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The Sculptor-Architect in the Eternal City, 1534–64
Beautifully elaborated, often with ideas layered one over the other, Michelangelo's late architectural drawings were like nothing that had been seen before. At the core of his approach to architecture was his sculptor's sensibility that form should unify and command space. The drawings appear powerfully three-dimensional and luminous. As complements to his drawings, he relied on models such as the rare wood example on view here.
Little of Michelangelo's planned architectural work in Rome, where he settled permanently in 1534, was constructed during his lifetime, although his ideas and designs ultimately transformed the Eternal City. His original drawings for monumental architecture and urban redesign do not survive, but his intentions are recorded in a series of prints published around the time of his death. His projects in Rome include, among others, the complete redesign of the Capitoline Hill, or Campidoglio; revisions and a redesign of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger's Palazzo Farnese; plans for the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini; and the construction of the Porta Pia. As chief architect of the new Saint Peter's Basilica for 17 years, he left an indelible mark, evident today mainly in the dome and the southwest transept. |