PERUZZI, Baldassare

This panel was part of a case for a keyboard instrument; Apollo and the nine Muses, their names written below in Greek, are a suitable subject for such a purpose. Peruzzi, a follower of Raphael, was an architect and painter who moved fluidly among artistic tasks, but his heart was in drawing, as the dancers’ gracefully swirling skirts joyously demonstrate.

The great hall of the Villa Farnesina, the Loggia di Galatea, is lined with a cycle of frescoes unprecedented in the completeness of their ancient imagery. The gods and heroes turn up in surprising relationships which can be explained by the translation of the deities back into their stellar and planetary equivalents. Careful positions of these equivalents on the ceiling of the Loggia di Galatea produced the configuration of the heavens above central Italy on the night of December 1, 1466, the presumed birth date of the patron, whose horoscope, complete to the last detail, is thus represented in the ceiling panels.

Some of the Roman paintings found in the Domus Aurea and elsewhere correspond quite precisely what Vasari and others determined to be the typical features of grotesques. These paintings inspired several ceiling designs ‘all’antica’, such as the ceiling decoration with Old Testament scenes (Volta Dorata) in the Palazzo della Cancellaria designed by Baldassare Peruzzi and executed by his workshop. The desire to revive not only the forms of ancient Roman architecture but also their decoration may help to explain the success of these paintings. In particular, Raphael and the specialists in his workshop, who mastered the genre completely, helped the grotesque style to spread quickly in Rome.

The hall seems to be open up to the sides through colonnades onto terraces that present distant views on the skyline of the city of Rome. The painted architecture supports a frieze with a series of scenes from ancient myths.

Peruzzi’s final work, begun in 1532 and completed after his death, was the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne in Rome. The intention was to provide a home for Pietro Massimo (d. 1544) on a key location along the Via Papalis (now Corso Vittorio Emanuele). The site alone was problematic, for at that point the road curves sharply on its route between the Vatican and the Capitoline Hill, but Peruzzi also had to accommodate the distinction between the brothers’ sites.

His solution, evolved slowly and visible in a number of drawings, was to bend the fa�ade itself, taking account not only of the road’s curve but also of the axial lane that meets it. From the lane it can be read as a symmetrical unit in which pilaster piers are paired across the open front with columns. From the main street, however, the palazzo is a sequential discovery leading to the raised loggia above street level.

There is no centralizing focus over the main portal as in most Renaissance palaces and no vertical linkage to the floors above. Peruzzi thus abandoned the traditional organizing system favoured by Renaissance architects for one in which the elements of the fa�ade establish their own natural relationship. Above, for example, Peruzzi designed small rectangular windows surrounded by delicate curved frames. The wall surface itself has a lightly textured rustication.

View the ground plan of Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome.

Baldassare Peruzzi, one of the leaders of the High Renaissance in Rome, succumbed to Mannerism in the extraordinary Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne. Built at a point where the narrow street curved, the fa�ade would only have been visible in segments as the observer walked by (today the widened street allows the complete view). Peruzzi’s design takes full advantage of this difficult setting; the sequence of supports as the spectator passed the palazzo - pilasters, single columns, paired columns, entrance, paired columns, single columns, pilasters - would have created an experience in time as well as in space.

Peruzzi chose a Tuscan order deprived even of triglyphs so that the eye is led around the bend without interruption. From street level, the windows of the piano nobile, each on its broad podium, must have seemed to move around the bend in a regular rhythm, while the third and fourth stories float in the rusticated wall, their window frames decorated with moldings and scrolls.

View the ground plan of Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome.

Inside the palace, there are two courtyards, of which the first one has a portico with Doric columns as a basement for a rich loggia, which is also made of columns. The column decorations gave the name to the palace, alle Colonne.

The photo shows the courtyard.

On the ceiling of the Loggia di Galatea, Peruzzi produced a pictorial style that is at once artificial, elegant, and beguiling. In the ceiling panels several constellations are emphasized in two large horizontal formats: on the right Ursa Major; on the left Perseus and Pegasus. Perseus is depicted as the mythical hero who beheaded the Medusa, surrounded by the petrified heads of her victims. Pegasus, who sprang from the blood of Medusa, flies above them in the form of Fama (fame). Fama is looking and sounding her horn toward the centre of the ceiling, where originally the coat of arms of Chigi was located.

In the Sala delle Prospettive on the upper story of the Villa Farnesina, Peruzzi revived the perspective schemes of Melozzo da Forli and Mantegna, possibly under the influence of both. The perspective was planned to function correctly when the observer is standing toward the left of the room. Peruzzi has designed a splendid architecture of dark, veined marble piers and columns with gilded capitals that incorporates the actual veined marble door frames in the room. The frescoed architecture is so precisely painted that it is almost impossible to distinguish where the real marble ends and the illusion begins. Through the lofty columns one looks out to a painted terrace that opens onto a continuous landscape.

In the Sala delle Prospettive on the upper story of the Villa Farnesina, Peruzzi revived the perspective schemes of Melozzo da Forli and Mantegna, possibly under the influence of both. The perspective was planned to function correctly when the observer is standing toward the left of the room. Peruzzi has designed a splendid architecture of dark, veined marble piers and columns with gilded capitals that incorporates the actual veined marble door frames in the room. The frescoed architecture is so precisely painted that it is almost impossible to distinguish where the real marble ends and the illusion begins. Through the lofty columns one looks out to a painted terrace that opens onto a continuous landscape.

When visitors step through the Loggia di Psiche into the villa, then up the stairs into the next story, they arrive in a large banquet hall, the Sala delle Prospettive. Chigi probably had Peruzzi paint it in anticipation of his wedding, which he celebrated here in August 1519 with the pope and cardinals. Like a stage designer, Peruzzi transformed all the walls into an illusion of precious, polychrome marble architecture. The hall seems to be open up to the sides through colonnades onto terraces that present distant views on the skyline of the city of Rome. Viewers feel transported to an ancient palace hall, elevated from present-day Rome to a higher, mythical world. The Olympian gods are depicted above the doors and windows. The painted architecture supports a frieze with a series of scenes from ancient myths.

The Sienese Baldazzare Peruzzi followed Raphael’s footsteps in Rome. After the notable architecture of Agostino Chigi’s Villa Farnesina, he had the opportunity to seal his reputation with the theme of the monumental tomb, with that of the Netherlandish pope Hadrian VI (1522-23) in Santa Maria dell’Anima, working from 1524 to 1529, Among his collaborators was Niccolò Tribolo, a pupil of Jacopo Sansovino.

This papal tomb made way for the custom of adding reliefs with historical scenes to the architectural context, to be a feature of successive papal tombs. He stressed the pictorialness of Sansovinian models with grand columns in polychrome marble, particularly in Lucullan black (“nero africano”), which links Hadrian’s tomb with the columns Peruzzi painted in the Sala delle Prospettive in the Villa Farnesina. Peruzzi underlined the architectural installation, enlarging the great central arch and crowning the attic with a tympanum. Minute decoration gave way to more monumental figures and statues between orders with superimposed niches. The break with the fifteenth-century tradition of the wall architectural tomb was final.

The Sienese Baldazzare Peruzzi followed Raphael’s footsteps in Rome. After the notable architecture of Agostino Chigi’s Villa Farnesina, he had the opportunity to seal his reputation with the theme of the monumental tomb, with that of the Netherlandish pope Hadrian VI (1522-23) in Santa Maria dell’Anima, working from 1524 to 1529, Among his collaborators was Niccolò Tribolo, a pupil of Jacopo Sansovino.

This papal tomb made way for the custom of adding reliefs with historical scenes to the architectural context, to be a feature of successive papal tombs. He stressed the pictorialness of Sansovinian models with grand columns in polychrome marble, particularly in Lucullan black (“nero africano”), which links Hadrian’s tomb with the columns Peruzzi painted in the Sala delle Prospettive in the Villa Farnesina. Peruzzi underlined the architectural installation, enlarging the great central arch and crowning the attic with a tympanum. Minute decoration gave way to more monumental figures and statues between orders with superimposed niches. The break with the fifteenth-century tradition of the wall architectural tomb was final.

After the building was completed the initial focus of the decoration was the garden loggia on the Tiber side of the villa (the Loggia di Galatea). Originally it opened to the landscape on two sides through arcades. The vault of the loggia was decorated by Peruzzi in 1510-11 with a system of architectonic fields painted with deceptive realism that contain a number of mythological figures against a blue sky. The artist based their appearance and form on numerous ancient sculptures. The stories of gods and heroes symbolized constellations, planets, and signs of the zodiac that merge to form a sky like the one that have been seen in 1466 at the hour of Chigi’s birth.

The twelve signs of the zodiac are distributed above the ten spandrels, to which are added - corresponding to their positions in the sky - the gods of the planets. In the ceiling panel several constellations are emphasized in two large horizontal formats: on the right Ursa Major; on the left Perseus and Pegasus.

Peruzzi also frescoed one of the lunettes with a monumental grisaille head - a showpiece of pure expressive artistry. The other lunettes were painted in the fall of 1511 by Sebastiano del Piombo with a number of scenes of metamorphosis from Ovid.

Immediately outside the gates of Rome, between the banks of Tiber and Monte Gianicolo, the merchant and banker Agostino Chigi had a villa built between 1505 and 1511, the present Villa Farnesina. Chigi was from Siena and had become fabulously wealthy in Rome under the Popes Alexander VI and Julius II. His business network stretched across Europe. In this new villa, designed by Baldassare Peruzzi, he held celebrated parties with popes, cardinals, and friends; there he enjoyed a refined lifestyle, surrounded by humanists and poets. Countless antiquities were placed in the garden; the loggias and halls were lavishly decorated with paintings.

View the ground plan of Villa Farnesina, Rome.

The villa was built for Agostino Chigi, a rich Sienese banker and the treasurer of Pope Julius II. Between 1506–1510, the Sienese artist and pupil of Bramante, Baldassarre Peruzzi, aided perhaps by Giuliano da Sangallo, designed and erected the villa. The novelty of this suburban villa design can be discerned from its differences from that of a typical urban palazzo (palace). Renaissance palaces typically faced onto a street and were decorated versions of defensive castles: rectangular blocks with rusticated ground floors and enclosing a courtyard. This villa, intended to be an airy summer pavilion, presented a side towards the street and was given a U shaped plan with a five bay loggia between the arms. In the original arrangement, the main entrance was through the north facing loggia which was open. (Today the loggia is glazed.)

View the ground plan of Villa Farnesina, Rome.

The villa was built for Agostino Chigi, a rich Sienese banker and the treasurer of Pope Julius II. Between 1506–1510, the Sienese artist and pupil of Bramante, Baldassarre Peruzzi, aided perhaps by Giuliano da Sangallo, designed and erected the villa. The novelty of this suburban villa design can be discerned from its differences from that of a typical urban palazzo (palace). Renaissance palaces typically faced onto a street and were decorated versions of defensive castles: rectangular blocks with rusticated ground floors and enclosing a courtyard. This villa, intended to be an airy summer pavilion, presented a side towards the street and was given a U shaped plan with a five bay loggia between the arms. In the original arrangement, the main entrance was through the north facing loggia which was open. (Today the loggia is glazed.)

View the ground plan of Villa Farnesina, Rome.

The Mary cycle painted by the Sienese artist Baldassare Peruzzi in the apse at Sant’Onofria in Rome is based on Filippo Lippi’s work in Spoleto. However, due to an overemphasis on the division into compartments, the sense of a unified space is wholly absent here.