Alaina Fontenot Week 2

We covered a lot of ground this week, both literally in the places we have traveled to as well as in terms of the Renaissance. We entered the magnificent St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and other great works in the Vatican Museum, the Villa Farnesina, and the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo. All magnificent and full of history. 

We spent a large part of our day in St. Peter’s Square and at the doors leading into St. Peter’s Basilica. St. Peter’s Square is a prototypical example of Baroque architecture—a fascination with grandiosity and theatricality—and was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It is essentially set up like stage, with four column deep colonnades forming an elliptical shape leading into a trapezoidal entrance. There is an obelisk in the center whose movement there was on of the greatest engineering feats of Roman times; along with a fountain designed by Carlo Maderno and an identical fountain opposite the original replicated by Bernini. The idea in building the square this way was to embrace the faithful people of Rome, as well as all of its other inhabitants. The Basilica was designed by Donato Bramante, an artist of the High Renaissance. The Basilica itself differs from the square in that it is less theatrical and more conscious of the purity of geometrical forms. It takes the basilica shape: long nave with an apse at the end, and an intercrossing transept. There are a number of side chapels along either side. It is also home to the breathtaking scultpure, Michelangelo’s Pieta, where an angelic Mary is seen holding a dying Jesus in her arms. It is the most elegant sculpture depicting the most tragic scene. 

There was a certain emphasis on Saints Peter and Paul this week. Iconographies of their executions can be seen all over Rome, mostly in the places our group visits. One particular example is on one set of bronze doors, designed by Filarete, leading into the basilica. Antonio di Pietro Averlino, or Filarete, illustrates these deaths uniquely, combining many stages of the executions into one image. We can automatically determine that the figures being depicted here are Saints Peter and Paul because of the image formula of St. Paul with a sword, signifying his beheading by the Emperor Nero, and St. Peter with the keys to the city as well as him being crucified upside down.

Upon entering Santa Maria del Popolo all you see is stone. At first glance it seems stark and cold unlike almost every other church in Rome, but after perusing a bit, aspects of the Renaissance and Baroque can be seen. Raphael’s funerary chapel—later completed by Bernini—commissioned by Agostino Chigi is a prime example of Baroque art and architecture. There are four supremely Baroque sculptures at the four corners of the chapel; they show emotion and a lifelike replication of the human body and form. The dome hovering over the chapel is home to Raphael’s mosaic, Creation of the World. The entire chapel is expertly designed to draw the eyes of the viewer up and into the massive hands of God. 

Unsurprisingly, the most remarkable moment of this week was walking into the Sistine Chapel for the first time. It was not at all what I expected yet everything I imagined it to be. Seeing Michelangelo’s Last Judgement up close and personal brought tears to my eyes; it was a magical moment. In the Vatican museums we saw an unprecedented leap in how the human form is depicted in art. Michelangelo’s, and later Raphael’s, uber masculine and overtly muscular depictions of these characters are going back to the ideals of classical antiquity and kicking it up about 500 notches. Their paintings are something to behold.