RAPHAEL THE ARCHITECT IN CONTEXT

Brian Kelly, AIA, Professor

University of Maryland

School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation

Raphael’s achievements as a painter are practically axiomatic in art historical circles, however his position as an architect is often overlooked or cast in a subordinate role to Bramante, Michelangelo, and other cinquecento architects.  Despite a severely abbreviated career and his late entry into the arena of building, Raphael’s architectural sensibilities were well developed and sophisticated. In addition to his built works, his painted depictions of buildings and urban settings are evidence of his command of architectural principles. If we include bricks and mortar as well as painted and drawn architecture in his oeuvre, we can readily assert that Raphael designed a body of truly innovative work that influenced architects well beyond his untimely death in 1520. Contemporary assessments of Raphael’s architectural production are challenged because a significant portion of his work is known only in fragmentary form (e.g., Villa Madama), through his drawings or drawings executed by contemporaries (e.g., St. Peters or Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila), or in greatly altered contexts (e.g., Palazzo Alberini or Palazzo Jacopo da Brescia). Most of Raphael’s work is known out of its physical and temporal context.

This lecture will endeavor to recreate the now lost physical context of the early 1500s focusing on two of Raphael’s important works the Palazzo Jacopo da Brescia (1515-1519) and the Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila (1520). The Borgo, a Roman neighborhood adjacent to the Vatican in which these palazzi were located, has changed radically since Raphael’s time. This quarter, once the location of Raphael’s own home, the Palazzo Caprini (a.k.a. The House of Raphael) designed by Donato Bramante in 1510, was radically altered and later obliterated by Mussolini’s architects in the creation of the Via della Conciliazione. Beginning in the mid-1400s Pope Nicholas V articulated a vision for colonnaded monumental east-west streets connecting the Castel San Angelo to St. Peters thereby providing an appropriate approach to the Vatican.  Pope Alexander VI focused development on the Via Alexandrina that subsequently became the setting for the homes of members of the papal court and other aristocrats seeking to operate in the orbit of the Papacy. Raphael’s two interventions on this street established a direct dialog with his mentor Bramante’s masterpiece, Casa Caprini. These projects initiated a transformation of the thoroughfare into something resembling a tragic stage setting, a theatrical form popularized by Renaissance architects and set designers. Historic maps and drawings form the basis of an immersive digital model that allows us to approximate the original spatial context of the early 1500s. Seeing Raphael’s works in something approximating their original context allows us to better understand his innovative and unprecedented contributions to architecture.

Click here for a link to the recorded lecture.