Final - Alaina Fontenot

Origins of the Roman Renaissance 

Week one in Rome was filled with exciting excursions, food and wine, beautiful architecture and paintings, tons of walking, and approximately 500 stairs—give or take a few hundred. The class entitled Art/Jesuits in Early Modern Rome took us across the city, far and wide, to cover an extensive amount of art and architecture from the time where Rome was transitioning from the Byzantine/Middle Ages era into the early Renaissance. There are a number of tell-tale signs in art and architecture that are dead giveaways to the periods in which the pieces were created, or the period to which pieces are modeled after. The Byzantine period favored a more austere, stylized visual representation of the human form with little to no emotion where the Renaissance artists worked more in favor with Classical paintings and sculptures with a more natural, humanistic approach that shows the form and emotions of a human body. Renaissance architecture took the same approach, borrowing from Classical and Hellenistic examples of architecture, an example of which can be seen in Bramante’s Tempietto—a martyria dedicated to the crucifixion of St. Peter. 

Bramante’s Tempietto was a turning point in Renaissance architecture. Bramante was responsible for bringing humanist characteristics back to architecture in Rome; a shining example of this is his Tempietto. This structure is round, proportionate, inviting, and very pleasing to the viewer. Roman doric columns circle the monument under a band of triglyphs and metopes—reminiscent of classical architecture but original to the Roman renaissance in that the columns are smooth as opposed to fluted, and are encircling the building rather than their classical counterparts who generally lined the front of a larger scale building. 

The obvious transition from Byzantine art to Renaissance art can be seen in the comparison of the mosaic located above the altar in the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere and the iconographic fresco of the Last Judgement by Pietro Cavallini  located on the back wall of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. The figures seen on the mosaic are placed on a very flat, gold background, typical of the middle ages. There is no semblance of depth to the scene. The clothing and facial features of the human forms are very stylized, they consist strictly of lines, and there is no shading. You can begin to see the shape of Jesus and Mary’s knees—they are located in the center seated on a throne—but even the throne on which they are seated appears to be very flat. In Cavallini’s Last Judgement, however, we begin to see emotions on the faces of those surrounding Jesus and we see the subjects placed in an environment. Jesus, along with his apostles to his left and right, can be seen seated in chairs. This is one of the first attempts at linear perspective, a technique perfected by Brunelleschi that creates a illusion of depth on a flat surface. Cavallini also uses shading in his portrayal of Jesus and his counterparts to show the forms of their body and expressions of concern/contemplation/prayer on their faces. 

The most memorable and enjoyable moment of this first week in Rome was our excursion to the Campidoglio, or Capitaline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome. There was a lot of humor found in this location, beginning with the equestrian sculpture of Marcus Aurelius that was originally thought to be Constantine and continuing to the remnants of a Constantine monument in the courtyard that houses his massive head. The facial features of Constantine are very animated and his exaggerated eyes are looking slightly up and to the left. It differs slightly from the Classical sculptures of highly idealized pagan figures, but still borrows the basic replication of human forms that is highly different from the Byzantine era.