It was not only the political structure of the peninsula which was important for innovation in the 1540s, but the deaths of both patrons and architects, and the emergence of new personalities, with changed tastes or agendas.
The most important new arrival was Cosimo I in Florence in 1537, with his determination to reinforce his internal and international position and image. He had himself represented as a ruler who embodied continuity with the traditions of the Florentine Republic, by the creation of a distinc-tive Tuscan, Florentine and Medicean architecture. He was not the sole inventor of a new regime style: he found able and imaginative artists and intellectuals to help, including Cosimo Bartoli (theorist of Michelangelo’s architecture and translator of Alberti) and Giorgio Vasari, whose Vite ap-peared in 155057. Points of departure for a new Florentine architecture were offered by the antique, the achievement of Brunelleschi and other lo-cal architects, the Florentine works of Michelangelo and the Etruscan myth, which in architectural terms meant the Tuscan order, rustication, and ro-bustness, as seen in the Porta dei Leoni at Palazzo Vecchio, designed by Battista del Tasso58. Vasari prefixed his Vite, which gave a prominent place to the Florentine architectural achievement within a wider history, with a short but informative account of architecture in general, accompanied by many references to specific buildings. He stresses that readers should go elsewhere for more detailed information on individual matters. His particu-lar attention to types of stone, the construction of vaults and their decora-tion, the orders and relationships between different parts of the building do however give the chapter a fresh and practical character, which distinguish-es it from other writings of the time59.
brimentos: Franciscode Holanda e a teoria da arte, Lisbon, 1992. The book of draw-ings is reproduced in Francisco de Hollanda, Os desenhos das antigualhas que vio Francisco d’Ollanda, pintor portugués […], ed. E. Tormo, Madrid, 1940.
57 C. Davis, “Cosimo Bartoli and the Portal of Sant’Apollonia by Michelangelo”, in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 19, 1975, pp. 261-276.
G. Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri nell’edizione per i tipi di Lorenzo Torrentino, Firenze, 1550, a cura di L. Bellosi e A. Rossi, presentazione di G. Previtali, Torino, 1986.
58 G. Cipriani, Il mito etrusco nel Rinascimento fiorentino, Firenze, 1980. On the Porta dei Leoni, see C. Elam, “Firenze 1500-50”, in Storia dell’ architettura…, 2002, pp. 231-232.
59 G. Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti…, 1986, pp. 19-42.
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It took time however to create a new civic, national and dynastic style in Florence and to arrive at works of the sophistication and impressiveness of Palazzo Pitti or the Uffizi. Early architectural and artistic efforts were con-centrated on transforming Palazzo Vecchio from the seat of a historic re-public to an autocratic ruler’s palace displaying the city’s important past and present. One building however begun in the 1540s stands out as an experiment in creating a new local style, respectful of Cinquecento innova-tions, but still clearly Florentine: the loggia of the Mercato Nuovo (1547-1551) (fig. 6, 11), designed by Giovan Battista del Tasso60. The work, not mentioned in 1550 by Vasari, was vigorously attacked by him in the second edition of the Vite (1568) for its architectural failings61. Vasari’s silence in
Fig. 11. Battista del Tasso, the Loggia of the Mercato Vecchio, Florence (1547-1551). © author.
60 E. Barletti, “Ipotesi di lavoro su Giovan Battista del Tasso”, Critica d’arte, 55, 2-3, 1990, pp. 55-61; A. Morrogh, Disegni di architetti fiorentini, 1540-1600, catalogo della mostra (Firenze, Galleria degli Uffizi), Firenze, 1985, pp. 30-31, cat. 9; C. Elam,
“Firenze…”, 2002, p. 232 (with bibilography).
61 G.Vasari, Le Vite, ed. 1966-87, V, p. 233.
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1550 may well have been the result of both his reservations about the build-ing, and Cosimo’s presumable liking for it, demonstrated later in the decade when Vasari himself painted its architect on Cosimo’s right, holding the model of the loggia62. The Mercato Nuovo is in fact an interesting and even effective attempt to create a public building which alludes to the possible components of a new Florentine style. The building was created as a meet-ing place for Florentine merchants, a Rialto near the Arno. It provides cov-er for the mcov-erchants by supporting the vaults on monolithic pietra scov-erena columns, with fine all’ antica composite capitals. The general effect is rem-iniscent of the interior of Brunelleschi’s churches, above all S. Spirito, or even the Loggia degli Innocenti. The corner piers are decorated with taber-nacles whose Michelangelesque details anticipate those of the niches with which Vasari ornamented the piers of the logge of the Uffizi.
The overall scheme for this proto-bourse is not at first sight indebted to either contemporary or antique typologies. However the basic design was probably influenced by the nearby Orsanmichele, whose original function as a grain market and original form as an open loggia with vaults sup-ported on piers would have been remembered63. Another source, compatible with the local one, could be the plan of the mysterious building which Serlio had published in his Terzo Libro in 1540 (one can note the corner piers, as in the Mercato Nuovo), Serlio describes it as being in Greece and consisting of one hundred huge columns. Unfortunately he does not cite his source, and the word Grecia at the time could refer to a wide geographical area64. A possible candidate for Serlio’s building is the ruined (and at the time prob-ably puzzling) Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, which in fact origi-nally had 104 columns. Margaret Daly Davis has suggested that the col-umned hall could even be in Persepolis and known through travel accounts65.
62 W. Kirwin Chandler, “Vasari’s tondo of ‘Cosimo I with his architects, engineers and sculptors’ in the Palazzo Vecchio: typology and re-identification of portraits”, Mit-teilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 15.1971, 1, pp. 105-122.
63 Orsanmichele a Firenze, a cura di D.F. Zervas. Scritti di Paola Grifoni [et al.], Mode-na, 2 vols (Mirabilia Italiae, 5), 1996; D.F. Zervas, Orsanmichele, documents 1336-1452, Modena, 1997.
64 S. Serlio, Il terzo libro, Venezia, 1540, pp. C-CI.
65 On possible sources for the building including ruins at Persepolis, see M. Daly Davis,
“East Of Italy: Early Documentation Of Mediterranean Antiquities, Excerpts From Sebastiano Serlio […]”, FONTES 57 [10 January 2011], pp. 12-27, accessible at http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/volltexte/2011/1352. A similar in plan, one can note, is that of the Telesterion of Demeter at Eleusis (the Periclean building was approximately square, with 42 columns): see J. N. Travlos, “The Topography of Eleu-sis”, in Hesperia, 18, 1949, pp. 138-147 (on line at: <http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/pdf/
uploads/hesperia/147001.pdf>) and for the plan by J. Travlos, see A.W. Lawrence, HOWARD BURNS
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Paolo III lived until 1549. François I died in 1547, and was succeeded by his son Henri II (1547-1559). This change of king served to confirm Lescot as architect of the new wing of the Louvre and led to the nomination of Phi-libert De L’Orme as royal architect, opening the way to the creation of the château of Anet and its chapel for the King’s mistress Diane de Poitiers, as well as other extraordinary works, in which the great architect made use of his mature understanding of contemporary Italian architecture and the an-tique and of his knowledge of French constructional and ornamental tradi-tions66.
A lesser but still important patron died in 1540. This was Federico Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, creator of the Palazzo Te in Mantua. His effec-tive successor was the new regent, Federico’s brother the Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga. Not only did Ercole at once drastically cut court expenditure, but also concentrated his efforts on the rebuilding of the cathedral in Mantua after Giulio Romano’s design. Probably it was the cardinal, with his re-formist concerns, who was responsible for the possibly polemical decision to reconstruct the cathedral of St Peter’s not on the model of the new Ro-man basilica, but as an ideal version of old St Peter’s. Giulio RoRo-mano would have had no difficulty in achieving this, given that he had painted a virtual reconstruction of the original St Peter’s in the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican. It was not only patrons who died in the 1540s. In 1546 Ercole Gonzaga wrote to his brother Ferrante, then imperial governor of Milan, touchingly lamenting Giulio’s death67. This loss not only opened the way for Giovan Battista Bertani in Mantua. It also allowed Palladio in Vicenza
Greek Architecture, Harmondsworth, 1983 p. 335, fig. 328; for a recent discussion of the sanctuary see N. A. Evans, “Sanctuaries, Sacrifices, and the Eleusinian Mysteries”, in Numen, 49, 3, 2002, pp. 227-254. There appear to be no indications that the site was known or comprehended before the work of modern archaeologists.
66 For an orientation: Ph. de L’Orme, Nouvelles inventions pour bien bâtir et à petits frais, Paris, 1561; Le premier tome de d’ architecture, 1567 (both works are published in facsimile in Ph. de L’Orme, Traités d’architecture, présentation par J.-M. Pérouse de Montclos, Paris, 1988; A. Blunt, Philbert de L’Orme, London, 1958 (French trans-lation 1963; Italian 1997); J.-M. Pérouse de Montclos, Philibert de l’Orme: archi-tecte du roi (1514-1570), Paris, 2000.
67 For the text of the often quoted letter see Giulio Romano, repertorio di fonti docu-mentarie, a cura di D. Ferrari, 2, Roma, 1992, pp. 1168-1169: 1546 novembre 7, Mantova. Il cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, reggente lo stato, a Ferrante Gonzaga, Gover-natore di Milano. “…mi vo fingendo che la morte di questo raro huomo mi haverà almeno giovato a spogliarmi dell’ appetito del fabbricare, degli argenti, delle pitture et cetera, perché, infatti, non mi basteria più l’animo di far alcuna cosa di queste senza il disegno di quel bello ingegno, onde, finite queste poche, i disegni de’ quali sono appresso di me, penso di sepilir con lui tutti i mei desiderii, […].”
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to assume full control of two buildings originally designed by Giulio: the huge Palazzo Thiene in Vicenza (fig. 12) and the Villa Thiene at Quinto, both of which Palladio published in 1570 as his own work68.
68 The attribution to Giulio Romano of Palazzo Thiene was first proposed by Kurt Fors-ter in 1973 (K.W. Forster, “Giulio Romano e le prime opere vicentine del Palladio”, Bollettino del Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, 15, 1973, pp. 107-119); it is now generally accepted. For the attribution of the original design of Villa Thiene (the patrons were those of palazzo Thiene) see H. Burns, in Giulio Romano, 1989, p. 507. On the contributions of Giulio and Palladio to the de-sign of Palazzo Thiene, and a discussion of the relation of the dede-sign to projects by Serlio, see H. Burns, “Una casa cum stupendo, superbo et hornato modo fabrichata: il progetto dei Thiene, il progetto di Giulio Romano, il palazzo di Andrea Palladio”, in Palazzo Thiene a Vicenza, a cura di G. Beltramini, H. Burns, F. Rigon, Milano, 2007, pp. 37-102.
Fig. 12. Giulio Romano (basic design), Andrea Pal-la dio (execution), PaPal-lazzo Thiene, Vicenza, façade (de tail), 1542-1556.
The window repeats the scheme of that of Giulio Romano’s house in Rome (fig. 7 here). © author.
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An even more important death was that of Antonio da Sangallo in 1546, ending a virtual monopoly of Papal commissions which had lasted for more than a quarter of a century. Though Sangallo’s collaborators tried to main-tain the position which their rich and powerful leader had gained through hard work and close, almost family ties with his papal patrons, Paolo III had the good sense to persuade Michelangelo to take over the control of both St Peter’s and Palazzo Farnese. Michelangelo’s proposals were imple-mented from 1547 onwards in both buildings, eliminating the defects of Sangallo’s projects and creating unified masterpieces out of the unfinished buildings. His designs soon became models for others as for instance at the Basilica of Santa Maria di Carignano in Genoa, with whose design Gale-azzo Alessi was formally entrusted in 154969.