Roman Art & Architecture in the Age of Ignatius Week 2


Alexandria Johnson

On the second day of class we went to St. Peters basilica in Vatican City. When we got there we stood outside for a while and talked about the different aspects of St. Peters square. First we talked about the large oculus that is located in the middle of the square. This was brought here by Augustus and Domenico Fontana engineered the moving if it. Next we went on to talk about the actual square it’s self which was designed by Bernini in 1650. This piazza is a very boroke style because of the theatrical design of it. The shape that the pizza was made in was a trapezoid combined with an ellipses, around the open space in the middle is two colonnades. This was designed in this way to make the square feel as though the people who were in felt as though the church was embracing them. At the time this was very important because it after the time of the protestant reformation so these embracing arms of the church is to help show the acceptance of all even the protestants. When the pizza was originally designed it was supposed to be closed at the far end, but during the time of Mussolini he opened up the square and help design the street that is in the front leading up to St. Peters in 1930. This was to help settle the dispute of the Papal power, Mussolini would allow them to have the Vatican city and rule over that portion, after this the popes were satisfied and reunited with the rest if Rome. While we were here we spoke about the papal supremacy and what it means and the problems it brought the church. With the doctrine of papal supremacy it gave him not only power over the spiritual matters of the church but the political aspects. Which is why the pope was so prominent during the time of the renaissance because of their power over the people.

After explaining everything out in the square we continued to go to the porch of the basilica. There we began to discuss the bronze doors which were created by Filarete in 1445. Filarete was a Florentine architect and sculptor who was most famous for his work on the ideal renaissance city. The bronze doors have a lot of import this sculpted on them it starts off with Christ in the top and below Christ is Peter and Paul, followed by the stories of their martyrdom. During the time that these doors where commission my Eugene the IV it was time when artist started becoming more then a just hired hand they started to become more known as creators and people who studied their worked and went to school for it. Filarete in this worked made sure to express that by engraving his name and his face throughout the work. While at the doors we had presentations on the stories of Peter and Paul’s martyrdom and also on donor portraits. Donor portraits were usually paid depictions of important people in the works and they are usually show in a smaller scale on their knees. The very last thing we talked about while looking at the doors was the panels in between the large panels which depicted the life of Eugene IV and the council of Florence, which had to do with the great schism of the east and western churches. Then we finally made it inside got to see many great works including the Pieta by Michelangelo.

After St. Peters we went to the Frenazie Villa and there we had multiple presentation one of the explain what a villa is, a villa is a summer house for the rich to go to and host parties and sometime they farmed different thing on the property as well. The original owner of this villa was Augustus Cinco who was a banker he lived here with his mistress. This villa had work of many different artist and architects such as Raphael and Presi.

Our last stop for the day was Santa Maria de Polo which is an Augustine church. In this church we many different types of art which included the iconography of the coronation of the virgin. This iconography usually depicts Christ crowning Mary and sometime the dove of the Holy Spirit is also include. One of the very last thing we talked about is that we had a presentation on panel paintings. Panel painting were wood panels that were place together and people painted oil painting on them the reason why they were so significant is because they were move able they were the original canvas paintings.

During this past class I learn a lot about the renaissance art styles I’m excited for the last few classes to learn even more!



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