Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican Palace

Pope Julius II chose Donato Bramante to express architecturally his vision of power. The earliest collaboration between Julius and Bramante resulted in the transformation of the existing papal palace by the addition of a huge enclosed courtyard uniting the medieval living quarters with a summer house, called the Belvedere because of its view, which Innocent VIII had built at the top of the Vatican Hill. The drawing by Dosio, also an architect who worked in Rome between 1548 and 1575, shows the courtyard under construction.