11/10/07 - Architectural History - High Renaissance and Mannerism

Bramante belonged to the third generation of architects, after Brunelleschi and Alberti. He was born in 1444 and died in 1515. He knew much about Roman architecture and the rules of building, possibly because he succeeded Brunelleschi and Alberti. He was from Urbino, and very interested in mathematics, which he was encouraged to do by Alberti.

Bramante acted a part in Raphael's School of Athens, a painting about the rebirth of Athens. He played Euclid, a Greek philosopher, because apparently he deserved this position. Being a skilled painter and mathematician were closely linked, as well as architecture and mathematics. And Bramante was a master of mathematics, as seen in his engraving, which was more precise than any artwork so far. He knew about Classical architecture from seeing it. He had worked in Milan for twenty years as a ducal engineer, or rather, architect, along with Michelangelo and other architects. He was liberated to study and travel, especially in Florence and Rome.

Bramante's Santa Maris presso San Satiro, of 1482, is barrel vaulted, like Alberti's Sant'Andrea. Alberti's aesthetic therefore lived on through Bramante. Santa Maria is a church that was used to house a painting rather than a relic. Bramante donated to the church a piece of architecture that is more like an optical illusion than a building: he made a painting of a building to give the effect of a building.

In 1499 Bramante and others were expelled by the French. That included Leonardo da Vinci, with whom Bramante worked collaboratively on occasion. After his exile, Bramante made the Tempietto, a tiny building placed in a courtyard. He was commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to mark the alleged spot of St Peter's crucifixion. The Tempietto consists of sixteen granite columns taken from a Roman building, which were relics in their own right. The building signifies perfection and completion. Raphael emulated the Tempietto in his Sposalizio of 1504. The building was the first to bring the three Greek orders to attention. These were the Doric, Ionian and Corinthian. Bramante is absolutely correct in his knowledge of the rules of Roman architecture, with columns supporting entablatures (unlike Raphael who had them supporting arches). According to Serlio, a scholar, Bramante intended the Tempietto to be built in the centre of a circle. Below it there is a crypt. There was to be a set of columns, equal in number to those of the Tempietto, and placed proportionately to the circle. This woulc create an optical illusion of space and perception. The circle is symbolic for this period, because it signified Vitruvius' notion that the cosmos was circular in nature and that the human frame is alos proportioned in squares and circles, illustrated by Michelangelo's Vitruvian Man. Therefore, the circular building is significant for symbolising perfection on both a human and universal scale.

Rome was made the centre of the world because St Peter had died there and every Pope had claimed to descend from him. The Church of St Peter was in a derelict condition in 1500, because it had been built under Constantine with unstable constructions and the walls were out of plumb. A new church was proposed, which was to have thick walls, barrel vaults and a dome. At first, Alberti was commissioned for the rebuilding project, then Michelangelo's name was mentioned. But finally Bramante and Julius were given the weighty task of designing the new church. They came up with the idea of building a new construction round the outside of the original church, and then the inner church coul dbe demolished on completion of the outer one so that as little disruption as possible would occur. However, time was of the essence, so the new church was completely redesigned as a centrally planned building. The idea of the central plan was ideal as a monument and beacon of the Christian world, for it would overlook all directions equally and be entered from all sides. On 18 April 1506 a medal of the planned structure was laid into the floor.

The final building does not correspond to Bramante's plan because it was finished by Maderno. The nave and aisles are still in place, but the entrance is only one in number, and is the same as the entrance to the original Constantine building. Bramante paid homage to the Romans by taking a modern Pantheon and enlarging it over four piers. But he outdid the Romans, too. Perhaps he got fed up of the Classical language of architecture and decided to play with it a little.

The architecture of subversion which came after Bramante is now known as Mannerism. It is an architecture that subverts a language already perfected. One hundred years after Brunelleschi added the Sacristy of San Lorenzo, Michelangelo built a new one. It is still grey and white like Brunelleschi's design, but there is one major difference. Michelangelo leaves a gap above the arch, confounding our perception of how high the arch is, whereas Brunelleschi used geometry to prove the ratio and proportions of arch to architrave, making his design predictable and measurable. In the upper zone of the building, the window's proportions and position make is appear to float into heaven. In his design, Michelangelo creates things that have no name. He creates a sense of levitation below and gravitation above by using abstraction in architecture. He used architectural elements in a free and easy way, unbound by rules and regulations.

Michelangelo is also responsible for the library, built 1423-4. It is on the first floor, above the cloisters. The room therefore had to be light and slight, but we are unaware that it is, because Michelangelo uses heavy colours, strict geometrical shapes and the repetition of shapes down the aisle. This is set against the monotonous reading room to create a strange concatenation of different styles within one room, with a temple top of a semi-circle. The library has a running entablature above head height, giving people a sense of being underground, and this is seemingly held up by scroll-like structures that look too light to be safe. Michelangelo gives a sense of a muddled, topsy-turvy world. The staircase is exactly the same. It confuses because there seems to be no comfortable, predictable way up; things are uneven and tricky.