Tempietto
A small round temple on the spot where, according to tradition, the Apostle Peter was crucified. With its ring of Doric columns and its dome, the Tempietto became the manifesto of the High Renaissance: a building as perfect as those of antiquity. It is only a few metres across but has influenced domes all over the world.
The temple was commissioned by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, who paid for the monastery of San Pietro in Montorio on the Janiculum Hill in Rome. It was to mark the spot where, according to one tradition, Peter was crucified. An inscription gives the year 1502, but the date has been debated, and the building may have been carried out somewhat later. Donato Bramante had come to Rome from Milan and studied the ancient ruins there closely. The Tempietto became his first major work in the city. The temple is built of travertine and rendered masonry, and the columns are of granite, probably reused from an ancient building. Bramante wanted to create a modern building with the same authority as the ancient temples he measured and drew.
The building is a round cella surrounded by a ring of sixteen Doric columns, a form reminiscent of ancient round temples. Above the columns runs a Doric frieze whose metopes bear Christian and liturgical motifs, such as papal keys and chalices. Above this is a balustrade, and then a drum with niches and a hemispherical dome with a lantern. The niches in the walls give the masonry a depth that alternates between light and shadow. Beneath the temple is a crypt, where an opening marks the place of the cross. The interior is very small and holds only a handful of people. Bramante planned to set the temple in the middle of a circular colonnade enclosing the small courtyard, but it was never built.
The Tempietto became famous at once. The architectural theorists Sebastiano Serlio and Andrea Palladio included it in their books, and Palladio placed it among the ancient buildings as the only modern example. Bramante went on to St Peter’s, where he drew up the first plan for the new church, and the Tempietto became a study for the dome he envisaged there. The dome and lantern were altered somewhat later, and the building has been restored several times. The form of a ring of columns carrying a dome was repeated in countless later buildings, such as St Paul’s in London, the Panthéon in Paris and the Capitol in Washington. The little building in the monastery courtyard thus became a model for the domes of the capitals of Europe and America.