architect (1546)
of the mid-sixteenth century were
symptomatic of their relationship
less
con-
that at St Peter's
Michelangelo erased almost every trace of Sangallo's BasiHca. Perhaps
he would have done the same far
advanced
when he
started,
at the
but
keep what was there and even to carved but not put in place, such
Farnese palace if it had not been so
economy must have forced him to make use of members that had been as the
uppermost facade windows.
THE FARNESE PALACE Consequently the palace has a Sangallesque personality throughout. Michelangelo enhanced and gave vigour to essential points rescued
it
from
personahty, and at
this
dull propriety; in
doing so he created
Sangallo's masterpiece.
Fundamental differences in the
style
of the tv^o
architects are illustrated
in the facade (Pi. 39). Sangallo's scheme, influenced tine Palazzo Pandolfini,
and
is
by Raphael's Floren-
the antithesis of Michelangelo's organic design,
also represents a revolt against the richly articulated
Roman
facades of
Bramante and Raphael. Sangallo
a neutral two-dimensional plane of brick
and
pictorial
treated the facade as
upon v^hich
the stone frames
The reUef is frankly appHed to the surface, and v^e can imagine it stripped away without damage to the wall. But the frames are not mere ornament; Sangallo made them the basic vertical module of the design, applying them symmetrically about the central axis like links in a chain. This of window^s and doors could be
set as sculptural reHef.
system, which might be called the additive module, supplants earher principles
of proportion in determining the overall form; the palace
could be one
window
shapen, and indeed
its
longer or
two
early history
shorter without appearing mis-
shows
that
it
was not
determine either the height or width before construction
essential to
started.
This
thoroughgoing reaction from the geometrical and harmonic planning of the fifteenth century
made
it
easier for
Michelangelo and
his followers
to alter the design of unfinished portions without noticeable breaks.
modern structures articulated by modular
In this sense, Sangallo's palace again recalls the
whose
neutral,
two-dimensional curtain-walls are
rehef elements which determine the scale and which
may
be repeated
at
will to the desired height or width. This parallel suggests further that
Sangallo's
method may be explained
partly
sixteenth-century
Roman programmes,
would be
the observer.
lost
on
It
mass production: Sangallo found
in
by the huge scale of midwhich subtleties of design
represented, moreover, a step it
toward
unnecessary to draw the Famese
facade as a whole: he had only to sketch the central openings and four different
window
frames,
which the carvers then executed
in quantity.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
82
The
neutral brick wall could be raised without supervision and far
more
masonry and
pilas-
rapidly and inexpensively than the facades of drafted ter orders
way
in
of the
we might even
earlier generation:
which the masonry of
the
conclude from the
comer quoins and
central portal
spreads over onto the wall behind that the failure to extend
whole
surface
What
was due
chiefly to the necessity to save time
differentiates Sangallo's
or
over the
and money.
approach from Michelangelo's
absence of the metaphorical expression of the
The
it
is
the
stresses in the structure.
neutral plane of the wall veils any intimation of the equihbrium -
Michelangelo would have
as
There
is
it,
the struggle - of load and support.
nothing to suggest the ponderous
building, since the horizontal accents particularly noticeable at the corners,
downward
pressures of the
overwhelm the vertical, and this is where stone quoins are carved so as
to counteract the effect of the only continuous vertical in the elevation.
This imparts a calm and ease to the facade
work, and to complete the cornice;
in Michelangelo's
Sangallo envisaged a thinner and Hghter
effect,
one which would be
unknown
less
calculated to suggest compression than
Michelangelo's.
A
contrast to Michelangelo
are mostly carefully
measured
aediculas, rather than
constantly
drew
details, since
implicit in Sangallo's drawings,
studies
of relief elements such
An
is
avid student of ancient architecture, Antonio
in the ruins, concentrating
the total structure
of necessity on the rehef
was seldom preserved and nothing but
originally faced their walls. This experience
At
window
rarely an indication of masonry, texture,
the brick and rubble core remained to indicate
gallo's
as
which
of compositions. The plain paper represents the
neutral wall surface, and there
or light and shadow.
is
how
the
Romans had
must have reinforced San-
tendency to visualize the whole in terms of the
parts.
Sangallo's death the facade had been completed to the base of the
third story,
and possibly some of the uppermost windows were under
construction. Michelangelo
was immediately put
in charge
of the design
and instructed to complete the facade before continuing with the unfinished side
and
rear wings.
He made
only three changes in Sangallo's
THE FARNESE PALACE project, designing a
altering the related;
new
form of
cornice, raising the height of the third story
window. The
the central
we know from effect,
two were
first
and
closely-
the complaints of Sangallo's supporters that
Michelangelo substantially increased the avoid an oppressive
83
size
of the cornice; in order to
he increased the distance between the
window
pediments and the top of the wall to a height equal to that of the cornice
The third story now became equal in height to those below. The massiveness of Michelangelo's cornice (Pi. 40) lends the facade
itself.
gravity, in the sense
of seriousness
as
well
as
a
weight, that Sangallo's
lower and lighter crown would have lacked. The cornice sketched by Sangallo in an early project for the facade contains elements, and appears similar to a
modern eye
the
same
unpractised in the subtle-
of Renaissance design. But important differences are revealed in
ties
contemporary
criticism
complains, in
effect, that
membering
the
is
a
of the existing cornice on Vitruvian grounds
preserved in a copy by Michelangelo himself.^
is
many of
the cornice
is
The anonymous author
too heavy for the fa9ade, while
far
too small and confused; that the ornament, moreover,
pure caprice, and mixes elements of the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian
Orders.
It
precisely these affronts to academic propriety that give
is
Michelangelo's design
its
unique force. The massiveness of the form
is
mitigated by an overall pattern of ornaments calculated to produce a
of highhghts witliin the bold shadows of the over-
flickering arpeggio
hang. Michelangelo's superiority in the handhng of Hght and texture
produces a vitality which alleviates the dry precision of Sangallo's rehef.
more sculptural character window. His changes affected
Michelangelo's desire to give the fa9ade a
prompted the
also
revision of the central
only the portion above the entablature, where Sangallo had spanned the
opening with concentric arches resting respectively on the free-standing
and on the apphed columns and enclosing a small papal coat of arms attached to a central
tympanum
(Fig. 10).
arches, extended the entablature to 2.
See
d. k.-Pr.
S.
Meller,
Kunstslg.,
"Zur Entstehungsgeschichte
XXX,
1909, pp.
i fF.
form
Michelangelo walled over the
a flat Hntel,
des Kranzgesims
am
and
Pal.
filled the
void
Famese in Rom'\Jhb.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELASIGELO
84
with
a colossal
arms over three metres high (PL
members and
tuated the horizontal facade
rest.
angelo,
The
stabihty of the complete arch
who never used it on
form
the
flanked
lintel
accen-
the arms the vertical ones, to
an equihbrium of opposing forces for Sangallo's equihbriuni
substitute
of
The
39).
had
httle appeal for
Michel-
doors or windows, and he must have found
particularly incongruous in the
Famese facade where
by two segmental window pediments. But
his
it
was
main purpose in
suppressing the arch must have been to gain space for arms of an adequate scale;
make
he was confident, a sculptural
as
chmax
Sangallo could not have been, of his ability to
more
to the facade design
effective than
an
arcliitectural one.
/The great court of the palace
(Pis.
and impressive of the Renaissance;
by
it
contrast to the facade, achieves
one of the most
is
stately
encloses a perfectly cubic space and, effect
its
tangible horizontals and verticals. result
43a, 44)
Its
through an equihbrium of
effectiveness
is
the paradoxical
of a chaotic and unpremeditated growth; the ground floor arcades
were founded by Sangallo for the three-bay court of
15 17
and
later ele-
vated by the addition of impost-blocks at the base of the arches;^
when
Sangallo died after completing the arcade, Michelangelo adopted his designs for the Ionic columns and arches of the second story, but altered the
windows (which may have been designed by Vignola),
and
frieze;
he then changed the entire upper story
(Pi.
balustrades
45). Further inno-
who
ignored Michelan-
gelo's project for the rear elevation (Pi. 43b) to build
both the front and
vations
rear
were made by Vignola and
wings
as
shown
equahzed the four
in Pi. 43 a;
sides
by
della Porta,
fmally, nineteenth-century restorers
closing
off^
the
open
galleries
of the second
windows on the side wings (Pi. 45). What is preserved of Sangallo's programme differs from the fa9ade in emphasizing relief rather than surface; the massive members were constory and substituting replicas of the
ceived in three dimensions and convey a sense of the weight of the structure.
The Tuscan and
cuted Tribunal Palace plan and by the 3.
by Bramante's unexeTheatre of Marcellus, are the most
Ionic orders, inspired
Wolfgang Lotz kindly permitted me
to
make
use of these results of his research.
THE FARNESE PALACE monumental
in Renaissance domestic architecture
expression of Sangallo's classic
cessor than the facade, since
and the most powerful
style.
Sangallo's distinctive court design
style.
85
it
was
a greater challenge to his suc-
promised to emphasize any change in
Michelangelo ingeniously solved the problem by using the second
story as a transitional passage of a kind that composers use in changing
key
(Pi, 45).
Retaining the original Ionic Order, he (or Vignola?) added
windows which subtly fuse Sangallo's on the chaste entablature he imposed
classicism
with a
new
fantasy,
and
his characteristically rich frieze
of
masks and garlands.
Having
effected the transition, Michelangelo
was unimpeded
design of the upper story, where the dramatic style of St Peter's
posed to a domestic
scale suitable to
inserting servants' quarters in a
Michelangelo had to
an opulent fantasy of
in the
is
trans-
detail.
After
mezzanine above the second story (Pi. 43 b),
upper windows and Order correspondingly
raise the
higher than those below, which justified the abandonment of the arch
motif in favour of a trabeated system, restricted height
and width of the
pilaster
window. The Order were counterbalanced by
as
on
the facade
the grouping of three pilasters and a consequent multiphcation of vertical accents.
The
cornice
its
the miniscule
ornament
an
seen
46a)
is
more
lions'
classical
on
themes, and
dissolves into a pattern
of highhghts and shadows
window
frames are manifestoes of
from below. The
fantastic
anti-classical spirit surely calculated to
frames extend below the
lateral
radical in design than that
elements are bizarre variations on
the exterior;
when
(Pi.
sills
shock the academicians. Their
as if
they were hanging from the
heads like bell-cords; and the pediments, with their extraordinary
recessed
tympana, are detached from
tural rationale.
their supports
prompted him
convention. Ironically, his leaps of fancy were to
It is
design
lose their struc-
Again, Michelangelo's consciousness of the purely con-
ventional character of the classical aedicula
for early
and
Baroque
to satirize the
become conventions
architects.
not merely a talent for invention that distinguishes Michelangelo's
from
Sangallo's, but an ability to
make every
surface
and
C',f
detail.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
86
of the
essential to the vitality
total effect.
The upper
story
is
without
those mechanically executed neutral areas such as the arch spandrels that
appear in Sangallo's elevations. Moreover, Sangallo lacked the sensitivity to texture that Vasari noticed in Michelangelo's portion
and used to
illustrate the virtues
of Travertine
Although Travertine was used by both
from
it
a
warmer and more rugged
building material.*
as a
architects,
of the court
Michelangelo evoked
texture, while achieving, as Vasari
noted, the sharp precision typical of marble carving.
Michelangelo's later Florentine projects
were distinguished by
a
dynamic treatment of spatial sequences
that impelled the observer along
predetermined axes. This kinetic factor
is
envisaged by Sangallo and
as
but
was an
it
essential
as
absent
completed in the
from the Famese palace later sixteenth century;
element of Michelangelo's original project. Evi-
scheme
preserved in engravings of 1549 and
dence for
his rejected
1560
41 and 43b), and in the closing paragraph of Vasari's account
(Pis.
of the palace
(VII, p. 224):
In that year [1545-1546] there
marble seven
on the
it
hraccia
hill
by
various shepherds, it
was found
in the
Antoninc [Caracalia] Baths a
square [over 4 m.] on which the ancients had carved Hercules
a hill holding the bull
advised that
is
the horns, with another figure aiding
nymphs and
other animals
.
.
.
him and around
and Michelangelo
be transported into the second [garden] court and restored so that
might spout water, which pleased everyone. For this purpose the work has been of restoration by the Famese family until now [1568]. Michelangelo
in the process
then directed that a bridge should be built in line (with the fountain), crossing the
Tiber River so that one might go from the palace into Trastevere, where there
was another Famese garden and palace [the Villa Famesina], with the intention that from a position at the main portal of the palace toward the Campo di Fiori one might see at a glance the court, the fountain, the via Giulia, the bridge, and the beauties of the other garden terminating at the other portal giving onto the Strada di Trastevere.
This grandiose concept would have transformed the introspective palace
block into a great open vista embracing architecture, sculpture, greenery
and water; the
by
static quality
of the court would have become dynamic
the introduction of a dramatic axis of vision and communication.
4. Vasari,
I,
p. 123.
THE FARNESE PALACE The engraving of 1560 (PL 43b)
new
nents of the
87
the architectural
illustrates
who
design, but the engraver,
probably
compo-
knew only
Michelangelo's loggia model of 1549, was unaware of the total plan,
and
installed
behind the palace a
fictitious
fashion of northern landscape painters.
panorama with
Even without
ruins after the
the
monumental
fountain, and the Tiber bridge and gardens, the engraving conveys an
impression of flow that
toward
distant goals.
would have drawn
From ground
through the court
visitors
open loggia of the second
level the
story gives a glimpse of the. sky and lessens the great weight of the building, but
its
chief purpose
was
to provide a belvedere
the delight of the inhabitants.
Though
on
the piano nohile for
there are only three
open bays on
the court side, there are five toward the rear, so that the distant vista might
be had from any point along the second-story
galleries
around the court.
The grandeur and uniqueness of Michelangelo's plan must have been appreciated, but abandoned for practical reasons; by reducing the rear of the court to the depth of one bay,
it
an important portion
sacrificed
of the private living quarters apparently indispensable to the accommodation of the Farnese family.
Michelangelo cannot have intended to reduce the entire rear wing to
would have destroyed the apartments started by Sangallo in the right rear corner (Fig. 10) and would have disrupted the symmetry of the side facades by eliminating the four bays the depth indicated in Pi. 43 b: this
nearest the river.
the palace
was
It is
likely that to the right
to extend back to the line
resulting |_J-shaped rear fa(^ade with
favoured form for the suburban
and
of the
pective.
was
directly across the river at the goal
The
facade with a
aptness of the decision to
more
pastoral
at the
Roman
tinguished and particularly relevant example
which stood
of the rear loggias
of Sangallo' s garden
open loggias
villa
left
front.
The
base revived the
Renaissance.
A
dis-
the Villa Farnesina,
of Michelangelo's pers-
complement
the
sombre urban
one facing the garden must have delighted
Michelangelo's contemporaries.
The
facade engraving of 1549
in front
of the Palace which
is
(Pi.
41) illustrates a project for the piazza
too ingenious to be explained
away
as
a
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
88
convention of the engraver.'^
It is
improbable that Michelangelo would
have developed an embracing scheme for the garden area behind the palace without organizing the urban setting in front of it.
The planning
of an ample piazza within the crowded medieval quarter was if
the facade
was
to gain
been discussed just
its full
at the
moment when
the engraving was published. in the engraving
is
effectiveness,
and the problem must have
the facade
The pavement of the
was completed and
piazza as represented
subdivided by bands into squares of a kind dear to the
perspective painters of the early Renaissance
corresponds to the width of one bay of the
would
in the piazza
essential
(Pi.
fa(;:ade,
34a).
Each square
so that an observer
find underfoot a measure of the scale of the palace,
thus giving to the facade design a third dimension (significantly, the piazza
pavement extends along the
Assuming
its
principal entrance
the portal along a short and
market place - called the
narrow
Campo
connecting
street
de' Fiori.
of the palace).
same form
the
would have been
piazza along this street the bands in the
would
either side
was roughly of
that Michelangelo's piazza
the existing one,
on
streets
as
directly opposite
it
to the medieval
For an observer entering the
pavement leading
to the facade
act as orthogonals in a perspective construction, the vanishing
point of which
would he beneath
the central arch at the rear of the court;
the engraver accordingly took special care to demonstrate that the central
subdivision of the piazza continued the perspective of the entrance vestibule.
with
By it
tliis
device the
first
distant glimpse
of the facade would carry
an invitation to follow the pre-ordained path through the palace
to the goal
beyond
the Tiber.
So, in spite of its apparent perfection, the Faniese Palace to the long
list
of Michelangelo's unfinished works; though the portions
that he
completed are vigorous and
scheme
is
a
must be added
effective, the
more imposing mark of
unexecuted planning
his genius, a giant stride
-
fully
reahzed in the Campidoglio and Porta Pia - toward an extension of the confines of architecture
beyond the
limits
structure. 5.
Wolfgang Lotz brought
this to
my
attention.
of the
static
and
self-sufficient
CHAPTER
The ^LMOST
L\ A
of St Peter
Basilica
Rome
every major architect in sixteenth-century
hand
\^
VIII
scheme, yet the final product
his predecessor's
cohesive v^hole, formed
more by
a
of St Peter; each in succession
in designing the Basihca
changed
had
is
a
the genius of the Itahan Renaissance
than by the imagination of any individual.
The evolution of the Basihca
shows the degree to which Michelangelo's image of buildings
organ-
as
isms pervaded the architecture of his time. Although Bramante's successors
were inspired by the
felt free to
feed the organism
The
(Fig. ii).
originality
oscillation
new
between
and majesty of
ideas
central
and to
his design,
each
cast off obsolete
ones
and longitudinal plans apparent
even in Bramante's drawings continued throughout the century and was halted only with the construction of the nave one
was assured by the huge
the foundation. Consistency ture; architects built
by
hundred years
were compelled
to accept
and
of the struc-
to accumulate the portions
and once Bramante had
their predecessors,
scale
after
raised the crossing
no subsequent innovation could be wholly independent. Medieval monuments the size of which necessitated comparably long
piers,
periods of construction were cathedrals
grew by
reveals the fashion
nave
differ
from
entirely dissimilar.
much less
rest,
Even
at Paris
and
Chartres the
at
which each wing or court was
its
period.
This extreme differentiation
but
it is
two
at the
which
end of the
facade towers are
in the Renaissance, great chateaux such as Blois,
in
logic,
The large French
and Laon, the bays
Fontainebleau and the Louvre became
French
style.
the accretion of successive units, each of
of its time; the
cohesive in
found in
museums of architectural
built as a pure
is
the
example of the
history style
of
manifestation of a pecuharly
Italy to a lesser degree.
At the Ducal
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
90
a.
Bramante, 1506.
c.
Sangallo, 1539.
b.
Bramante-Raphael, 15 15-1520.
d. Michelangelo, 1546-1564.
Fig.
1
1
.
Plans for St Peter's
THE BASILICA OF ST PETER Palaces in Venice
and Urbino, Gothic portions were retained and com-
pleted in their original form, while
Renaissance
style.
1490's, a facade
91
new
construction was initiated in
The Certosa of Pavia remained
consistent until, in the
of an entirely different design was added to complete the
church; and at the Cathedral of Florence, Brunelleschi retained the basic
scheme of the fourteenth-century dome aediculas inspired tects
were forced
inevitable.
Only
harmonious in
whenever
by ancient
project, but
architecture.
As long
added a lantern and
as
Renaissance archi-
were
to continue medieval structures, inconsistencies
buildings started in the Quattrocento could be entirely
but they posed another problem so vexing
style,
that,
extended over a long period, they often
their construction
remained, like the palaces and churches of Brunelleschi and Alberti,
The mathematical principles of Quattrocento design established an interdependence among elements in the plan and elevation that encouraged consistency but discouraged flexibility. The design of a unfinished.
structure
begun
in accordance with a
modular system of proportions
could not be changed much, and the architects leschi at
mously style
San Lorenzo
(Fig. 3)
to his style. This
New
Sacristy
at
so that
succeeded Brunel-
Santo Spirito had to adhere anony-
became more
became old-fashioned,
design the
and
who
difficult as
time passed and
when Michelangelo was
as the
called to
and facade of San Lorenzo he could not avoid
innovations that differed radically in character from Brunelleschi's forms.
The
of the early sixteenth century was
style
extent that
it
was
less
restricting to the
less
geometrical; moreover, a
new
attitude
was en-
couraged by professional and technological changes. While most Florentine
Quattrocento buildings were small in
and supervised by one
architect, the grandiose
century turned the fabbrica into a
were partners and younger ones Sangallo had
break in continuity sions
on
community
assisted
when
and could be designed
schemes of the following in
which
elder architects
students. Because Raphael, Peruzzi,
worked with Bramante
and because Sangallo
scale
Raphael
at St Peter's at the Villa
and the Vatican Palace,
Madama,
the masters died. Patrons
the basis of competitions and sometimes
and
-
there
was no
awarded commis-
as in the project for
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
92
the San Lorenzo facade
mid-century
it
was
- attempted
By
to enforce collaboration.
possible for JuHus
III
to assign the relatively
the
modest
programme for the Villa Giuha to a team of three architects: Vignola, Ammanati and Vasari, with Michelangelo as a consultant. In architecture as in the political structure
of the Renaissance
promoted
state, size
colla-
boration, centralization and continuity, and kept designers as well as
from disrupting the orderly evolution of the
princes
institutions they
directed.
Structural factors, above
all,
secured the organic growth of St Peter's.
Bramante, in visualizing the Basihca
and masses about
a vast central area,
on
upon
an expansion of
made
Every element
cellular structure (Fig. iia). stability
as
spatial
volumes
the crossing the heart of a
in his design
the four central piers, and the
dome,
depended for
in turn,
its
depended
the buttressing powers of the four arms. So the construction had to
proceed uniformly outward from the core toward the periphery. radial evolution differed radically
from the chain-like process demanded by
the bay-system of Gothic structures, in
ing on neighbouring frames for
beginning
Though
nomy
Tliis
which
stability,
at the apse, at the facade,
spatial frames,
had to be
each depend-
raised in sequences
or any terminal point in the plan.
the Gothic system survived into the Renaissance, the auto-
of the
single
bay often gave way to what might be
called a
box
system, in which cubic or cylindrical volumes were applied to a core;
even the central-plan buildings of the Quattrocento give the impression
up by the addition of autonomous units. The uniqueness of Bramante's St Peter's project - visible in the plan (Fig. iia) to a greater degree than in the less radical elevation (Pi. 51a) - was in the of having been
built
interdependence of the core and masses of ancient
Roman
break
down
tines,
not the Romans,
its
arms.
architecture
A
study of the malleable wall
must have helped Bramante to
the confmes of the Quattrocento box, but
who
it
was the Byzan-
had found techniques for integrating domed
and longitudinal volumes. Consciously or not, Bramante revived the structural principles of Hagia Sofia in Constantinople,
where
all
spaces
had been generated outward
THE BASILICA OF ST PETER from
domed
a
drawings from Bramante's v^orkshop
core. Surviving
indicate that the four crossing piers
were
was
successors in turn
gave Michelangelo
radial evolution
death each of
after his
free to clothe his skeleton in a
Sixteenth-century views of the Basihca a
form
raised before the fmal
of the arms had been determined, and for decades his
93
52a-b, 53a)
(Pis.
maximum
new
skin.
show how
its
of freedom in designing
the exterior facades.
The
interior volumes,
however, were firmly fixed
Sangallo's death in 1546: one arm had been completed partially, so that the
that
form
aisles
at
the time of
entirely,
another
remaining arms could not be changed; the vaults
around the crossing, between the outer buttressing
and the crossing
had been
piers,
built, too.
Even when Michelangelo got
leave to lop off the outer rings of the hemicycles that terminated
the facade arms, he
reform only
its
was constrained
to keep the inner ring,
exterior plan (Fig. 12).
piers
The
limitations here
all
but
and could
were greater
even than those imposed on the design of the Medici Chapel: the interior could be influenced
domed
four
only by the design of the central dome, the
areas at the corners,
and the hemispherical vaulting
ends of the arms. Michelangelo was
of the hghting,
were
undisputed
since these restrictions did not
exterior surfaces. interior
left in
But
after his
command
at
the
solely
hmit the formation of the
death in 1564, most of his plans for the
altered: della Porta redesigned the central
of the four corner chapels, so that
all
we
dome and
those
can see of Michelangelo on the
main drum and the vaulting of the terminal hemicycles; but the original character of both is entirely changed by an interior
of St Peter's
is
the
overlay of seventeenth-century ornament and veneers.
The extent to which Michelangelo was able style upon St Peter's without essentially altering ing.
We
few
strokes
form
can see in comparing
of the pen were
into a simple
his
sufficient to
his personal
the interior
is
astonish-
change a complex and confused
and cohesively organized
comers, had expanded the
impose
plan to Sangallo's (Figs. 11, 12) that a
from Bramante the scheme of a major at the
to
cross
unit.
Sangallo, in taking
echoed in four
lesser crosses
latter to constitute isolated
pockets of
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
94
^
V'.
Built before Michelangelo.
Vaulted by Sangallo.
Vaulted by Michelangelo
Rebuilt under Michelangelo. Started
Fig. 12.
space
no longer
Sangallo, razed
by Michelangelo.
Construction of St Peter's, 1506-1564.
knit into the fabric of the crossing; similarly, his semi-
circular ambulatories
cessions
by
became independent corridors - superfluous
suc-
of volumes and Orders which forced him into absurd devices for
lighting the
main arms.
(Pi. 51c, far right).
Michelangelo, by merely
walling off the entrances to each of Sangallo's disconnected spaces,
one church out of many; he surpassed the
clarity that
made
he admired in
Bramante's plan in substituting for the concept of major and minor crosses a
more
unified one of an integrated cross-and-square, so that
circulation within the Basilica should bring the visitor back to
The
solution
was
strikingly simple,
and
far
its
all
core.
more economical than any
THE BASILICA OF ST PETER proposed before:
it
even seems obvious, once
ation distinguished for great architects,
form
to discover a
that
would
it is
since his predecessors
problem was
to
was
restricted less
had not arrived
fmd
at the
motifs in the plan - the cross and the
of construction the secondary buttressing
new
practical
(Fig. 1 1).
piers
piers
With
hghting the
bound
dogma. In
plan, the piers
the crossing-piers. faces
way
do not form
it
was an
were formed
But unlike the
is
piers
essentially as
the
hemi-
that the
solution
without
two was
affect-
problem of
inspired breach
of classical
mirror-images of
crossing-piers, their diagonal outer
a forty-five degree angle; they
principle that a straight line
The
efficiently solved the
it
stairwells. Aesthetically,
to
were ingeniously converted
changed the form of the
ing their structural function and
minimum
Inside, the passages
shapes were fused without losing their distinctness. it
a
were transformed
of the cross to the angles of the square in such a
technically impeccable;
construction,
integrate
into stairwells; outside, the diagonal faces of the piers cycles
a cohesive body.
by earher
and expressive functions.
which Sangallo had cut through the
he transformed
two autonomous square - and again it was solved
with the simplest and most economical means
serve entirely
Peter's;
outer periphery. Here again,
form which would
a
as a sculptor
express the organic unity of the structure.
continuum of space, the exterior into
In the exterior massing he
the
familiar; but in a gener-
took one trained
it
Unity was Michelangelo's contribution to St the interior into a
95
the shortest distance
were drawn on the between two
points,
without regard for the angle of incidence, and in violation of Renaissance laws of geometry and proportion. Michelangelo interpreted these diago-
-
nals as building elements
Simple
as the
form seems
as muscles,
to a
modern
not the hmits of a regular polygon. eye,
it
represents
- even more than
the oval and trapezoid of the Campidoglio - a bold and difficult revolt against the
immemorial sovereignty of
rational geometric figures in
architecture.
Comparison with
Sangallo's plan reveals the skill with
which Michel-
angelo resolved the continuing conflict between the centralized and longitudinal schemes (Fig. ii). Sangallo had artificially appended a nave
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
96
and facade onto one arm, forming, in angelo differentiated the facade
major
arm
another church. Michel-
effect,
just
enough
to give the BasiUca a
without prejudicing the centrahty of the
axis
The
interior.
Pantheon-like columnar porch emphasized the entrance
axis, yet per-
mitted the pilaster system of the side and rear elevations to continue across the facade w^ithout interruption.
Moreover, the pediment carried
row of columns was low enough to leave an unimpeded dome from the piazza (a virtue lacking both in Sangallo's
over the forward
view of the
and in Maderno's designs);
its
eye toward the dome, while
form would have directed the
triangular its
proportions and forward projection
would have announced the scale and significance of the nave beyond. The facade was to be a screen before the undulating mass of the Basilica; it is astonishing how much Michelangelo managed to alter Bramante's formulation of the character of
Bramante saw the exterior
of
as a society
mass
this
(Pis. 50, 51a, 60).
distinct geometrical
bound together by proportion, Michelangelo
as a single
sively organized that the differing functions
and
the interior plan barely can be discerned.
The
sculptural block,
and
the exterior Orders
why
him
left
were
from the wall
of
structural features
-
a
and Byzantine archi-
body of
free in the choice
the Basihca as a
of surface articulation;
to be exclusively expressive. Perhaps this
the colossal pilasters and the strips behind
so clearly
so cohe-
structural technique
revival of the heavy, plastic wall-masses of Roman tecture - permitted Michelangelo to treat the
body
forms
them were
is
distinguished
surfaces (Pis. 63, 64): they carry a projecting
segment of the entablature so that the whole decorative apparatus appears as a
detachable overlay
essential
(at
the Capitol,
structural function,
Fenestration
was the
sole
where
similar pilasters have
an
they support an unbroken entablature).
Hmiting factor:
it
dictated a tripartite division
of the hemicycle elevations and inspired the rhythmical sequence of broad and narrow bays separated by accents of the pilasters, reinforced
by
projections in the entablatures, and that results
W^iJBZi
from compressing two
pilasters.
The dynamic
the strips behind them,
vertical
by the
by the multiphcation of shadows
pilasters into
one
that bends
around
THE BASILICA OF ST PETER
97
each angle, entirely overwhelms the discontinuous horizontals of the
window and niche frames. The dominance of verticals makes the Basilica appear to grow upward rather than to weigh ponderously on the ground; it
suggests an aspiration comparable only to the effects of Gothic archi-
tecture,
and
anticipates a
cHmax
in the equally Gothic buttresses
and
ribs
of the dome.
Turning again to Bramante's elevation opposing
effect; horizontals
weight of the structure
is
dominate in
(Pi.
spite
51a)
we fmd
an entirely
of high campaniH, and the
expressed by the accumulation of masses to-
ward the earth, beginning with the low ribless dome and its stepped base, which seems to settle into the drum. Bramante, who developed the plan from the crossing outw^ard, must have designed the elevation from the dome downward. For him, the great central volume was the cause of the design; for Michelangelo it was the result. Such a distinction is warranted by the peculiar chronology of Michelangelo's studies for the construction; the design was not wholly fixed at the start, but grew as the builders advanced upwards from the foundations. At the beginning, only were determined
the lower portions 1
546/1 547 had a bare
ing
attic
was
attic,
built in 1557,
intention of adjusting
its
definitively:
probably the model of
and no facade, roof or domes. When the it
was
left
exist-
without an exterior facing, with the
design to future decisions on the dome. In the
same year the drum was begun, before the construction of a dome model
Between 1561 and Michelangelo's death in 1564, the dome was again revised, the attic was designed, and the fa<;ade project, which was dependent on the definition of the attic, was tentatively in 1558-1561 (Pi. 57b).
sketched in plan. This does not
mean that Michelangelo ignored
until the end: his earhest studies for
the lower portions.
watched the walls scale.
We
rise
54, 55a) pre-date the
dome
model of
these studies constantly evolved as Michelangelo
and saw the
effects
of his vigorous
verticals in full
can imagine that the definitive design of 1546 for the paired
colossal pilasters
the
But
it (Pis.
the
dome and
was accompanied by
paired columns
on
a decision to use external ribs
on
the buttresses. If Michelangelo ever
considered retaining Bramante's smooth, stepped hemisphere, he
would
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
98
have abandoned the thought before generating vived to the end; the design of the the profile of the
all,
dynamic upward
But only the
in the lower part of the building.
above
a
drum and
and
ribs
thrust
buttresses sur-
the lantern changed, and
dome, which developed from the elevated
curve of Plate 54 to the hemisphere of Plates 60 and 61. The progressive lowering of the dome is a key to the understanding of Michelangelo's purpose, yet accept ings
A
as a fact.
it
(Pis.
moreover,
to
critics
were
progression from the spherical
it is
dome
executed by della Porta
dome of the
engrav-
(Pi.
proven by the elevated
of early Cinquecento
low dome of which
an
63) seemed natural;
preordained and systematic evolution from
sufficiently
as
admirably suited to the popular Wolfflinian theory of a
dynamic Baroque forms. The irrelevance of
yia-b),
at first reluctant to
60 and 61) to the raised profile of Pi. 54 (now recognized
early study) to the
somehow
modem
architects,
profile
classic
Renaissance
these presuppositions
proposed by the most "classic"
Antonio Sangallo
(Pi.
contemporary to the
St Peter's
dome
by the
51c) and
Michelangelo's San Giovanni de' Fiorentini is
is
(Pis.
yob,
model.
Shortly after determining the insistent verticals of his elevation,
Michelangelo wrote to Florence for measurements of the Cathedral lantern.
The
from the profile
drum
Florentine cupola had exerted a strong influence
start;
he took from
it
the double-shell construction, the raised
and octagonal lantern of
ociili
of Pi.
55a.
Pi.
54, the rib construction
The Cathedral cupola was
type of scale comparable to St Peter's, and
gave a secure and
The Gothic
sufficiently calculable
profile
upon him
was congenial
its
and the
the only available proto-
medieval
rib construction
means of controlling great
to the vertical thrust
of the
colossal
Order, which could not have been resolved in a sunken or smooth
of Bramante's type. Bramante's dome
(Pi. 51a),
with
its
loads.
dome
sohd mass of
masonry, and without external buttressing, would have been excessively difficult
- perhaps impossible - to build over such a span. In
the Torre Borgia cupola of 15 13 structural
and expressive
(Pi.
potentialities
51b),
his last
work,
Bramantc embraced the
of the Gothic
rib:
this
design
probably suggested to Michelangelo the advantages of increasing the
THE BASILICA OF eight ribs of the Florentine
dome
ST PETER
to sixteen, as a
99
means of avoiding an
over-emphasis on planes.
Bramante's dramatic Torre Borgia lantern had the
effect
of resolving
the forces of the converging ribs; Michelangelo also found the lantern to be the
key to
and
his design: before
after
writing to Florence in 1547
he was preoccupied with its form and proportion more than with the dome profile (Pis. 54 - with five lantern-elevations and two plans 55a-b);
on completion of the dome model
of the lantern scheme, and design. Since the accents
later
in 1561 he
was
still
uncertain
even Vasari was confused about the
of the paired
colossal pilasters
on
the
final
body of
drum columns and from there into the dome ribs, the lantern became the chmax and resolution of the dynamics of the entire composition. The letter and the drawings show that Michelangelo cared less about the dome profile than about the ratio in height between the dome and the lantern; his choice was between an elevated dome with a low lantern and a hemispherical dome with a high lantern. The final solution recorded by Duperac (Pis. 60, 61) shows the lantern raised on a high podium to compensate for the lowering of the dome, so that the overall height of the Basihca would not have been much less the BasiHca
were
to be channelled into the paired
than in the early designs. Moreover the diminution in the width of the
dome
ribs
toward the top would have preserved by perspective
illusion
The hemispherical
profile
the original effect of the elevated profile. represents not so
much
types as an internal
a rejection of Gothic in favour
crisis
of
classic
proto-
in Michelangelo's style. In the space of twelve-
to-fourteen years between the design of the lower order and the construction of the
the
dome model, he had
Campidogho
project
subjective gravity
drawings.
The
and the
turned from the active tensions of
frescoes
of the Cappella Paolina to the
of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini and the
state
of mind that
zontahty of the San Giovanni model
(i 5
dome
Passion
59-1 560) cannot have been wholly
congenial to the uninhibited verticahty of the (1546): the hemispherical
late
produced the reserve and calm hori-
initial St Peter's
(1558-1561) approaches the
designs
mood of San
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
100
Giovanni without denying the forces generated in the body of the Basi-
dormer windows
Hca; the steps in the ribs and the rings of
new
We
sedative element.
know from
reinforce the
Dosio's drawings that Michel-
angelo thought at one point of combining the low
dome and low lantern,
but he must have found through experiments on the model that
would over-emphasize
this
the shift in style; the early spirit had to be resolved
in the lantern.
After completing the
dome model, Michelangelo
turned to the design of the force and repose.
built
liis
last
years
where he achieved the same balance of
He may have made no
model was
since the
attic,
in
without an
decisive designs before this time
attic
facing
(Pis. 58a, 59a),
but the
construction of the apertures impUes that he had intended to give the
window
frames a vertical
axis. In the revised design, the apertures
were
covered by horizontal frames which help to inhibit the vertical surge.
The new (PI.
accent was to have been reinforced
by
a continuous balustrade
58b).
The
restraint
of vertical forces in the
kind of tensions found
final project did
not result in the
Campidoglio, but in equiHbrium gained without loss of vigour. The co-existence of static and dynamic forms a product of the profound introspection of Michelangelo's late years at the
was too
subtle to be understood
existing
dome,
by contemporaries. In executing the
could not
della Porta
rise to the
angelo's testament; in his details he greatly reduced
ing
the
distinctions
ture.
By
transitions,
rigour by eUminat-
and softened the
clarity
and disconnected the bones of the struc-
thinning the ribs and their supports, and ehminating their
perspective diminution, lantern, della Porta
dome. But
by
elevating the
summoned
the aspiring effect
at the lantern tell
is
how
dome
profiles
and lowering the
more famiUar image of the Florentine of della Porta's dome would have been more the
powerfully achieved in Michelangelo's
cannot
its
between horizontal-circumferential accents and
vertical-radial ones. His rich decoration obscured
of Michelangelo's
challenge of ^Michel-
final solution,
where the climax
amplified by the contrasting calm of the dome.
We
Michelangelo's minor domes would have influenced the
THE BASILICA OF final solution:
lOI
though he probably planned them, he apparently
on
designs; those
ST PETER
seem
the engravings
to be
by Vignola, while
left
no
the exist-
ing ones were built from della Porta's design.
Michelangelo's
way
dome
Ages
in a
more
consistent solution
who
fused the forms of antiquity and the Middle
incomprehensible to della Porta,
of the early
failed to see the logic
all its
studies,
who had
to return to the
and to many modern
critics,
behind the evolution of the design. But for
deficiencies, della Porta's
dome
preserved the essential potency of
the original concept, and gave the architects of the
Baroque one of their
most compeUing sources of inspiration.
While Michelangelo absorbed dominantly
Roman
forms into the pre-
certain medieval
character of Bramante's Basihca, the final design
by the individuahty of his own style that it no longer symbohzed its traditional roots. It was a statement so unique and so powerful that it became itself a symbol for future centuries. The was
so thoroughly transformed
form of the dome was
to
become
even in Protestant countries where
civic as well as rehgious ideals;
association with the
the receptacle for the expression of
centre of
its
Cathohcism might have discouraged
emulation, the functions of local and national government are carried
on
under the cover of replicas of Michelangelo's dome.
Twenty-five years as
emended by
after Michelangelo's death, his design for St Peter's
was represented on
della Porta
library (Pi. 58b).
The Basihca
a fresco in the Vatican
appears in the centre of a huge square
surrounded by porticoes designed in the
style
of Serho, the construction
of which would have required the removal of the Vatican Palace.
None
of the architects of St Peter's could have hoped to demohsh the palace, but the fresco represents more than a painter's fantasy; a great sensitivity to the spirit
of the design. The
demonstrates
it
artist
returned to a
fifteenth-century formula typified in Perugino's Delivery of the Keys in the Sistine Chapel, in in the centre
which
monumental
central-plan structure appears
and to the rear of a vast piazza with
into squares. Perugino
Leone
a
Battista Alberti,
and
a
pavement marked off
his latter-day heirs illustrate the principles
who demanded
that the principal
of
"temple" of
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
102
the city should be centraUzed in plan, that
it
from worldly
should be isolated in the
it
should be raised on a podium to
things. Alberti
would have approved of Michel-
centre of an ample square, and that elevate
it
angelo's pedimented entrance-porch which, in fact, he had used himself in his
In
Mantuan
all
churches.
of the centrahzed projects for St Peter's the impact of the form
would have been severely compromised by the congestion of the surroundings. The observer would have been frustrated by the fact that while the form of the Basihca invited him to circulate freely around it, the buildings on either side and the slope of the Vatican hill barred the way. Circulation was invited much more by Michelangelo's design (Pi. 50) than by Bramante's, where block-like forms established finite, self-sufficient planes. Michelangelo, constrained by the portions already built to retain the ideals of the Quattrocento, but unwilling to compromise the kinetic force of
his
own
between the early Renaissance the late Renaissance aesthetic -
dominant
role
- of movement,
solution to this paradox
the fresco; another -
by
was
brought into focus the paradox
style,
aesthetic
of stabihty and centrahty and
in the foundation axis,
and climax.
possible;
one
of which he played a
No
alternative
wholly is
successful
represented in
prompted by the symbohsm and Hturgy
as
the taste of the Counter-Reformation - in the existing Basihca,
centrality
was destroyed and the
extension of the nave.
effect
of the
dome
well as
where
obscured by the
CHAPTER
San Giovanni
The
WHEN
IX
de' Fiorentini
Sforza Chapel
Michelangelo prepared preliminary sketches for San
Giovanni
de' Fiorentini in 1559 to
show
to the commissioners
of the Florentine colony in Rome, he returned to the centralplan proposal that his predecessor Sangallo had considered and later
abandoned
(Pi.
66a).
But the
Sangallo had reverted to a fifteenth-century concept: a central area
with radiating chapels and entrances,
broken only by an unintegrated facade and by
major aim in
central planning
method was
had been
to construct
central point, so the observer
all
major
would be drawn
somewhat
larger
For the Quattro-
size.
to retain the regularity
of a simple geometric figure; where that figure was a the favoured
simple uniformity
its
a choir
than the chapels but disguised to appear the same cento, a
common. domed circular
plans have nothing else in
circle
or a polygon,
lines radially
the
from which
to the centre
he was intended to contemplate with equanimity the
from
stabilizing unifor-
mity of his surroundings.^
At
first
glance, Michelangelo's studies for San Giovanni appear to be
motivated by
this
geometric
In his
spirit too.
square intersects a circle and the central altar (Pi.
drawing
fact that
none of these
that Michelangelo felt
On
figures
is
66b) a
podium and oval
(Pi.
68) the circle
chapels.
But the
consistent throughout the series indicates
no commitment
the Renaissance central-plan tradition and
Architectural Principles in the
(Pi.
an octagon; in the second
67) the octagon dominates, while in the final study
reappears with a square central altar
I.
is
first
its
to a particular geometrical shape. philosophical overtones, see, R. Wittkower,
Age of Humanism, London,
1949, pp. 1-28.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
104
Furthermore, the purity of each figure
The
is
some way by another.
violated in
consistent spirit throughout the series
axes; in all the studies they are sketched first
around them. There are two patterns of
rather a fascination with
is
and the building takes shape cross axes,
accents the entrances and
is
accents the chapels and
assigned to liturgy. In the
is
-\-
which
X
which
plan, the
former
one
a
assigned to circulation, the other a first
dominates; in the second, including the auxihary sketches, the
while in the
An
last
drawing they are equahzed.
understanding of the contrast between a plan generated from axes
and one formed from regular geometric shapes evaluating Michelangelo's aim.
One
principle
ment; the other, stabihty. Furthermore, cated
latter,
by
imphes directed move-
if the axial principle
it
would be
on
concept of
is
two pairs of cross-axes, dynamic suggested movements are in conflict.
comphtensions
abandoning a
possible to emphasize axes without
truly radial construction,
focusing
of basic importance in
the superposition of
are estabhshed; the
While
is
Michelangelo persistently sought to avoid
He was
a central point.
so httle concerned with the radial
his predecessors (Pi. 66a) that in his first
drawing
(Pi.
66b),
those lines (from the circle of columns to the circular wall) that should
be radial are not, while the choice of an octagonal
altar tabernacle
of
unequal sides makes a consistent radial construction impossible. In the
second study
(Pi.
67) nothing
is
constructed
from
the centre; the pier-
The same is true of the last drawing (Pi. 68) though the heavily-inked altar podium obscures the fact that the principal structural hnes cross away from the centre to form a perfect system
is
emphatically anti-radial.
octagon about
it.
In estabhshing a focus in an area about the centre rather
than upon a point
at
the centre, Michelangelo again displays his abiUty
to think in three-dimensional terms. His axes are not lines, but channels
of space that converge in an area rather than area chosen for the altar in
all
all
his
requirement
(p. i.
and
this
is
the
but one of the studies. Michelangelo's
decision to distinguish the circulation
with
at a point;
-|-
above) that
from the chapel
"when
X
conforms
a plan has diverse parts,
those that are of one kind and quality must be adorned in the same
way
SAN GIOVANNI DE FIORENTINi: THE SFORZA CHAPEL and in the same it is
.
.
.
style
.
.
.
But when
the plan
is
entirely
changed
IO5
in form,
necessary to entirely change the adornments, and likewise their
corresponding portions". The two crosses
the
offered
opportunity
Michelangelo always sought to create a tension between equal and opposing forces. But evidence of a gradual relaxation of tension can be found in the revisions required to transform the drawings into a
A
usable structure.
more
restrained, less physical solution
reflects the religious intensity
of the
sound and
emerges that
artist's late years.
two (Pis. 66b, 67), reveals his awareness of the problem of supporting a dome; heavy masses gather to resist thrust. But the inner circle of paired columns is Michelangelo's
last
drawijig
unlike the earlier
(Pi. 68),
mystifying; the columns are far too fragile to support a the groin vault planned behind them,
though
a pair
drum
or even
of sketches
served that toys with the problem.^ But to thicken
them
pre-
is
sufficiently
would have overcrowded
the central area, already too small for con-
venience. Accordingly, the
first
to
draw
step in preparing a definitive design
the columns back against the buttressing piers, changing
in the process to pure decoration,
weight.
sacrifice to statics; altar,
and allowing the
The plan copied by Vannocci
which
that tension,
in is
it
results in a
(Pi.
is
them
piers to carry all the
a record
of this
initial
diminution of axial tension, but the central
two of the earher drawings still
69b)
was
is
spiritually the generator
retained. In the succeeding stage the central altar
abandoned, too. The removal of the
altar to the
of is
chapel opposite the
entrance had already been proposed in the second of the preparatory
drawings
(Pi.
67);
but there the diagonal axes were so vigorously
was almost hidden: the focus remained in the central area. This illustrates the major problem of the centrahzed church in the Renaissance: while architects wanted a central altar for the sake of formal emphasized that
it
consistency, the clergy
where
it
would
demanded
that
it
stand free of the congregation and be simpler to service.
Michelangelo discovered that in acceding to
enough merely 2.
be placed on the periphery
to
move
liturgical tradition
it
was not
the altar; he had to give the entrance-to-altar
Casa Buonarroti, No. 36A; D. 80;
F. 223.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
io6
which further compromised the theme of an
axis special emphasis,
unresolved conflict of axes.
The
model
first
70b) seems to be an
(Pi.
conditions: the entrance portico
model
(Pi.
altar.
Now the
axes of the chapels are subdued
Regnard overlooked
classicist is
Hturgically defensible
is
must be
69a)
subtler solution, restoring the centrality
quiring a central
response to the changed
elaborated and the side entrances are
is
suppressed, so that the effect of centrahty for the engraved
initial
axial
later,
because
it
plan
represents a
of the drawings without re-
emphasis
by narrowing
this in
The Calcagni
sacrificed.
is
on
the
-\-,
for the
X
the chapel entrances (the
engraving the plan). The solution
and even suggests concern for symboHzing the
Cross.
In the final area
is
model
(Pi. 71a),
the resolution of conflict in the central
accompanied by a new emphasis on the
pheral entrance
ways and
functional reason - to
chapels.
The former
become ample
own axes, counter to now elliptical so that
theme
axial
are
in the peri-
expanded - for no
rectangular vestibules
which have
their
those of the principal
are
they, too, have counter-axes. In Calcagni'
drawing
69a) the focus of the small chapel-altars
(Pi.
instead, each pair
which the
-f-,
of flanking
ellipse
is
altars is
is
while the chapels
not
oriented toward the
at the centre;
two
foci
from
constructed. In this astonishingly un-Renaissance
solution,
the chapel plan fully anticipates Bernini's scheme for San
Andrea
Quirinale, an archetypal
al
The many sketches
alterations in plan
between the
last
of the preparatory
model did not compromise
68) and the
(Pi.
Baroque church. ^ the emphatically
sculptural quality of the initial conception. In the sketch, Michelangelo
thought of the exterior defined
by
as a great
cubic block the four faces of which were
the four rectilinear porticoes, while the chapels were carved
out of the corners.
It is
a
unique quahty of Michelangelo's sculpture that
a sense
of the outer
finished
work, because he cut back from the foremost plane in
3.
surfaces
of the original block
Wolfgang Lotz (Die ovalen Kirchenraume
Fig. 5) has
found
a
is
preserved in the a sequence
dcs Cinquecento, Romischejhb., VII, 1955, pp. 20 fF., prototype for the chapel design in a study for San Giovanni by Baldassare Peruzzi.
SAN GIOVANNI DE FIORENTINi: THE SFORZA CHAPEL
IO7
of planes rather than working continually around the block. The method produced is
a certain frontaHty in all
of his sculptures, and the same
achieved in San Giovanni where, for the
we
find a circular plan that
were caught
architects
was impossible
in a
is
first
entirely successful
dilemma:
effect
time in the Renaissance,
on
the exterior. EarHer
if their exteriors
were
circular,
it
to sufficiently differentiate their entrance facades; if they
designed a monumental entrance facade, the effect of circularity was
Here the problem
solved, because for a great sculptor there
is
lost.
is
no
necessary conflict between plane and modelling. It is
characteristic
of Michelangelo's sculptural approach that in the
made on the same. The exterior
evolution from sketch to model the major changes were
while the exterior remained nearly the
interior,
massing, Hght effects and rhythms could be studied in the rough clay
model,
as in a terra-cotta sketch for statuary;
but the interior design
involved the exclusively architectural problem of enclosed space. Michelangelo visuahzed the interior entirely in terms of modelling
The
sole plane surface in his plan
because only there
is
is
is
68).
in the chapel opposite the entrance,
the plan of the exterior cube revealed.
of the generating cube
which
is
(Pi.
A
reflection
preserved, however, in the central altar podium,
not modelled because
it
has
no
structural function.
As the plan developed, the dynamic modelling was subdued (Pi. 69a) niches were reduced in size or eUminated, to be replaced by planes in the vestibules
and passage ways. The changes primarily affected the peri-
phery; the central area retained the reduced
much of its
To
plasticity.
modelHng represented Michelangelo's
intentions
the academic hands of Calcagni and the engravers, consistent with the reduced confhct of axes
statement of the exterior.
Even
the extent that
it
can be seen
and with the
in the short period
and not
restful
as
under-
of gestation between
the sketches and the model, Michelangelo's style appears to have de-
parted from the dramatic tension and aspiration of his earher work.
For the
first
time, Michelangelo proposes to allow the great mass-
forms to speak for themselves rather than placing emphasis on ing members.
On
the exterior there are
no
articulat-
lantern-colonettes or volutes.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
io8
no dome
no
membering on the drum (Pi. 71). Inside, there is not even a cornice to separate dome from drum; outside, the pilaster order is raised on a high podium to Ughten it. The minimizing ribs,
buttressing or even
of vertical and horizontal incidents reinforces the unity of the design,
and
especially notable in the exterior entablature
is
story: uninterrupted
pov^erful rectilinear
effect
by eliminating any conflict dome: the latter remains in full
the unity achieved
is
between the facades and the
view^, uninliibited
of the low^er
by projections of any sort, they bind together the and curvihnear bodies of the porticoes and chapels.
But more remarkable of
attic
as
by any of
the habitual Renaissance fagade solutions -
pediments, balconies, projecting cornices.
The engravings
accentuate
the horizontals of the exterior and the verticals of the interior, but
Michelangelo must have sought an equilibrium throughout: the inner shell
of the
dome
is
a grid (Pis. yob, 71) that keeps the directional forces
balanced; within the grid - in the final model accents of small vertical ovals are stabilized
by
(Pi.
71a) - the rising
large circles in alternating
fields.
We
have seen that changes in the
during Michelangelo's
last
years
brium; but there the powerful in the 1540's
had already
dome and
were
of St Peter's made
also calculated to increase equiU-
verticals
set in
attic
of the lower portions designed
motion dynamic
forces that could
no
longer be restrained. At San Giovamii, Michelangelo was free to express a
mood which he
could no longer impose on St Peter's; for the
first
time
he affirmed the crushing weight of masonry construction. The aspiration
of the
ribs
and lantern of St
Peter's
semisphere of San Giovamii,
its
dome
is
quite absent
from the smooth
springing hidden in the final solution by
spreading steps to emphasize a settling quality. But the most evocative feature of the design
base
on both the
lation of weight
massing
is
is
the gradual increase in plasticity
interior
and
exterior,
which subtly
and forces towards the ground.
reinforced
by
from dome
stresses the
What
is
to
accumu-
achieved in
illumination, for the light gains intensity toward
would have spread a diffused light drum windows with their angled embrasures
the base: the small lantern apertures
on the dome, but the large
SAN GIOVANNI are channels through
De' FIORENTINI:
which
THE SFORZA CHAPEL
the brightest Hght
focused on the floor of the central area.*
would
lOp
constantly be
On the periphery,
each chapel
is
amply Ut by three relatively low windows, to attract attention along the axes rather than upwards. Notliing in Michelangelo's previous architecture prepares for project.
It is
what might be
called the resignation
of
this late
surely another manifestation of the profound religious ex-
perience of his
last
years,
an architectural version of the Pietas and
Passion drawings of the 1550's, where again the forms sink gravely
earthwards.
The San Giovanni model was for the Sforza
a
preamble to the more radical solution
Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore. Michelangelo
execution of the chapel and the design of details to
left
the
assistants, so that the
crude elevations of the structure today tend to overshadow the extraordinary inventiveness of the plan
on
variation a
Greek
the centrahzed type;
cross,
(Fig. 13). its
church, no hght could be had altar-chapel
the
subtle
are equal, as in
moved from
part, this solution
was an appendage
from the entrance and
most
httle
was
a
a response
to an existing
from the
side.
was the most promising source of illumination, and
Michelangelo decided (Pi.
length and width
toward the entrance. In
to hghting problems: as the chapel
scheme
is
but the square of the crossing has been
central position
The
This plan
after initial
72c) - to extend
it
experiments with a more centralized
at the
expense of the entranceway. This
would have been unnecessary had the chapel been provided with a dome and lantern (probably a dome was intended in Pi. 72c), but Michelangelo decided to give the chapel an unprecedented covering in the form of a shghtly deflated version of the balloon vault used
by Brunelleschi
at the
FoundHng Hospital in Florence and elsewhere. The engravings (Pi. 72a, b) show how the vault section echoes the segmental plan of the chapels: both must have been - even more than the ovals of San Giovamii - an affront to Renaissance taste, 4.
For
this
to Elizabeth
which demanded the "completeness" of
and other insights into the projects MacDougal].
for
San Giovanni and the Porta Pia
I
am
indebted
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no
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
n H H
m m Fig. 13.
Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore,
Sforza Chapel. Plan.
hemicycles and hemispheres. These curves imply a state of becoming rather
than of being; their form
The is
conflict
from
absent
necessarily
is
essentially unstable in
masonry
of axes that Michelangelo had planned for San Giovanni the chapel scheme, for there
makes the
altar-axis primary.
is
An
but one entrance, and
axis in
flanking the crossing:
wholly consistent with the
Pis.
plans,
it
is
this
early plan study (Pi. 72c)
minimized the longitudinal Giovanni
constructions.
proposing three nearly equal chapels last
of the San
an echo of the design for the three entrance porticoes in
68 and 69b.
We
recognize in
classicism noticeable at
this
prehminary study the calming
San Giovanni, but
it is
gone again
in the fmal
project (Fig. 13), as if Michelangelo could sustain only momentarily a state
of repose.
SAN GIOVANNI DE FIORENTINi: THE SFORZA CHAPEL
A
slight
III
change in the placement of the four central columns dramati-
them from
cally shifted
now
a passive to an active role;
they seem to jut
aggressively into the central space, forming the beginnings of an
made not of voids, this free use
as at
San Giovanni, but of masses
(Pi.
X
73a, c). Perhaps
of the Order was suggested by the decision not to employ a
dome.
The
plan
as a
whole, with
dynamic forms was
its
equal but differentiated arms and
become one of
to
the
most
influential
of Michel-
angelo's inventions. Architects of the following generations learned it
how
to
combine the
virtues
its
from
of a longitudinal and centrahzed plan, and
by Michelangelo's demonstration that the side chapels could be dramatized without prejudicing the dominance of the altar chapel. The influence on Borromini's planning is especially noticeable
were
fascinated
(San Carlo
If the
alle
Quattro Fontane; Sant' Agnese in Piazza Navona).
unprecedented character of the design for San Giovanni can be
related to the rehgious intensity
church camiot be understood ture inspired
of Michelangelo's
as a typical
by antique models. At
late years,
then the
Renaissance centrahzed struc-
the height of the Counter-Reforma-
tion the humanists' arguments for the central plan, stressing the perfection of the circle, square
and polygon, were considered irrehgious,
and would not have appealed to
either
Michelangelo or
his patrons if
Christian tradition had not offered equally convincing justification.
The it
central plan
was
was the form chosen
This helps to explain
suitable 3t
San Giovanni,
as at St Peter's,
because
in Early Christian times to memoriahze martyrs.
why
Michelangelo in
his first
plan turned to
where the
two
circular
colonnade
project of
Bramante
for the Tempietto precinct of San Pietro in Montorio, where, as
we know
martyria: the ancient San Stefano Rotondo, is
also interrupted
from Serho,
the
by
cross axes,
famous
modem
and the
central shrine
-
like the
altar tabernacle
of
Michelangelo's drawings - was to have been surrounded by a colonnade
with an ambulatory behind which chapels were square.
But
a
more
subtle
symbohsm
is
imphed
set in the
comers of a
in the octagonal altar
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
112 base with
its
which may be found only
for
on columns
tabernacle supported
(Pi,
66b), the prototype
in baptisteries; the octagonal central font
and colonnade of the Lateran Baptistery was apparently Michelangelo's altar inodel;^ the
come from model
two
(Pi,
the
wide entrance- vestibule with niched
same
source.
The connection
is
sides appears to
confirmed by the
first
yob) in which the vestibule becomes an open portico with
free-standing columns, a virtual replica of the Baptistery as
A
in sixteenth-century drawings. to the Baptistery tradition
shift in
it
appears
symbolism from the martyrion
would be inconceivable
in
any church other
than one consecrated to St John the Baptist; and even here
it
might have
escaped detection and was ultimately abandoned. In the second plan (PL 67), the baptismal
symboHsm
octagonal form of the building this
passes
itself,
plan to the Florentine colony
as a
from
a central tabernacle to the
Michelangelo
may have
presented
version of the Baptistery at
home;
common an octagonal form visible from the exterior, a free central space, and three entrances, the principal one in Florence the
two have in
Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise"
- being opposite
The symboHsm of the octagon
a high altar.
disappears in the mature schemes, but
the Early Christian portico type (famihar also
from Santa Costanza
Rome, San Vitale in Ravenna and ment of contending axes begins
preserved, and the treat-
elsewhere) to reflect
is
Roman
in
prototypes as the
Roman construction. The opposition manifestation of the Roman fascination
modelled masses of the wall suggest
of
-{-
X
and
axes
is
a frequent
with conflicting choices of direction: the
Domus
it
appears in the
domed
areas
of
Aurea, the Flavian Palace on the Palatine, in the Piazza d'Oro
of Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli, and in nearly
all
the Baths,
Axial planning became Michelangelo's guiding principle because of its
the
movement and because it could be used to symbohze Cross and baptismal font. The fact that it was tested first in an Early
suggestion of
Christian,
and
finally in a
angelo used tradition 5.
Tolnay believes
than an
altar.
as a
that in this
Roman
context demonstrates that Michel-
means of reinforcing
his individualized
drawing Michelangelo actually may have projected
form
a font rather
SAN GIOVANNI DE FIORENTINi: THE SFORZA CHAPEL and not
as
an end in
in this design he said that this
itself.
is
borne out by
his
claim that
had surpassed both the Romans and the Greeks. ^ Vasari
was
a rare boast for such a
was an impossible one of an
This conclusion
II3
modest man;
for a truly Renaissance
we may add
that
it
man, and marks the end
era.
There
is
an almost neo-classic repose, simpHcity, and unity in the San
Giovanni design.
It is as if
century architecture
Michelangelo, having foreseen seventeenth-
was
at St Peter's,
the eighteenth century.
Had
this
to face the
church been built under
the future history of architecture 6. Vasari, VII, p. 263.
now ready
would have been
problems of
his supervision,
quite different.
CHAPTER X
The Porta
Pia
IV PONT. MAX. PORTAM PIAM SUBLATA NOMENTANA PIUS EXTRUXIT VIAM PIAM AEQUATA ALTA SEMITA DUXIT, the inscription
on
a tablet in the
pediment of the Porta
Pia, records the
construction of both the gate and the avenue running through
and
76a).
Twenty
years later the project
was described by
it (Pis.
74
Ferrucci:^
'Be it known that Pius IV, in 1561 or 1562, wishing to leave a handsome street, which along with the city gate should bear his name, opened, or rather remodelled and levelled the beautiful strada Pia, where earlier there had been an old street,^ curving and irregular, signs of which still appear where [the tops of] certain gates of villas or gardens now serve as benches or railings on account of the uneveimess of the site as it used to be. The Pope had in mind to begin this street at the portal of the Palazzo San Marco^ because he was accustomed to go there every summer; from there it was to curve up to the Quirinal hill and continue through the Porta Pia to the bridge on the Nomentana. This was begun, but since the portion from San Marco to the Quirinal was not much used, and indeed was not open in those days, due to the difficulties of the ascent which was very steep and uneven, not much progress was made. In addition, certain individuals were greatly incensed on account of the considerable damage which their homes and property suffered from this street. Therefore he began the street from the CavaUi di Tiridate,'* making it long, wide, and level all the way to the Porta Pia, which is more than a mile; and from the gate he continued on with a straight, but in some places uneven road for some distance beyond the gate, levelling certain portions and continuing to the church of Sant' Agnese. Because this street was in a most agreeable site and enjoyed the most perfect and salubrious air of all the parts of the city of Rome, it is full of the most beautiful gardens and pleasure spots of the most distinguished citizens ..." .
1.
2.
.
Roma, Venice, 1588, fol. 23. Called "L'alta Semita": see the inscription above. In A. Fulvius, Vatitkhita di
3. 1.e,
the Palazzo Vcnezia. For an earlier project to link this palace with the Quirinal
Catalogue, pp. 294 4.
.
Statues
(see Pi. 76a).
hill,
see the
f.
of the Dioscures
as horse-trainers
stood in a clearing at the peak of the Quirinal
hill
THE PORTA PIA The Porta
on
Pia, erected
the inner face of an ancient fortified gate
enclosure just north of the original Porta in function times.
and form from any
Though
brick screen barely strong Pi. 75)
Nomentana
city gate
enough
(Pi.
81 a), differed
of the Renaissance or earher
defensive system,
set into a
115
to sustain
it
its
was an
indefensible, thin
own weight
(cf.
the plan,
- a record of the moment when the Romans abandoned hope of
using their ancient walls
Furthermore tradition
it
an effective defence against modern
as
faced inward, toward
which from
prehistoric times
highway and countryside angelo's gate belongs
Rome, evading
as
more
for the
artillery.
first
time a
had turned gates toward the
an introduction to the city behind. Michelto the street than to the walls;
it
was pure
urban scenography - a masonry memento of the temporary arches erected in the Renaissance to celebrate the arrival of princes, though with-
out their triumphal connotations. The than utiHtarian, since quarters of Rome,
it
street, too,
was more
theatrical
crossed one of the least populated and congested
where no important buildings were
raised before the
end of the century.
The scheme
mind the most popular Renaissance convention for stage scenery, borrowed from Vitruvius' account of the ancient theatre: a broad and regular city street, shown in perspective, which terminates in a monumental arch (Pi. 80c). ^ Tragic drama demanded settings of palatial, severely classical architecture, while comedy permitted more common and varied structures. There is something of both in Michelangelo's gate: the nobihty of the monumental tradition, and a fantasy and variety more commonly associated with villa design. Pis. 76a and 8ia show the original Via Pia, bordered by the walls of villas rather than by Palace fa9ades - walls punctuated at intervals by new gates which succeeded so well in simulating Michelangelo's ingenuity that they were attributed to him as long as they survived (PI.
whole
calls
secondo lihro di prospettiva [Tutte Vopere d'Architettura), Venice, 1584, fols. 48-51;
R. Krautheimer, "The Tragic and
ser. 6,
to
Sob).
5. S. Serlio, // c(.
as a
XXXIII, 1948, pp. 327
ff.
Only
Comic Scene of the
Renaissance", Gazette des Beaux-Arts,
the tragic scene has a gate, as
Tolnay reminded me.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
ii6
Whether theatrical conventions were consciously adopted or simply absorbed from the atmosphere is of no account. In either case it is not the specific devices but the conception of the city street as an integral work of art that establishes Pius' programme as one of the great innovations in urban design. For half
a
century before, the Popes had been levelling,
straightening and broadening
Roman
but their aim was primarily
Pi. 70a),
utilitarian,
extent that order was preferable to chaos.
than an ennobled
terminated
at
traffic artery:
it
was
and
aesthetic only to the
The Via
a kind
Pia
of the Dioscures, and closed on the
belhshed with architectural incidents designed to
had always been ahve to the
8ia).ÂŽ Itahans
was much more
of extended enclosure,
one end by an imposing gate facade and
colossal statues
Via Giuha,
streets (e.g. Julius II's
fit
at the
sides
other by the
by
walls
the scheme
(Pis.
aesthetic factor in
novelty here was in the homogeneity of the conception.
Via Pia
to earlier streets
what
the
Campidogho was
In
The
to earher piazze,
in that the designer exercised absolute control over the wliile his predecessors
76a,
urban
vistas; the is
em-
environment
had only managed to improve existing conditions.
these respects Michelangelo's design anticipated the urbanistic
all
programme of
Sixtus
V
and Domenico Fontana
(i
585-1 590), which
is
The plan is characterized by long street perspectives terminated by obehsks which, like the narrow attic of the Porta Pia - where Pius IV also wanted generally designated as the source of Baroque city planning.^
to place an obelisk that rises
squares
above the buildings along the
The
the sky. is
a
measure of
street
and
is
distance, a goal
silhouetted against
use of ancient sculptures as a focus of major streets and
another feature of the plan. Sixtus
programme crosses
- give the pedestrians
Sistine
as a
V must have thought of his
continuation of Pius', because his network of streets
and continues the avenues of
emphasized the point
at
which the Via
his
precursor.
Sistina-FeHce,
He
particularly
from Santa Maria
6. The spirit of the design is vividly captured in two views of the Via Pia by the seventeenthcentury Fleming Lieven Cruyl, who pointedly exaggerated the width of the street (Egger, Romischc Vcdtiten, II, Vienna, 1932, Pis. 69, 70). and 7. L. von Pastor, Sisto V, creatorc dclh imova Roma, Rome, 1922; S. Giedion, Space-Time
Architecture, 3rd ed,
Cambridge
(Mass.), 1954, pp. 41-106.
THE PORTA PIA Maggiore
to the Pincio, crossed the
the intersection
by
Pia,
alle
Quattro Fontane).
he placed the monumental fountain
duct, the
Aqua
If the basic
Sixtus
Via Pia; there Fontana embelhshed
inserting fountains at the four corners (hence the
of Borromini's San Carlo Via
V
And
name
farther along the
at the outlet
of a
new
aque-
Felice (Pi. 76a).
components of Baroque urban design were inherited by
from Pius IV, then
angelo rather than to has always
117
new
credit for the
Domenico Fontana, whose
made him seem
vision goes to Micheldesiccated architecture
.poorly cast in the role of father of
modern
town planning.
Drawings for the Porta Pia show
clusively interested in the central portal. as a neutral field,
He
thought of the gate facade
an extension of the medieval walls where a few sculp-
ornaments might be placed. The role of the gate
tural
made
was almost ex-
that Michelangelo
scenery
as street
the portal and attic the heart of the design, since they
were
The
by
could be seen from a distance.
centre
is
therefore isolated
all
a
that
domi-
nance of travertine over brick and by dramatic contrasts of Hght and
shadow which
are
minimized on the
cartouches with shallow recessions.
would designing from
the attic
surprise
the
attic
lines
known
extend the vertical
indicate the placement
of the engraving
flat
bands and
The absence of definitive drawings
Order below
attic
(Pi. 59a).
in the process
of St Peter's only
But the general
for
and dimensions of the upper
(Pi.
effect
of
prehminary construction
of the portal frame beyond
lines
after
portals: in each
of sketching
to be for the Porta Pia,
Michelangelo never arrived attic
the use of
anyone unfamiliar with Michelangelo's habit of
was not overlooked
of the drawings
by
ground up; he drew the
the construction of the
an
sides
its
pediment to
story.
Probably
at a definitive attic solution; the spiritless
75)
must have been invented by someone
else.]
The surviving drawings do not indicate that Michelangelo designed more than the portal and the central cartouches (Pi. 79a). Other details, except perhaps the spheres perched on the crenellations and the round
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
Ii8 platters size
with pendant bands, could have been added by
and placement of the cartouches imply
mined
The
that Michelangelo deter-
the overall proportions of the gate, and a vague similarity in
composition to the Palazzo dei Senatori reinforces
The misty technique of partly
assistants.
due
assistants,
the portal sketches
to Michelangelo's
was obviously
(Pis.
this
impression.
77b, 78a, b), while
advanced age and to the collaboration of
calculated,
and reveals something about the
They are perceptual rather than conceptual, in that overall impressions are more important than the objective forms of the members that produce them. While certain basic patterns effects
intended for the building.
and rhythms consistently appear in the motifs that
pediment a bull's
make them
(Pis.
possible
studies, the specific architectural
remain in
may become
a
77b and 78b) only to mature into a pediment-volute; or
horn may be transformed into
Capitals, bases
flux: volutes
a garland
74 and 78a).
(Pis.
and mouldings are mere blurs of Hght and shadow fused
by an ambient atmosphere, as in the contemporary painting of Titian, where patterns of hght and colour overcome the individuality of figures. In his latest years Michelangelo had turned
from
a sculptural to a painterly
approach to architecture, perhaps stimulated by the graphic, two-dimensional Porta Pia
The
was more
fact that the sceno-
like a canvas
than a statue.
unifying impressionistic vision, in de-emphasizing single elements,
abandons the
effects
of tension which in Michelangelo's early work were
created through conflict of strongly individuahzed members.
We
are
no longer expected to read the members as metaphors of human Hmbs; they have become a variegated pattern of optical effects organized by internal rhythms. Thus, there
executed portal which
which explains
his
is
a
freedom, even a looseness, in the
unique in Michelangelo's architecture, and
extraordinary achievement in imparting to a massive
and grandiose structure an
The
is
portal has the
air
of
festivity,
most complex
almost of gaiety.
architectural detail
an extraordinary variety of curves and angles. is
Its
of the era and
multiplicity of forms
the result of accumulating rather than selecting the ideas generated so
rapidly in the preparatory drawings, so that each sheet contains several
THE PORTA PIA superimposed designs.
No
119
structural or theoretical principles guided the
sequence of drawings - only an inspired, almost unconscious search for visual impressions.
ports
A
last-moment
from columnar
shift
to pilaster sup-
symptomatic of the painterly approach to design; here Michel-
is
angelo suddenly wanted vertical shadows rather than masses, even
made no
He
sense in terms
if it
of tradition and the weight of the superstructure.
succeeded because the vitality of the fluting fully compensated for the
loss
of body.
In the actual building the impression of the drawings could not be fully sustained; the chisel
But
to sharpen the atmospheric softness.
shows the extent to which the portal
close inspection
linearity
was bound
and sharpness of Michelangelo's
earlier
rejects the
work; the drafting of
the jambs and arch gives an impression of cushion-like blocks; the
mouldings have been stripped of the multiple channels and protrusions of antiquity to become simple plane or curved such subtleties Renaissance
is
is
lost to the
modern
surfaces.
The impact of
eye, but their significance for the
amusingly revealed in a sketch from the portal made by
Giovaimantonio Dosio,
who
automatically
and
later
had to add the note "tutto questo non
into the pediment, CI
va
intricate
mouldings
.**
The Porta
Pia
was an innovation
in city-gate design
forerunners nor imitators. Historically, is
drew
not Roman. Everything
tecture built in
would
we know
its
most notable feature
of sixteenth-century
lead us to expect that the
Rome would
which had neither
first
is
that
it
civic archi-
major Renaissance
city gate
imitate, or at least obviously refer to the surviving
ancient gates - such as the Porta
Maggiore - or triumphal
arches.
The
pride and symbolic meanings that accumulated about city gates in antiquity and the
among rarity
Middle Ages should have conspired to place them
the architectural forms least susceptible to innovation,
of modern gates in the Renaissance
sanct character of those surviving
humanism, Roman 8. UfFizi,
from
is
and the
probably due to the sacro-
earlier times. In the
twiHght of
forms could have been avoided only by intention;
Arch. 214H, see E.
MacDougall i960,
Fig. 13, p. 103.
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
120
Michelangelo and
patron must have favoured a language that would
his
monuments
give Counter-Reformation
Accordingly, the Porta Pia walls of Rome, with
its
recalls the
crenellations,
a
vocabulary of their own.
medieval, rather than the ancient
which Michelangelo used
to support
Medici palle. Antique elements could not be avoided entirely in the but their conventions were totally ignored: classified as
(the ture,
Tuscan because
its
"capitals" are
portal,
Order of the portal
if the
is
composed of gigantic ^H^^^e
wedge-shaped pegs) transplanted from the Doric/Tuscan entablathen
Roman
The
fluting.
Order of the
would not permit
decorum
fantastic
the pilasters to have Ionic
miscegenation makes the canonical Corintliian
attic in Pi.
75 particularly suspect, and suggests that the
came closer than the Renaissance engraver to Michelangelo's spirit. But the odd pilasters were not concocted specifically for the Porta Pia; they appear in slightly different form in the
nineteenth-century restorer
of the Laurentian library
vestibule tabernacles
of the Palazzo dei Conservatori
(Pi. 35a).
(Pi. 24),
In casting
and in the portals
ofl^ ancient
formulae,
Michelangelo adhered to conventions he had estabHshed himself; even the greatest genius needs schemata. recalled
from
surprising
sketches of thirty-five years before.
include portals in
which
and in which inscription forward
It is
at the centre
a segmental tablets
pediment
is
how many
motifs he
The Library drawings
set into a triangular
one,
with projecting upper mouldings project
of the pediment. In
studies for the central cartouches
of the Porta, a motif from the ceiling of the reading room reappears
(Compare
nearly unchanged.
Pis.
19a and 79a).
Only Michelangelo
could have succeeded in using the same vocabulary in both a small interior
and a huge
civic
monument;
the choice
is
another proof of his
indifference to ancient gate traditions.
The
flat
arch
is
the only motif that remained
unchanged throughout
the series of preparatory drawings; possibly an element of conscious
anti-Romanism guided experiments in new arch forms which are the insignia
of Michelangelo's
late style
(the Farnese galleries; the Sforza
Chapel; the plan of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini; the arches of the Ponte Santa Trinita). At the Porta Pia, however, the combination of motifs
is
THE PORTA PIA
121
by a structural logic as well as by a search for new forms: the arch would not sustain its stresses without a semicircular reheving
inspired flat
arch in the wall above
it,
and the tympanum
is
a visible expression
of the
inner workings.
There are so few surviving Renaissance to over-emphasize the eccentric character
ings and in illustrations to theoretical
was
city gates that
of the Porta
works we fmd
de rigueur in sixteenth-century gate design that
it is
tempting engrav-
Pia. In old
that a certain fantasy
would not have been
admissible in other civic structures. Together with villas and garden architecture, gates
were
classified in the
reason that the grandest of all ancient
Porta Maggiore.
The
genre called Rustic, partly for the
Roman city gates was the rusticated
popularity of the Rustic genre
is
Lihro estraor dinar io of 155 1, containing "thirty gates in (opera) .
.
.".
with divers orders; and twenty in
The
attested
by
Serlio's
mixed Rustic
delicate style
style
of divers kinds
Rustic genre not only favoured roughly finished masonry but
encouraged unorthodox motifs, combinations of Orders and materials. Serho, in the Preface to his book, explained the fashion first,
that the
pubHc
new
liked
things,
on
the grounds
and secondly, that the
inscriptions, arms, symbols, sculptural rehef
taste for
and statuary could be better
accommodated by cautiously breaking the rules: "But", he added, "if you architects steeped in the doctrine of Vitruvius (to which I grant the highest praise and from which I do not intend to depart much) hold that I
have gone astray with so
many
ornaments, so
cartouches, volutes and other superfluities,
country where supply what
I
I
am
[the
book
\vas
I
many
panels, so
many
beg that you consider the
pubhshed in Lyons] and
that
you
have missed: and stay sound". This cautious variation of
traditional rules
is
illustrated in Serlio's plates,
where the ancient Orders,
though overlaid with roughly dressed masonry and mannerist ornament, remain basically Vitruvian. Sanmichele was equally orthodox in
famous Rustic
gates
of Verona. SerHo's model gates have several motifs
used in the Porta Pia; in No. three-story fa9ade
is
his
XXX,
crowned by
for
example
a central
(Pi. 80a), a
pedimented
attic
three-bay,
and there are
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
122
But
obelisks at the comers; even a segmental arch appears.
the differences
more revealing than the similarities; the parts of the Porta Pia designed by Michelangelo abandon all conventions whether of ancient, or of modern rusticated Orders.
are
Rustic can be characterized as a genre rather than an Order because there
is
more
in
it
than a certain vocabulary of ornament. Associated
with the countryside rather than with the
city, it
may
an architectural equivalent to the pastoral genre in
what we would spirit. It
was
call
rustication
literature,
imparted to
villa
as
comioting
today a romantic or primitive rather than a
this distinction that
licence to fantasy
be thought of
classical
and gate design
its
and invention; perhaps the whispered suggestion of
which Michelangelo executed
and arch of the Porta Pia was intended
as
for the
first
time in the jambs
an apphcation for that hcence.
CHAPTER
XI
Santa Maria degli Angeli
561 the ruins of the huge Baths of Diocletian
1
INconsecrated by Pius IV degli Angeli,
as the
(Pis. 8ia,
8ib) were
church and monastery of Santa Maria
and the recpnstruction of the well-preserved structures
of the building complex was begun under Michelangelo's
at the centre
direction. Ancient
Roman
buildings had been remodelled often into
churches in Early Christian times (the Pantheon,
as
Santa Maria Rotonda;
tomb of Constantia as Santa Costanza; the temple of Antoninus and Faustina as SS. Cosmas and Damian, etc.), but the tradition died out in the
the
later
Middle Ages.
the conflict
It is
symptomatic of the Renaissance
between an
failure to resolve
of the pagan past and a
intellectual adoration
spiritual
adherence to Christianity that
until the
Counter-Reformation had confirmed the primacy of the Church.
The transformation of priest,
the Baths
this tradition
could not be revived
was promoted by
Antonio del Duca, who, inspired by
a vision
a pious Sicilian
of the angels, pestered
the papacy for twenty years to gain his end. Rebuffed
only temporarily encouraged by Julius
he
III,
finally
by Paul
won
III
and
enthusiastic
who envisaged the church as the crowning the new avenue he had started alongside the
support from Pius IV,
orna-
ment of the Via
Baths
Pia,
under Michelangelo's direction. Today almost nothing can be seen of Michelangelo's church:
the remodelling
carried
on throughout
the
eighteenth century altered the plan and covered every accessible surface
with
late
Baroque ornament
(Pi.
83b).
Only
the plain stuccoed vaults of
the
main
the
minimum of change in the ancient remains
angelo
hall
left
remain to
recall the original
attempt to form a church with (Pi.
8ib). Because Michel-
the elevations untouched except for the addition of plain
partition walls,
two entrance
portals,
and window muUions,
can be reconstructed by a study of the plan alone
(Fig. 14).
his
design
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
124
O \^ /
A
'
Fig. 14.
\ ^/ / ^ A, /. ,\ ^^^ ^ ^^/ ^r/ o o ^ "w" \
Rome, Santa Maria
\
/
/
\
degli Angeli. Plan,
showing
(in black)
Michelangelo's
additions to the existing structure of the Baths of Diocletian (after Siebenhiiner)
Discussion of the plan has focused on the unprecedented use of the great hall of the Baths.
It
has been read as an over-sized transept, antici-
pating the Baroque emphasis on the cross-axis (Borromini's Sant' Agnesc, Bernini's Sant'
plan
vv^ith
bules that
on
no
Andrea
al
Quirinale) and conversely, as a radial central-
crossing - only a single central space with attached vesti-
three sides, a major chapel
might be
called a nave.
^
on
the fourth, and without anything
Modern interpretations of Santa Maria
degli
AngeH have been clouded by unwillingness to admit that Michelangelo could be moved by anything except a will to form. Without denigrating the aptness of Michelangelo's solution, we may see in it more common sense than inspiration; I.
any competent architect might have
H. Siebenhiiner, "Santa Maria
degli Angeli in
Rom",
hit
upon
Mihiclmer Jlih., VI, 1955- PP- '94
it.
*â&#x20AC;˘
SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGELI Given the problem of converting the Baths construction,
two
125
v^ith a
was
sense,
that
who wanted to use the great hall as a long nave;
have had to be
The more
equally practical solutions were available.
obvious and conventional, in a hturgical
Duca,
niinimum of new of Antonio del
the entrance
would
northwest, where there was access to the Via Pia;
at the
consequently the altar found
its
anteroom
place in the
at the opposite,
southeast end. Michelangelo chose the only alternative axis, at a right
angle to del Duca's, placing the entrance at the rotonda (Fig. 14)
and the
altar across the hall,
passage to the exterior frigidarium.
more
interesting relationship
tages as well, the
on the long
where there had been
The
a
side
broad
decision not only produced a
of spaces, but had several hturgical advan-
most important of which was
of the Carthusian monastery, emphasized by
response to the needs
its
Vasari.
^
When
del Duca's
plan was temporarily adopted in 1550, the church had not yet been
granted to the Carthusians. After the grant, the plan became impractical because
it
monks, whose
offered the
Renaissance Order, no seclusion
rule
from the
angelo's alternative isolated the chancel
pubhc
altars,
giving
where we look
it
a
was
maximum
the
most hermitic of any
lay congregation. Michel-
from
main
the
hall
of privacy. In Plates 8ib and
the altar in front of the chancel and, beliind
served from the ancient Baths (Fig. 14). screen,
by
83,
By
it,
(Pi.
82a)
two columns
pre-
preserving the columnar
Michelangelo gave the brothers an isolated choir required by the
traditions
view
its
into a deep chancel with the altar in an apse at the end,
Michelangelo's design had already been changed. Earher views
show
with
of monastic architecture. The choir was probably opened to
when
after 1565,
Pius
IV violated
his contract
with the Carthusians
declaring Santa Maria degli Angeli a titular church.
The
setting
of the
cloister (Pi. 8ia)
and the need to connect
it
directly
with the chancel was a second determinant. Only one area of the Baths
was
sufficiently
unencumbered by
demolitions: the the sky 2.
on
VII, p. 261:
site
of the frigidarium,
the northeast of the "con tante
ruins to erect a cloister without costly
main
belle considerazioni per
a
huge pool
hall.
originally
open
to
So economic and hturgical
comodita de'
frati
Certosini".
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
126
demands conspired
on
to place the altar
the northeast, or, to accept the
inaccuracy of the contemporary clironicler Catalani, on the
east,
in
conformity with traditional orientation. In satisfying the Renaissance predilection for symmetry, Michelangelo's
more conventional than del Duca's. If the great hall had been used as a nave, the plan would have been grossly unbalanced by the large rotonda on one side. In making the rotonda into the main choice was aesthetically
vestibule, every part
of the church became symmetrical about the en-
had appealed to Renais-
trance-to-altar axis. Michelangelo's orientation
sance taste long before
it
was suggested by the needs of the Carthusians:
around 15 15 and 1520 Giuhano da Sangallo and Baldassare Peruzzi both anticipated
present position. ^ Finally,
Baths, as
which show the main
in perspective drawings
it
it
altar in its
followed the principal axis of the ancient
may be seen from the layout of the ruins surrounding the church,
especially the great exedra (Pi. 81 a).
While Peruzzi intended with semicircular
apses,
to close the ends
the door-to-door measurement to fix
^
west) entrance to the end of the
minimum of new
a
on account of difficult to
sides
This simple solution, involving
construction, produced a Greek cross plan wliich,
the great difference in the scale and
altar
on
the fourth
A
Greek
before, so that Michelangelo
cross
form of the arms,
(Pi.
is
with vestibules on three
was the underlying scheme of the
plan for San Giovanni de' Fiorentini
to
left
new apse.
experience visually.
and an
hall (Fig. 14 E, F)
them open and made the entrance vestibules. Then he used the distance from the main (south-
Michelangelo
adjoining rectangular chambers into
of the main
68),
drawn only two
final
years
had a ready-made iconographic exemplar
impose upon the Baths. Years before, del
Duca had taken
the cross-axis of the Baths, together
with the cruciform brick-stamps of Diocletian's original builders
3. Uffizi,
had been
Christians.
Arch. 131, 161, identified with
1955, Figs. 17, 18. 1930, Fig. 10.
The Bianchini engraving
S.
M.
kilns, as
Members of the
proof that the
inteUigentsia
Angeli by Tolnay 1930,
were
p. 21; cf. Siebenhiiner
(our p. 83b) was discovered and pubhshed by Tolnay
SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGELI
127
not SO naive: their description of the ruins "magnificentissimae Diocletiani
Caesaris
modern
critics* that
thermae to to orbe celebres" has
the
programme
for the church,
which
illae
suggested left
to
the ancient
remains virtually unchanged, was evidence of the pervasive humanistic passion for the pagan past. sion of a major
monument
the height of the
at
But the
fact that the first Renaissance
into a church should have been achieved only
Counter-Reformation warns against a simple
humanist-antiquarian interpretation.
on
the
conver-
model of Roman
was
j^aths
The
formed
taste that
from
far different
which half a
that
century later reversed the process to turn a Bath into a
St Peter's
titular
church.
Counter-Reformation society respected ancient monuments in so
made
they might be
more "magnificent" Though humanist
of the church; and the
to contribute to the glory
the
monument,
far as
the greater the contribution.
from the
patrons had pilfered
stone and column, their respect for the ancients
ruins every portable
was
so great that they
dared not openly invite comparison by turning antique buildings to Christian uses. So the Christianization of the Baths
even supported by humanists; visionary
who
it
was the achievement of a simple Sicihan
despised the ancients and
Virgin and the Angels. This dream was tion of the church, but
Idolum, nunc
mones
by
Templum
aufugite". In the
(15 8 5-1 590),
who
the
wanted only
fulfilled
est Virginis
- Auctor
spirit,
in the apse: est
honour the
"Quod
Pius ipse Pater,
the anti-humanist
zealously destroyed
to
not only by the construc-
motto inscribed
same
was not inspired or
some of Rome's
Pope
fuit
Dae-
Sixtus
V
greatest remains,
spent incredible sums to re-erect antique obeHsks before the major
churches in order to top them with crosses and thereby to symbohze the
triumph of Christianity over the pagan Michelangelo,
as
we know him in his
and drawings, was equally sense
far
past.
profoundly reHgious
removed from the humanist
late
poetry
position.
The
of Hberation from the weight of the past that had prompted
his
claim to have surpassed ancient architecture in the design of San Giovanni
now made it possible for him 4. Particularly
Siebenhiincr, op.
cit.,
to
mould
pp. 201 ÂŁ
it
in his
own image.
Admittedly,
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
128
he did as
as little
moulding
he found them
(Pi.
spirit
and
left
the ancient remains almost
8ia, Sib); but this does not necessarily indicate a
reverence for the past.
nomic
as possible,
Though
restrictions alone,
it
his design
could be explained by eco-
must have been intended to conform to the
of Pius' inscription. The Virgin's victory was surely more impres-
sive in the days
v^hen the austere
halls
of Her antagonists were
untouched. After eighteenth-century reconstructions had covered the vaults and columns of the original building
(Pi.
all
left
but
82b), the thermal
atmosphere evaporated, carrying away the whole drama of Her struggle
with the demons.
CHAPTER
XII
Conclusion
CERTAIN
common
traits
may
be found in reviewing the whole
of Michelangelo's work which help us to characterize tectural style.
Among
^
what
these are
I
archi-
liis
"rehef"
call a
style,
dominant in designs before the Laurentian hbrary, and a "kinetic" style - suggesting movement along axes - dominant in the hbrary and in subsequent buildings.
I
shall also
examine the
transition
from
two-
the
dimensionahty of the earher buildings to the volumetric character of the later ones,
promoted by
potentiaHties of structure,
a series
of bold experiments in the expressive
and fmally, Michelangelo's vocabulary of motifs,
Avhich remained the most consistent feature of his architectural
Rehef played
style.
major role in Michelangelo's sculpture: in the early
a
years, bas-rehef in the famihar sense,
and
later, as
statuary - such as the Pieta in Florence -
The same may be
restricted in depth.
a feature of full-round
which remained
said
frontal
and
of the architecture: early
projects (the chapel front at Castel Sant' Angelo, Pi. 2a; the
San Lorenzo
facade and rehquary tribune, Pis. 5b, 14c; the Medici chapel. Pi. 7a) were rehefs to be
apphed
to plane surfaces,
and
a late design such as the Porta
Pia returned to the same principle.
Bas-rehef is to be seen from one position, preferably
on
its
central axis;
it
nothing happens on Before 1500,
discourages the observer its
arcliitects
at a
from movement because
sides or back; in this respect
it is
borrowed from painting both
planar character; after 1500 a
new
space prompted the building-out
fixed distance
like painting.
its
taste for the definition
from and digging-into
static
and
its
of masses in surfaces.
The
rehef style marks a transition from the panel-painter's to the sculptor's I.
There
are
two
brief but excellent essays
Michelangelo Buonarroti quecento, Florence, 1955.
architetto,
Rome,
on Michelangelo's
architecture as a whole:
D. Frey,
1923; C. de Tolnay, "Michelangelo architetto",
II
Cin-
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
130
approach to architecture;
also represents an
it
interested in a complete conquest
of the third dimension of congested urban
at St Peter's, Pi. 51a) to the conditions
typically only
adjustment by architects
one - two-dimensional - facade
is
(e.g.
Bramante
settings,
where
exposed to view. In
Bramante's and Raphael's palace facades the wall plane disappeared
behind a dense armature of sculptural elements - columns,
balconies,,
roughly-rusticated blocks - which invited
lights
shadows. The Medici palace windows
of
a rich interplay
(Pi.
and
prove Michelangelo's
6c)
awareness of these experiments; the upper parts are surprisingly close
Antonio
of Raphael's
those
to
da
house
Brescia
Rome. But
in
other early designs were not so aggressively anti-Quattrocento: they rather followed
of the
linear,
Giuhano da Sangallo
(Pis.
3a and 3d) in preserving
two-dimensional quality of the Florentine
past.
some
That quahty
was peculiarly suited to programmes requiring monumental sculpture (the San Lorenzo facade and the Medici chapel, Pis. 5a, 7a), where the architecture itself
been
figures.
had to be
a
frame for figural compositions; had the building
as sculptural as
For a Florentine
Bramante's
it
would have overshadowed the
of this period, the preservation of Quattro-
artist
cento values, by evoking recollections of the days of leadership and hberty,
must have been an ings,
act
of patriotism, and Michelangelo's Florentine build-
Hke contemporary paintings of Pontormo and Andrea del Sarto, could
preserve local traditions without being either conservative or provincial.
When
Michelangelo turned to architecture
deeply involved in
from
this
work on
the
tomb of Julius
at II,
about forty, he was
and
it
was
a short step
sculptural composition of architectural scale to architectural
commissions dominated by sculpture.
He found
a
bond between
the
two
white-to-ivory marble of Carrara adopted
arts in the material itself: the
for architectural as well as for sculptural elements in the chapels of Leo (Pi.
2a)
and the Medici
(Pi. 7a),
invites the linear, crisp effects
man, and which drawings
(Pi.
which suggest
are
5a) less
and
in the
San Lorenzo facade
which Michelangelo sought
as a
(Pi.
contrast to the effects of later drawings
exacting,
more
5b),
younger
emphasized by the tools and techniques of his
by
X
earlier
(Pi.
79b)
malleable travertine and brick.
The
CONCLUSION
131
years wasted in the quarries fruitlessly extracting the blocks for San
Lorenzo must have discouraged Michelangelo from the further architectural use of marble, but he continued to get comparable properties
from
Tuscan materials: hardness and precision from grey
traditional
pietra serena; whiteness
The
from stucco
(Pis. 7a, 17).
fa9ade and chapel at San Lorenzo are the
last
projects in
which
Michelangelo attempted to combine architecture and sculpture; chances
would not have met its author's expectations; the rather dehcate architectunal trelhs would have been overwhelmed by the force of the rehefs and statues it was destined to support. Later Michelangelo preferred to treat buildings themselves as if they were sculptures
are that the fac^ade
rather than merely a
framework
that the Renaissance,
with such
distinction,
which
Why
for sculptural compositions.
cultivated both architecture
is it
and sculpture
produced no monuments in which the two
arts
are joined as successfully as in the Parthenon and Chartres Cathedral?
Probably because the Renaissance emphasis on individuality destroyed the
gift
of anonymity which in primitive, and occasionally in sophisti-
cated societies promotes the collaboration of large teams of gifted artisans
without
of the
sacrifice
of quality. Michelangelo, an archetype of the
individual,
had to dominate every
tectural design, to carving, yet
to
want
was
to
do
he was
step
still
new image
from quarrying,
enough of
to archi-
a medieval artisan
by working with his own hands. A century later Bernini other arts with monumental architecture without loss of
so
to fuse the
individuahty by organizing a speciahzed labour force trained to function as
an extension of his
own
The rehef style of the
hands.
early designs
was
a solution to
commissions which
emphasized architectural ornament rather than the design of buildings. For the Laurentian Hbrary statics
and of utihty
new
elicited
principles
were needed; problems of
from Michelangelo
a hitherto
dormant
genius for structural design and for the composition of enclosed spaces. In the Hbrary, for the
first
time in the Renaissance, the wall ceased to
be the dominant structural and aesthetic element; piers and columns supporting a framework of roof trusses formed the basic system, and a
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHEtANGELO
132
thin wall merely sustained and strengthened attention
was
deflected
from wall
surfaces,
(Fig. 5).
it
By
which hide the
this
means
force and
direction of stresses, to the armature which, like the musculation in the
body,
system was more Gothic than
discloses stresses. Technically the
antique; but
where the Gothic
terializing his structure to
supports to accentuate conflict
by progressively dema-
architect sought
remove awareness of load, Michelangelo used
it,
so that the observer should experience the
of forces acting in the structure.
A
medieval device thus
achieved a characteristically Renaissance goal, by urging the observer to identify with the building physically.
The hbrary experiment was con-
tinued in the design of the Campidoglio
(Pi. 35),
where the frame be-
came dominant, leaving the wall to function only as a curtain to interior spaces. The frame-system of the library interior and the exterior emphasized individual bays to a degree architecture,
unknown
screen
palace
in Renaissance
and permitted construction by the addition of autonomous,
boxlike units; the eflect
is
of unprecedented cohesiveness and strength.
But Michelangelo's purpose
in accentuating structural
not invariably to specify the forces exaggerate or repress apparent
at
work
stresses to
members was
in a building; he
evoke
a certain
might
mood. So the
design of the Conservators' palace does not merely reveal the structural
system -
it
exaggerates the apparent weight of the cornice and minimizes
the apparent strength of the pilaster-piers to intensify the conflict
between
supporting and supported elements. This demonstration of the manipulation of structure for expressive
ends was a preamble to the design of St Peter's, where powerful tensions
body of the BasiHca which are quite unrelated to the actual structure (Pi. 63). A surface network of dynamic horizontals and verticals in apparent conflict covers a dense masonry mass which really just sinks down. The colossal Order supports nothing - it merely draws attention to the drum and dome, where actual structural forces could again be revealed and exaggerated by the treatment of ribs and buttresses. The dome, where stressed supports alternate with Ughter, unstressed planes, are suggested in the
is
a hemispherical counterpart
o{ Michelangelo's
earlier bay-designs.
CONCLUSION and the drum
essentially
is
rary vestibule: the columns
133
an inversion of the wall-system in the Hb-
now
project while the tabernacle/ window
frames with their alternating pediments recede (compare
Michelangelo turned to Brunelleschi's Florentine because across the 130-year gap the
common
sensitivity to the
two
Pis.
dome
17 and 63).
for inspiration
were bound by
designers
a
interdependence of form and structure. In
from Roman
the intervening years architects had learned
antiquity to
hide the skeleton and muscles of buildings under a rich Vitruvian vocabulary
and stuccoed, painted or veneered
It
hard to understand
is
Giovanni arose
the contemporary projects for San
de' Fiorentini (Pis. 70b, 71) are so different; there the design
from
a predisposition to certain principles
position rather than
no
why
from any
clue to technique:
its
of St Peter's
is
of space and mass com-
exterior, apparently
magnified.
The
is
through volumetric
rehef character of the intervening years;
first
it is
spaces.
minimized to the same degree
exterior of San Giovanni
be discovered
was
to
alone, the interior
So the project preserved neither the
buildings nor the anatomical character of the
a sculptor's architecture in a
new
sense, close in
new style
concept to the statue carved from a block. But prophecies of the
may
gives
monohthic, returns to the
communicate through the interplay of simple masses chiefly
The dome
structural considerations.
antique type, while the exterior Order that that
surfaces.
at St Peter's:
while structure was
still
appHed
as
orna-
ment in the manner of relief architecture around the body of the BasiHca, was more convincingly integrated with the wall than ever before, and the fact that it was applied no longer to a two-dimensional surface but
it
to an undulating mass encourages us to see project, in terms
it,
of body rather than planes.
evolution of the St Peter's
dome from an
as
we do
the San Giovanni
More important
is
that the
elevated curve inspired
Florence Cathedral to the classical hemisphere in Michelangelo's solution
(Pis. 60,
61) prepared the
way
for the low, Pantheon-like
by last
dome
of San Giovanni. Nevertheless, the San Giovanni project emphasizes a factor of unpredictabihty in Michelangelo's cially difficult to define the style
of
work which makes
his architecture as a
it
espe-
whole or a
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
134 consistent
"development"
in style.
The
design shows a fresh respect for
antique sources used with unprecedented sobriety and reserve in tune with the Counter-Reformation.
Still, it is
Porta Pia, which achieves a
festival brilliance
almost coeval with the antithetical
by fantastic
distortions
of an-
tique sources. Finally, after discovering that Michelangelo
made the church
of Santa Maria
partitions in the
degli Angeli merely
Baths of Diocletian
by
raising a
few
we may wonder whether this was due to remonument or to a new spirit of Christian asceticism.
(Fig. 14),
spect for the ancient
Michelangelo's later architecture, like his painting and sculpture, might
be called "kinetic"; to
move
it
incites
his buildings
its
One
the observer physically as well as emotionally.
around, into, through •spaces
an emotional response through
capacity is
drawn
not only by the composition of
but by that "organic" design of masses that makes a wall or a
stairway seem to be in motion.
The
kinetic spirit, repressed
by the
limi-
of Michelangelo's earhest commissions - none of which required even the making of a plan - first emerged in the Laurentian hbrary, tations
where
spaces as well as surfaces
•spaces
were arranged
in a
might be controlled (Fig. 5, Pi. 16). These sequence - square, high vestibule; long, narrow
reading room; triangular study tinct,
(Pi.
i8b) - each unit of which was dis-
even in the technique of covering, and yet integrated into the whole
as the head,
body, and limbs of a
flow
downward from the
how
the integration
is
reading
statue.
The
room into
stairway, wliich seems to
the vestibule
(Pi.
i8a)
shows
aided by masses as well as by voids, hi place of the
symmetry in all directions about a central point, Michelangelo proposed a symmetry on either side of the central axis along which a visitor had to proceed. For the first time in Renaissance architecture, movement was "built in", since the design of the interior
typical Renaissance
unfolded only stitution
of an
a necessary
Both
as
one advanced along a predetermined path. The sub-
axis for a point as the focus
of architectural planning was
preamble to the substitution of dynamic for
the biological
static design.
metaphor and the invocation of movement emerge
•extravagantly in the fortification drawings of 1528
(Pis.
The enemy
26-28a).
bastions are devouring sea monsters calculated to frighten the
CONCLUSION by
form
their
as
well
envisaged for the is
as
by
Here
their function.
movement more of
135 again, although space
of men, the design
missiles than
generated axially; but where the hbrary provided
directions along
one
axis,
the bastions provide
movement
in
two
one direction -
in
it
is
outward - along many. This concept of axes exploding outward from a central core was inverted in the plan of the Capitoline Hill, tions in the surrounding space
are diverted
toward the
where paths from
all
direc-
converge upon the piazza and from there
interior
of the Senators' palace
36b, 37).
(Pis.
Campidogho room more than
Instead of implying an aggressive expansion of forms, the
plan
is
enclosed and somewhat introverted, suggesting a
a building complex.
design
fmds
in the Laurentian library, the full
reserved for the observer
is
his
As
inside,
impact of the
for once within the space
he
freedom of action and of experience guided into the channels
prepared by the architect. As in the hbrary, these channels are complex
and calculated
to involve the observer psychologically: just as an ascent
of the vestibule stairway seems
a struggle against a descending cascade,
so the crossing of the Capitoline piazza seems challenged
ing rays of
by
the expand-
the central oval.
Michelangelo's desire to control the observer even in the out-of-doors is
illustrated in the design
projects.
of single buildings
The engraving of
the
Famese palace
posal for integrating the piazza and the facade pattern,
as
well (Pi.
as in large
planning
41) preserves a pro-
by means of the pavement
and for drawing the observer into and through the palace, the
garden, and across the Tiber, with the result that the stable, cubic mass
of Sangallo would have been transformed into another composition. Even
at St Peter's (Pi. 50),
not be changed, every attempt was
made
axial,
dynamic
where the environment could in
forming the building to urge
the observer into constant, circulatory motion.
It is
impossible to beheve
that Michelangelo planned to build the piazza illustrated in Pi. 58b, since it
would have supplanted
the Vatican palace, but he
for a square before the Basihca that
The
sense
must have had
ideas
would have drawn the visitor inward.
of protective enclosure, of gathering-in, that one
gets
from
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
136
the piazza as ultimately designed
by Bernini owes much
to the plamiing
concepts of Michelangelo.
The indoor
quality that passes
explains the strange flatness
from
which
porary ceremonial architecture
the library to the
Campidoglio
gives the Porta Pia an effect of
(Pi. 74).
The
gate
is
tem-
end
to be seen as the
of the long, corridor-like Via Pia - an ornamental screen marking the
from
transition
architecture itself is
urban space into the open countryside where
a controlled
no longer commands the environment
(Pi. 76a).
The Via
Pia
an apphcation of the axial principle of the Laurentian library to the
problems of town planning. Without the benefit of this principle Renaissance urbanism might never have progressed
Seen in
this context,
San Giovanni projects
beyond the design of squares.
Michelangelo's preoccupation with axes in the
66b-68) becomes understandable. The draw-
(Pis.
ings resemble those for the fortifications of Florence in that the boldly
and the axes of movement congregation - seem to push outward
modelled masses appear to throb with
now widened in a similar
on
accommodate a way. Even in a centralized to
a point at the centre,
visitor into action.
the transverse axis principle
is
is
building, with
is
true
inevitable focus
of the Sforza chapel; within
he formed a dominant longitudinal
equal in length and
expanded
its
Michelangelo found ways of prompting the
The same
tricted cubic confines
life
to
monumental
more compelling
scale in
axis,
res-
though
in design. This
Santa Maria degh Angeli,
on
where means were found
to focus attention
colossal transverse vessel.
Baroque church and chapel designers were
the altar in spite of a
profoundly affected by Michelangelo's success in emphasizing the
without
altar
of the centralized scheme.
sacrificing the unity
In architectural as well as in hterary expression, vocabulary
is
a
major
component of style, and nowhere is the cohesiveness of Michelangelo's work more clearly revealed than in the ornamental motifs that he used consistently throughout his
life.
frieze (Medici chapel. Pi. 8;
character found in
some of
Half-human, half-animal masks give a
Famese
palace. Pi. 46a) that
the plans.
A
related antique
zoomorphic motif
is
the
ceremonial bucranium holding swags and banderoles which appears on
CONCLUSION
137
the sarcophagi of the Medici chapel, the ceihng of the Laurentian hbrary (Pi.
19a)
palace
and in the window pediments of St
(Pis.
46a, 59a).
bracket in the
One of
form of a
tomb he used it
as
volute;
and the Farnese
Michelangelo's favourite devices was a
from
its earliest
appearance on the Julius
an expressive rather than a structural element, attracted
by the curvihnear and swelling It
Peter's
plays an important role in
hbrary vestibule, PL
17),
profiles so uniquely suited to his purposes.
the early commissions (particularly the
all
and a variation appears
lantern to the cone of St Peter's
(Pi.
used to form mock-crenellations
gories: the conservative, in
which
at
the Porta Pia
it is
from the
frivolously
(Pi. 74).
window
Michelangelo's door and
63 )
;
as a transition
frames
may
a simple frame
be classed in two cate-
is
topped by a triangular
or segmental pediment stoutly supported on blocky brackets
Lorenzo facade, Pi. 15;
windows
Medici palace windows, PL
Pi. 5b;
at the
Campidogho and
in
which the component elements
6c; library exterior,
St Peter's, Pis. 35, 64;
destroyed portals of Santa Maria degli Angeli,
(San
Pi. 82b);
either play their
and the
normal
and the
fantastic,
role in an
unexpected way, or are borrowed from some foreign source (tabernacles at the
Medici chapel and the hbrary.
Pis. 9, 24;
Conservators' palace. Pi. 38a; Farnese windows, St Peter's
pected nacles
is
dome, PL
60; the Porta Pia, Pi. 74).
the pilaster
narrowed toward the
and Campidoglio
form of borrowing:
portals; the
PL
46a; dormers
that appear
more than once
Order
3b, 37, 63)
of
example of the unex-
base, as in the library taber-
same design shows the commonest
the transposition oÂŁ guttae (pegs)
entablature to the base or
(Pis.
An
inner portals of the
crown of an in buildings
from the Doric
effaced capital.
Other motifs
and drawings are the
and the recessed column
(Pis.
colossal
13b, 17, 38a).
Michelangelo's lifelong predilection for certain formal configurations contributed also to the unity of his work; for example, the symmetrical juxtaposition of diagonal accents in plan and elevation. Often the dia-
gonals
form
quasi-triangular shapes
apex of a composition, chapel
(Pi. 8),
which
as
and serve to focus attention on the
do the sarcophagi and
at the
figures
same time accentuate the
of the Medici
effigies
and bind
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
138
together the strong vertical elements in the architecture. In the fortification drawings at its height;
is
(Pis.
26-28) the expressive potential of diagonal forms
they demonstrate
communicated by the mere
diagonal strokes seem to echo verticals the
how
vigorous
movement may be
inclination of lines. Perhaps this
more convincingly than
is
because
horizontals or
spontaneous motion of the draughtsman's hand. Elements
of these Florentine schemes are combined
where the symmetrical diagonal appears both stairway, a repetition of the Medici chapel at the Cortile del
CampidogHo
at the
in elevation
(Pi. 37),
- the Senator's
scheme - and in plan
36b);
(Pi.
Belvedere the double-ramped stairway was used again to
focus attention at the centre of the composition
65c).
(Pi.
By using diagonal
wall-masses to fuse together the arms of the cross, Michelangelo was able to give St Peter's a unity that earlier designs lacked (Fig. 11), and the
diagonal again
is
basic to the plans
of San Giovanni axes of the chapels
68) and of the Sforza chapel (Fig. 13, axes of the projecting
(Pis. 67,
columns). Michelangelo's taste for oval forms was equally persistent.
The
free-
tomb ofJuhus II was to have had an oval interior chamber - so far as I know, the first space of its kind proposed in the Renaissance - and the form appears again in the wooden ceiling of the standing project for the
Laurentian library (Pi. 1 8a).
The
(Pi.
19a)
and in the central
oval becomes dominant in the
and reappears in the chapels of San Giovanni form, those of the Sforza chapel in versions
Giovanni
(Pi. 72).
steps
Campidogho plan (Pi.
But the
figure does
(Pi.
36b)
69a) and, in incomplete
Oval ornamental frames appear
of the interior design of the domes of St
(Pi. 71).
of the vestibule
its
Peter's
most valuable
and San
service in sug-
gesting an unprecedented approach to the design of arches and vaults.
Michelangelo designed for the corridors of the Famese palace and later for the Sforza chapel vaults half-oval in section the
first
(Pis.
43, 72) to bring
major innovation in the form of coverings
about
since Brunelleschi,
These experiments were prepared in studies for the vaults of the Laurentian hbrary, particuwhich is an innovation not only in form but in its illumination through windows in the sides and crown of the vault. The vaulting of the triangular room planned for the library (Pi. 1 8b) would have been equally unconventional. 2.
larly Pi. 21,
One of the
earliest
and most
CONCLUSION
139
effective fruits
of this contribution was the
Ponte Sta Trinita in Florence.
The diagonal and basic
the oval are
dynamic transformations of two of the
forms of classic composition, the upright and the
Michelangelo's architectural vocabulary
is
circle.
one indication of a casual
Humanism. While his contemporaries spoke of emulating and rivalling ancient Rome, he took from it only what suited his taste, rarely adopting a motif without giving it a new form or a new meaning. Yet he invariably retained essential features from ancient models in order to force the observer to recolattitude
lect the
toward antiquity
antithetical to Renaissance
source while enjoying the innovations.
By the time Michelangelo
turned to architecture, the Renaissance of antiquity was no longer an
every
issue for classical
as
from
forms
artist;
it
as readily
had been achieved, and one might borrow
from some building of
the ruins. Michelangelo learned
syntax than
its
the century 1420-1520
from ancient
Rome
rather
its
vocabulary: ways of using shadow and texture, a sense
of scale, and the
like.
Otherwise he was not more inclined to pagan than
to Christian antiquity; in his architecture as in his sculpture, Early
Christian and later medieval elements gained equahty with the
This was a result of the acceptance of the Renaissance fact;
once no medieval
as
Roman.
an accomphshed
supremacy
institutions survived to challenge the
of Renaissance culture - once, that is, the Middle Ages had become ancient, too - the past could be surveyed dispassionately, as a continuum. ^
The
shift
from an exclusive
to an inclusive historical ethic
- from
"modern" view of the past - immensely increased storehouse of tradition to which artists might look for inspiration.
Renaissance to a
Because Michelangelo emerged so
late as
an
architect, his
poraries belonged, paradoxically, to an earHer generation:
a
the
contem-
two major
3. In the 1460's the Florentine sculptor-architect Filarete still called Gothic architecture "modema" and the Renaissance style "modo antico". See the fascinating study of Renaissance attitudes toward ancient and Medieval art and literature by E. Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (The Gottesman Lectures, Uppsala University, VI), Stockholm, i960.
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
140 architects start
of the Classic age - Bramante and Raphael - had died
of Michelangelo's building career;
developed a mature
men
style. In
the period
1
a third, Peruzzi,
at the
had already
520-1550 several able younger
carried individuahzed versions of Bramante's style to the north
Romano, Jacopo Sansovino), so that Michelangelo central Italy only by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.
(Sanmichclc, Giulio
was challenged in None of these was touched by Michelangelo's
style,
which began
to exert
when Michelangelo was the sole survivor of the group. Faint signs of his impact may be found first in the later portions of SerHo's treatise and in the early work of Palladio (Palazzo its
influence only after mid-century,
of 1550, which
Chiericati, Vicenza,
During the tinct
'50's
and
'6o's
still
reflects the
younger
architects
Conservators' palace).
formed into two
camps of Michelangelo adherents. The Tuscans (Ammanati, Dosio,
Vasari, Buontalenti)
seemed to learn only from Michelangelo's Florentine
Romans (Guidetti, del Duca, and especially only from those in Rome. The Tuscan branch flourished
buildings; the
quarter of the century the hbrary reading
(e.g. Vasari's Uffizi palace, a free
room
della Porta)
in the tliird
transposition of
to the outdoors) but quickly settled
down
the simple domesticity of the typical seventeenth-century villa;
the
dis-
Roman
it
to
was
works that were destined to guide the future - particularly
the Campidoglio and St Peter's,
which
for centuries influenced the plan-
ning of squares and the design of domes. Della Porta deserves a share of the credit, since he finished these buildings eflectively original designs to suit a less sophisticated
Porta showed
Roman
architects
and more
by modifying
of the seventeenth century
how
Michcl-
angelism could profit from the master without losing originality.
Rome
the
imitable fashion.
From
the style spread in an expanding circle to encompass the western
world, penetrating more deeply, however, in Cathohc countries than in
England and North America, where cerebral architecture of Palladio.
Yet
taste if
Michelangelo had not reluc-
become an architect, the domes of St Washington Capitol could not have been surely would have had another name. tantly
veered toward the more
Paul's in
London and of the
the same, and the Capitol
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San Lorenzo.
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San Lorenzo. Facade.
Fa(;:aclc
project.
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San Lorenzo. Blocks quarried for the facade.
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fa<;:adc.
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Medici Chapel.
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Interior,
The Old
toward
altar.
Sacristy (1421-1429).
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Medici Chapel.
Tomb
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Lauren tian Library. Vestibule. Study for the West elevation.
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Laurcntian Library. Vestibule. Studies for the stairway and column prohles.
23-
Laurcntian Library. Vestibule. Studies for the stairway and column profiles.
24- Laurcntian Library. Vestibule tabernacle.
25a. Laurentian Library. Vestibule. rior elevation
25c. Pcruzzi. Plan
and
Study for the
inte-
of Florence's medieval
25b. Laurentian Library. Vestibule. Study for the reading-rooni portal.
section.
fortifications.
26a. Preliminary project tor the Prato d'Ognissanti.
26b. Developed project lor the Prato d'Ognissanti.
27a. Project for gate fortifications. Porta al Prato.
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Capitolinc Hill. View.
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View,
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Hill.
View,
1547.
ca.
153 5-1
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36.
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31b.
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Anonymous. Capitolinc
Hill.
Hill.
View,
View,
ca.
ca.
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554-1 500.
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Francisco d'Ollanda. Statue ot Marcu.s AurcliUi, i53S-ii39.
ii.
Capitolmc
Hill. Statue
of Marcus Aurclius on Michelangelo's
base.
34'i-
Picnza. Cathedral square. Plan.
34b. Capitoliiic
llill?
iMan and elevation sketehes.
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43b. Farnese Palace. Project tor the rear wing, after Michelangelo, 1560.
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63.
St Peter's.
View from
the Vatican gardens.
64.
St Peter's. Apse. Detail.
65a. Vatican.
Belvedere.
Michelangelo's
stairway
65b. F. Boschi. Mlcliclmioclo
prcsciiriiio
a model to Julius III.
(1550-1551).
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di Porta
Pia da Michaelangiolo {1364) al Vespignani
INDEX Alberti,
L.
xxxiv,
B.,
12,
17,
55,
63,
91,
Ammanati,
B., 42, 92, 140, (Pis. 48a, 56b)
Ancona, 49 Andrea del Sarto, 130
Delplii, Shrine
Architecture, Ancient and
6-7,
12,
Cortemaggiore, 55 Cronaca, 24
101-102
15,
41,
Roman,
xxvi-xxviii,
82-83, 92, 96, lOI, III-
113, 115, 119, 120, 123, 127, 133, 136, 139;
Dosio, G.-A., 100, 119, 140, 82b)
xxiv, II, 35, 40, 54, 78, 89-92, 97-99, loi,
Duca, A. Duca, G. Duperac,
120, 123, 132, 139; Quattrocento, xxv-xxvi,
Durer, A.,
Early
Christian,
Byzantine,
xxix,
2,
139;
High
111-112,
123,
139;
Medieval and Gothic,
22,
7,
4,
11,
96;
92,
28,
7<5-79,
Renaissance,
of Apollo, 73
Diocletian, 126
del, 123,
70b,
125-126
140
del,
59b-6i, 8ia)
E., 99, (Pis. 37, 3,
(Pis. 57a, 65c,
46-47, (PL ic)
91-92, 103,
xxv-xxxv,
81,
91-92, 140; Baroque, xxxiii, loi, 106, 117, 124, 136
Farnese Family, 76, 79, 87; Cardinal Alessandro,. see Paul III; Pier Luigi, 76
Baccio d'Agnolo, 16
Federigo da Montefeltre, 47 Ferrara, fortifications, 48 Ferrucci, G., 114
Barozzi, G., see Vignola
Filarete,
Bernini, G. L., 106, 124
Florence, city {see also heading Florence, Saru
54
Lorenzo)
Blois, Chateau, 89
Borromini, F., iii> 124 Bramante, D., xxv-xxxiii,
Baptistery, 112
65, 77, 79, 81, 84, 89, 92-98, 101-102, III,
Cathedral, 14, 91, 98, 133 Environs, Poggio a Caiano, 42
117, 130, (PI. 5ia,b,; Fig. iia, b)
Fortezza d'Abasso, 48
BrimeUeschi,
5, 7,
46, 56-57, 63,
F., 12, 15, 22, 24, 26, 29, 63, 91,
Fortifications,
45-53,
angelo's drawings,
109, 133, 138, (PI. 7b)
Buonarroti, M., see Michelangelo
Michel-
25c);
(PI.
7,
49-53, 62, 134, 136,
138, (Pis. 26a-28a)
Foundling hospital, 63, 109
Buontalenti, B., 140
Pal. Medici, 76; v^^indows
by Michelangelo
130, 137 (PI. 6c)
Calcagni, T., 106-107,
(PI-
69a)
Pal.
Pandolfmi, xxxi, 81
Carthusian Order, 125-126
Pal. Pitti, 75
Castro, 49, 55 Catalani, M., 126
Pal. Rucellai,
Cesariano,
C,
72
Pal. Strozzi,
ib)
(PI.
Chambord, Chateau, 46 Charles V, Emperor, 60, 70 Chartres,
Notre Dame, 89
Civitacastellana, 46, 48
Civitavecchia, 48
Clement
VII, Medici, xxxi, 34, 48, 70
Colonna, Marcantonio, 70 Colomia, Vittoria, 71 Condivi, A., 3-4 Constantinople, Hagia Sofia, 92
Pal.
degh
76 77-78
drawings
Uffizi, 140;
in
xxxiiâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
xxxiii, 13, 48
Ponte Sta Trinita, 120, 139 Santa Maria Novella, 17 War of Independence, 52-53 Florence, San Lorenzo, xxx, 131,
(PI. 15)
Facade, 11-20; design, 16, 18, 20, 21, 39, 91, 92, 129-131, 137, (Pis. 3a-5a, 6a, b; Fig.
i);
contract,
18;
models,
16-18,
20, (PI. 5b)
Library, 21, 24, 33-44,
1
31-132, 134-138,. ^^-^.
THE ARCHITECTURE or MICHELANGELO
154 (Pis.
i6c-25b; Figs.
room,
vestibule,
38-44,
6); rare
5,
3,
35, 44; reading
book
room, 35-38, 44;
120,
137;
vestibule
stairway, 42-44, 50, 138
Medici chapel, 21-32, 136-138,
(Pis.
91,
93,
129-13 1,
7a-i2c, 14a, Figs. 2-4);
dome, 24-26; Ducal tombs, 24-31,
50,
137; Madonna, 29-30, Magnifici tombs.
Medici family, xxx, 12, 42, 79; Giovanni, see Leo X; GiuUo, see Clement VII; Lorenzo the Magnificent, 34, 77 Michelangelo Buonarroti, life, start of architectural career, xxx; excluded from Roman commissions, xxxi-xxxii; claims he is not an architect,
i;
correspondence with Clement
VII, 34; inspects Ferrara defences, 48;
awarded
29-31; tabernacles, 27-31, 137 New Sacristy, see Medici chapel
Roman citizenship,
Old
struction of Villa Giulia, 92; claims to have
Sacristy, 22, (PI. 7b)
58; contrasted to Sangallo
80-87, 93-95. 98, 103; Consultant for con-
Romans,
Fontaincbleau, Chateau, 89
surpassed the Greeks and
Fontana, D., 116-117
influence in architecture, 139-140
Francesco di Giorgio Martini, xxxiv, 47, 54, 56,
—works, architecture, thcory-drawings-praci-io, 53, 57, 86, 107, 118, 129-139; see
tice,
(PI. la)
Francisco dc Hollauda, 61,
(PI.
32)
113; his
Florence,
city,
Fortifications,
Medici,
Pal.
Giovanni Dalmata, 28, (PI. 13a) Giovanni Pisano, 14 Giovanni da Udinc, 27 GiuHo Romano, xxix, xxx, xxxii, 140
Ponte Sta Trinita; Florence, San Lorenzo, Facade, Library, Medici chapel; Rome, city. Capitoline Hill, Castel Sant' Angelo, Pal. Famese, Porta Pia, San Giovanni de' Fiorcntini, Santa Maria dcgh Angcli, Santa Maria Maggiore, Sforza chapel; Rome, Vatican
Guidetti, G., 140
palace, Cortile del Belvedere;
Rome,
Vatican,
St Peter's.
—works, Isidor
of
sculpture and painting, xxx, xxxi.
PaoUna frescoes; 99, tomb; 61, 137-138; Moses,
43, 106-107; Cappclla
Innocent VIII, 66 Seville, St, 72, (PI. 38c)
David, 21; Julius
II
43-44; Passion drawings, 109;
JuHus
II,
Julius
III,
xxv-xxvi, xxx, xxxii, 77, 116, 130 92, 123
Kosmokrator symbohsm, 73
Pictas,
109
Michclc da Leone, 48 Mino da Ficsolc, 28 (PI. 13a) Mirabilia Urbis Roniae, 66
Naples, 49
Nepi, 49 Nettuno, 48
Laon, Notre Dame, 89 Leo X, Medici, xxx, xxxii, 12-15, ^>7. 13° Leonardo da Vinci, xxvii, 4-5, 45-46, 51, 5^
Ostia, fortress, 46
Ligorio, P., 69
Lodovico il Moro, xxvi, 45 Lombardy, xxvi London, St Paul's, 140
Palladio, A., xxxiv, 140
Lorini, B., 52
Paul
II,
Lyons, 121
Paul
III,
Notre Dame,
Paris,
89; Louvre, 89
28, 77, (PI. 13a)
Famese, xxxi,
55, 58, 67-69, 75, 123
Pavia, Certosa, 14, 91
Perugia, 49 Perugino, Pietro Vannucci, called, 10
Machiavelli, 48
Mantua, xxx; Ducal palace. Pal. del Te, xxxii; Sant' Andrea, San Scbastiano, 17, 102
Peruzzi, B., xxix-xxxii, 49, 61-63, 9i, 126, 140,
Marius, trophies
Piccolomini family,
of,
70
(PI.
25c) 55,
76
INDEX Pienza, 55,
Pius
Piccolomini, 76
(PI. 34a); Pal.
155 Tribunale (or della Giustizia), xxvii,
Pal.
77, 84
76
II,
Venczia (or San Marco), 77, 114 xxxi
Pius IV, 114, 123-124
Pal.
Plato,
Pal. Vidoni-Caffarelli,
3
Palatine, Flavian palaces, 112
46
Pontelli, B.,
Pontormo, Jacopo Carrucci
Pantheon,
da, 130
Porta, G. della, 26, 64, 84, 93, 98-101, 140
15, 26, 96, 123, 133
Pincio, 117
Porta Maggiore, 119, 121 Porta Nomentana, 115 Raphael, xxvi, xxix-xxxiii,
7,
81, 91,
13, 79,
Porta and Via Pia, 63, 88,
1
14-122, 123, 125,
134, 136, 137, (Pis. 74-79b), drawings,
130, (Fig. lib)
17-120, 129; engraving, 120
Ravenna, San Vitale, 112 Regnard, V., 106, (PI. 71b)
Quirinal, Dioscuri, 67, 114, 116, (PI. 76a)
Riario, R. Cardinal, 77
Sack of Rome, 1527, 48
1
S Andrea
Rimini, San Francesco, 17
Rodolfo Pio, Cardinal,
Rome,
(PI.
i,
city {sec also headings,
Rome,
palace;
Rome, Vatican
Vatican, St Peter's), xxv, 54
Alta semita, 114
Aqua
al
Quirinale, 106, 124
S Carlo aUe Quattro Fontane, iii, 117
Sob)
S
Giacomo
degli Incurabih, xxxii
S Giovanni de' Fiorentini, xxxii,
Fehce, 117
Arch of Constantinc, 15 Banco di Santo Spirito, xxxiii
136, 138; drawings, 103-107, 127, 133,
138; engravings,
Baths of Diocletian, 123-127; 134 Campidogho, see Capitoline HiU
106-109 S Stefano Rotondo,
Campo
Sant'
de' Fiori, 86, 88
Capitoline Hill, 21, 50, 53, 54-74, 88, 95-96, 99, 100, 132, 134-138, 140, (Pis. 29-38b; Fig. 8); Antiquities, 29, 66-73;
Conser-
vators' palace, 58, 59, 62-67, 120, 132,
137;
Marcus Aurelius monument, 57-61, 74; Palazzo nuovo, 59-60;
66-69, 71
>
Castel Sant'Angelo, 46, 129,
(PI. 2a,
b)
Brescia, 130
Santa Maria dcgh AngeU, 21, 123-128, 134, 136-137,
(Pis.
8ib-83b; Fig. 14)
Santa Maria in Aracoeli, 58 Santa Maria Maggiore, 116; Sforza chapel, 109-111, 120, 136, 138, (Pis.
72a-73c; Fig. 13)
Pal. Farnese, xxxiii, 9, 21,
CapitoUne Hill 62, 75-88, 136-
138, (Pis. 39-49b; Figs. 9-10); cornice, 83, 85; court, 84, 85; engravings, 86, 87, 135;
fagade, 83-84, 88; Michelangelo's
unexe-
cuted scheme, 86-88; Sangallo's projects,
82-86 Pal. Latcrano,
91
Trastevere, 86
79
Pal. de' Conservatori, see
Sassia, xxxiii,
Theatre of Marcellus, 84 Tiber river, 54, 86-88
Branconio d'Aquila, xxxi
Pal. Cancelleria, 77,
Santo Spirito in
xxvii, 56, III
Gesu, 21
Pal.
iii, 124
SS Cosma e Damiano, 123 Tabularium, 54, 65 Teiiipietto, S Pietro in Montorio, xxvi-
Aurea, 112
Forum, 54 House of Antonio da House of Raphael, 65 Pal.
1 1
Agnese in Piazza Navona,
Santa Maria della Pace, xxvi, 63
118
U
106-108; models, 99,
Santa Costanza, 112, 123
Senators' palace, 50, 57-59, 61-63, 65, 71,
Domus
7, 21, 53,
98-99, 103-113, 120, 126, 133, 138, (Pis. 66a-7ib); dome, 98, 105, 108-109, 131,
Via GiuHa, 86, 92, 116 Via Nomentana, 114 Via Sistina, 116 Villa Famesina, xxix, 86, 87 Villa Madama, xxxi, 91 Rome, Vatican palace, xxvii,
102,
66
Massimi, 63, 71
Pal. del Senatore, see Capitoline Hill
135;
xxix, xxxii, 79, xxvii,
Cortile del Belvedere,
xxix, xxxi, xxxiii, 50, 56-58, 65-66, 138, (Pis.
65a, c); Cortile di
San Damaso, 63; of Sixtus IV, 34;
Fortifications, 52; Library
'.^
fejEre^^^n^^^Hi^
Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com
THE ARCHITECTURE OF MICHELANGELO
156
Library of Sixtus V, loi; Torre Borgia
Tivoh, Hadrian's
cupola, 98-99,
Tolnay, C. de, 24, 30, 43, 71 Turin, 49
Rome,
(PI.
51b)
Vatican, St Peter's, xxvii-xxxiii,
i,
Villa,
112
21, 26, 64, 65, 80, 85, 89-102; 108, III,
117, 132-133, 135, 137, 140, (Pis. 50-64;
Bramante's project, 91-97, 93, 96-102, 108, 132-133, 137-138; drawings, 93, 97-98, 100; engravings, 98-99; fabhrica, xxx, facade, xxix, 96; Figs.
II,
loi, 130;
12);
dome,
Porta's
della
changes,
Sangallo's project,
Paul
II,
26,
98-101;
93,
93-95, 98;
Tomb
of
28, (PI. 13a)
Umbilicus symbolism, 73 Urbino, Ducal palace, 78, 91; Duchy, 48
Vannocci-Biringucci,
105,
(Pis.
62b, 69b)
113, 140, (PI. 52b)
Rome, Vatican
Rossellino, B., 55
Vatican, see
Ruskin,
Vauban, 52 Venice, Doge's
J.,
C,
Vasari, G., 7, 22, 27, 30, 48, 75, 79, 86, 92, 99,
33
palace, 89-90; Procuratie, 63;
Rialto bridge, 21
Sangallo, Antonio the Elder, 13, 46; Antonio
the Younger, xxix-xxxiv, 48, 50, 52, 55, 63, 75, 79-87, 91, 93-95, 98, 103, 135, 140, (Pis.
Verona, 48; Fortifications, 23, 48,
7);
Vicenza, Pal. Chiericati, 140
4c, 47a, b, 51c, 66a; Figs. 9, 11 c, 12); Giuliano,
Vigevano, 55
xxvi, 13, 14, 17, 42, 46, 48, 50, 56, 126, 130,
Vignola,
Giacomo Barozzi
da, 73, 84, 85, 92,
loi
(PI. 3a)
Sanmichelc, M., 48, 50, 121, 140 Sansovino, J., xxix, 13, 140; A., 13, 28 Samazello, 46
Vitruvius, xxxi, xxxiii, xxxiv,
2, 22, 31, 72, 83,
115, 121, 133
VioUet-le-Duc, 33
Scully, v., 50 Serlio, S., xxxvi, loi, iii, 121, 140, (PI. 8oa, c)
Siena, xxxii; cathedral, 11, 34;
town
planniig,
76 Sixtus IV, 66
Washington, D.C., Capitol, 140 Wittkower, R., 38 Wolfflin, H., XXV
Sixtus v., 116, 127 Sforza, Lodovico, see Strozzi, F.,
(Fig.
Gates, 121
77-78
Lodovico
il
Moro Zodiac symbolism, 74
'y
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1
THE AUTHOR James S. Ackerman, now Professor of Fine Arts at Harvard Universltj, taught in the College oj Architecture and Department oJ Art at the University of California at Berkeley from ig^2 to i960. He was a Research Fellow at the American
from 1949
to
Academy
19^2, and from 19SS
to
in
Rome
19S9 ^^^
Editor-in-Chief of The. Art Bulletin. In the past year, as a visiting Fellow of the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University, he has been collaborating in
a critical analysis of the humanities in the United States.
His first book.
The Cortile
del Belvedere,
a history of the Renaissance portion of the Vatican Palace, was published at the Vatican in 19S4^ '^"^
he has contributed to a forthcoming volume,
Seventeenth-Century Science and the Arts.
Volume
II
of
The Architecture of Michelangelo
the scholarly foundation of Volume I: a critical catalogue
1
is
48 -page
which assembles and analyses the
original documentation
and modern
research on all oj
Michelangelo^ s buildings and projects. The separate
volume
is
available at
$12.^0 upon
request.
Printed in Great Britain
Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com
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