Mid-term assistance

 Well, it has been another long week filled with classes and quizzes and preparing for mid-terms.  I was afraid that I'd have no time to post an entry this weekend either as I must focus my energy on memorizing names of works, artists, dates, and commissioners.  But then I thought that since I have to transcribe my notes into something that makes sense, I might as well transcribe them here.  

Façade of San Marco, 1455-1503, Francesco del Borgo,
for Cardinal Pietro Barbo (Paul II)

San Marco is the first church in Rome dedicated to St. Mark and the first in Rome with a Renaissance façade.  It is the titular church of Cardinal Pietro Barbo (the future Paul II).  The arches of the loggia are Roman arches with engaged columns or pilasters and piers supporting the arches.  The façade references both the Coliseum and old St. Peter’s in its form-the stone used for the façade is actually from the Coliseum.  Old St. Peter’s façade had three arcades with Roman arches, and a blessing loggia where the Pope blesses the crowd.  In Roman arches the arch is supported by a pier with an engaged column or a pilaster.  Compare this style to Florentine arches where the column actually supports the arch.  San Marco faces Via Papalis, the then longest street in Rome.  The façade contains Cardinal Barbo’s crest as well as the Lion, the symbol of St. Mark.

Palazzo Venezia, 1455-1503, Francesco del Borgo for
Cardinal Pietro Bargo

Cardinal Barbo commissioned the Palazzo Venezia from the Florentine architect Francesco del Borgo and he wanted it built next to San Marco, his titular church.  It is the first geometrical building in Rome.  Borgo was up to date on the current tenets of architecture (he was a contemporary of Leon Batista Alberti and may have read Alberti’s treatises on building) and he also studied antiquity including the writings of Vitruvius.  The Palazzo refers back to medieval buildings with its tower, crenelations and color.  Framing the windows in travertine references the ancient past and the cross-mullion referred to both the Guelphs Pro-Papal stance (a political statement for all to see) and also produced an interior shadow of a cross.  The Piano Nobile-or main floor-consists of several rooms descending in size and increasing in importance with the smallest rooms being the Cardinal’s private rooms.  The current location of the second section of the palace was the original location of the palace garden screened in with a wall and planted with trees and displaying sculpture.  The palace entrance-possibly by Alberti-is the first use of concrete since antiquity.  Note similarity to the Pantheon and its coffered ceiling.  The entrance is a barrel vault leading into the courtyard which is unfinished but done al’antiqua-in the old style.

Façade and main portal of the Palazzo della Cancelleria

 

Palazzo della Cancelleria, begun 1489 for Cardinal Raffaele Riario; the Architect is unknown.

Cardinal Raffaele Riario built his palace-covered in marble absconded from the coliseum-with an “honest fortune” he had acquired by gambling with (and winning) other cardinals.  The palace has taken a further step away from the medieval style by losing the fortification that defines earlier palaces such as the Palazzo Venezia. The engaged pilasters at the top are a direct reference the coliseum. Proportions of the palazzo are made to the golden mean (1:3.618)

              

Façade of the Palazzo della Cancelleria and portal to the greatly
reduced church of San Lorenzo

            Cardinal Riario Destroyed the church of San Lorenzo (his titular church) reusing the elements from antiquity in his courtyard and reducing the church to a small chapel undistinguishable on the exterior.

 

Courtyard, Palazzo della Cancelleria

  The courtyard differs greatly from the façade which directly referenced both antique and contemporary Rome.  The courtyard is done in the Florentine style with a Florentine arcade constructed with granite columns from antiquity taken from the church of San Lorenzo (see above).  Unlike the Roman arch, the Florentine arch is supported directly on columns.  Here there is a double arcade and the corners are made from combined pilasters.

Courtyard-corner combined pilaster

Corner of Palazzo della Cancelleria

Courtyard with double arcade, Florentine arches, and a third floor

 Tourist notes:  This place if fricking huge.  I was backed up against the building across the piazza taking pictures of the façade and could never get more than a third in the photograph.  It just goes on and on.  The Cardinal was definitely out to impress people but it did not him much good; he wanted to be elected Pope but never was.

The courtyard is really beautiful and I can just imagine what it looked like in the day filled with plants and trees and statuary.  

Façade of Palazzo Farnese

Palazzo Farnese, begun 1517 and completed 1589.  Antionio da Sangallo was the original architect but died midway through the project.  Michelangelo redesigned portions of the façade and worked on the building until his own death.  Vignola and Giacomo della Porta completed the project.  The original commission came from Alesandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III.

Alesandro Farnese was the intermediary agent at the council of Trent, and later became Pope Paul III.  The Palazzo was begun when he was a cardinal, the plan was expanded after his elevation to Pope.  The courtyard has a triple arcade like the coliseum and is made of Travertine.  The church has completely disappeared by this point.  It is comprised of additive modules-from Partridge: additive system could easily be expanded or shrunk depending on need and money available; “limited number of standardized elements that could be relatively efficiently and cheaply produced (74)."   

Michelangelo takes over from Sangalla upon his death; raises the roof line by 3 meters so the cornice (which he also enlarged) isn’t “crushing” the upper story windows.  He enlarged the central window and added the Farnese family crest above the main portal creating a focal point for the piano nobile; the shield the crest sits in is shaped like a horse’s head referencing knighthood.

Piazza Farnese with a view onto via Papalis

There is an axial presentation involved here, the Piazza in front of the Palazzo is the exact size of the façade; the view from palazzo across piazza and down the street is to via Papalis; in the opposite direction the view moves from the piazza, through the palace courtyard, onto a view of river and across it to the Villa Farnese. 

Tourist note:  And I thought the French were anal!  Oh, wait, they are French.  Well not the Farnese, who were an old Roman family, but the Palazzo Farnese is now the French Embassy. 

An explanation of the via Papalis; it was a road, or more properly a series of roads, that created a liner procession route for a newly elected pope.  This was a time before the current St. Peter's basilica, Roman Catholicism's main church, and the Vatican palaces where the pope lives today.  In the 15th century and beyond a newly elected pope would have to travel from the Vatican to the Campidoglio, (see below) the civic center where he would accept secular power-remember the pope was also the secular ruler of the Papal States-and then onto St. John Lateran, the pope's official  church and residence at the time, to complete his coronation.  Wealthy people, and cardinals especially, wanted their palazzos to at least have a view of the via Papalis if they could not be directly on the route.  Alesandro Farnese went as far as buying several buildings and tearing them all down to create both his magnificent piazza and the new road that would allow him to have a direct view and a direct connection with the via Papalis.

Castor or Pollux-you choose

 Piazza del Campidoglio, designed by Michelangelo around 1516 for Pope Paul III Farnese and executed mainly by Giacomo della Porta in the second half of the 16th century.

In 1420 Rome had a population of about 20,000 down greatly from the 1 to 2 million that inhabited the city at the peak of the Empire.  Needless to say, sections of the city became almost completely uninhabited including the ancient city.  The Campidoglio sat at the junction between the two sections of Rome-the populated and the uninhabited.  This spot had been the religious center of Ancient Rome and was the location of the Temple of Jupiter.  This location was also the civic center of Rome during the Renaissance and the location of two civic buildings.  It was here the via Papalis turns and becomes the via Sacra-referencing the cities ancient past-and continued onto St. John Lateran.  It was also at this location that the pope would stop on his procession to St. John and accept his civic authority.  Riding down the via Papalis on his horse, the pope would climb up the Campidoglio between the twin statues of Castor and Pollux (ancient protectors of first Troy and then Rome-they came with Aeneas), receive his secular power, make a speech, then continue onto St. John Lateran.

Palazzo Senatorio

Pope Paul III wanted this location rehabilitated as the two existing buildings were in rather sad shape and the piazza almost non-existent.  He commissioned Michelangelo to create the design and begin the execution of the new civic center of Rome.  This piazza is the first in Rome to be developed all at one time. The piazza is an oval inserted into a trapezoid with a mound at the center.  Michelangelo believed that a piazza should be like a face with a mouth-the entrance-a center-the statue of Marcus Aurelius-ears-the buildings on either side, and eyes and a forehead-the central building, the Palazzo Senatorio.

Palazzo dei Conservatori

The triangular staircase in front of the Palazzo Senatorio  refers to the pediment of an ancient temple like the Temple of Jupiter that once existed on this hill.  On the left is a statue representing the god of the Nile, on the Right the statue represents the god of the Tiber and at the center is a statue representing Roma, the goddess of Rome.  (Michelangelo originally intended a statue of Jupiter in the center.)  The pope, receiving his secular authority, would stand at the top of the pediment and address the attendees.  The references to the temple pediment and ancient gods with the pope standing above them are meant to show that papal authority is above all other religions and above the civic authority of Rome.

Palazzo Nuovo

The oval part of the piazza is in the shape of a shield and is designed to be a replica of the shield of Alexander the Great.  Remember, Pope Paul III's name was Alesandro.  It was also his desire to reunite and/or reconquer and Christianize the former empire of Alexander the Great-Egypt and Persia.




 In his conception of the new buildings, Michelangelo considered that they should also act like parts of the body; the pedestals, trabeations,  and pilasters act as the skeletal foundation and the brick work is merely the skin.  The pilasters Michelangelo designed were a novelty-something new in architecture-a new order of column, the Colossal order where the pilaster (or column) extends beyond one floor.  All this combined became the prototype to Baroque architecture.