Michelangelo: architetto a Roma

Currently at the Capitoline Museums is a show on Michelangelo's architectural pieces in Rome running through Feb. 7th. It is an excellent addition to the museums already great collection and particularly fitting location as one of the works the exhibit looks at is Michelangelo's work on the Campidoglio. The piazza that the museums are situated around.

When Michelangelo set to work on the piazza there were two buildings set at an angle just short of 90 degrees to one another. The main building was the senate palace (now the equivalent of City Hall). To enclose the piazza he added another building, set at the same acute angle to the senate on the opposite side. This left the piazza in the shape of a trapezoid, an imperfection to Renaissance minds. To counter this effect Michelangelo raised the center of the piazza so that it gently slopes away to meet the buildings on either side. He also designed an intricate geometric pattern for the pavement (not completed until after his death) which distracts the eye from the piazzas imperfection.

However, these architectural details are secondary to the focal point of the piazza. The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. It is one of the few bronze originals that has survived until this day, because Christians thought it was Constantine, a christian, and not the last of the great Roman emperors, a pagan. It stood on view to the public throughout the middle ages in front of the Lateran Palace and was moved to the Capitoline in 1538. Reportedly Michelangelo did not like the central placement but created a simple plinth for it to rest on. The original is now in the museum and a copy remains in the piazza. It was moved inside in the mid-90's when people realized the bronze of the legs was in danger of buckling and needed extra support. I'm amazed the skinny legs have supported the massive amount of bronze above for almost two millennia. It is now on display in an atrium entirely dedicated to it alone. While the copy is quite good, you need to see the original to see how well the Roman sculptor captured the stoic look of Rome's only philosopher emperor.

Now back to the show. I disagreed with my friend Melissa's take on the curation of the exhibit. Where she found it serpentine and confusing, I found nicely broken up into discrete sections about each period and piece. I was also particularly impressed with the spacing between works. Italian exhibitions, and museums in general, have a tendency to cram as many things into one space as possible which makes it very difficult to appreciate the details in any one work without your eye being distracted. In this case, maybe because they didn't have many pieces, or they thought Michelangelo would roll over in his grave if things were to tight, they spaced things nicely. You could take in his sketches individually and focus on the details he focused on, such as the intricacies of his studies on column capitals.

The show looked at everything architectural the great master worked on in Rome from a delicate window in Castel Sant'Angelo to the stately Palazzo Farnese to the awe-inspiring dome of St. Peter's. There was a lot to take in, any one of his sketches could be studied for hours, but one other work stays in my memory even a week later.

An etching from 1565, one year after Michelangelo's death, depicts a joust in the lowest level of the Belevedere Courtyard, designed by Bramante 60 years earlier. However the most interesting part is the domeless drum of St. Peter's in the background. While he was alive Michelangelo kept his designs to himself, likely so he couldn't be fired. But he constructed the drum in such a way that those who followed him has no choice but to build a dome similar to his plans. The dome was finally completed in 1590. Michelangelo was not a humble artist, he wanted to leave his mark on Rome, and St. Peter's as the grandest scale for him to do so. He knew it would not be finished in his lifetime but wanted to make sure it was still his work.