Tempietto

Interesting facts

The Tempietto is regarded as the first building of the Renaissance to use the Tuscan order, chosen as a sturdy, heroic style fitting for Saint Peter.

The Spanish monarchs commissioned it in fulfilment of a vow, and buildings around it still house the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome.

Its sixteen columns are of grey granite, while the rest of the stonework is travertine; Vitruvius had praised sixteen as a perfect number.

Bramante based the Doric frieze of triglyphs and metopes on the ancient Theatre of Marcellus in Rome.

Four deep shell-headed niches inside the tiny cella hold small statues of the four Evangelists, above a Cosmatesque floor of coloured marble.

The crypt, cella and dome have been read as three stages of the Church: hidden in the catacombs, struggling on earth and triumphant in heaven.

Bramante worked with simple ratios: the building up to its cornice is as tall as the drum and dome above it, and the hemispherical dome's radius equals the drum's height.

In the seventeenth century the dome was slightly raised, the lantern altered and outside stairs added to the crypt, which once had only a small stair behind the altar.

Giorgio Vasari painted the Tempietto into one of his frescoes in the Sala Regia of the Vatican Palace.

Why it is worth it

Hidden in a courtyard on the Janiculum hill, Bramante's Tempietto is barely bigger than a garden pavilion, yet it is one of the founding buildings of the High Renaissance. The little round temple stands beside the church of San Pietro in Montorio, on the spot that tradition identified as the place where Saint Peter was crucified. It was commissioned by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, who had also paid for the rebuilding of the church, and was probably begun around 1502 and finished by about 1509–1510.

Donato Bramante, who would soon go on to design the new St Peter's Basilica, took the circular temples of ancient Rome as his model and recast them with mathematical rigour. Sixteen granite columns in the sober Tuscan Doric order form a ring around a tiny cylindrical cella, only about 4.5 metres across inside. Above them runs a frieze of triglyphs and metopes and a balustrade, then a drum with pilasters and niches, and finally a hemispherical dome. A circular crypt beneath marks the supposed site of the cross, and a sculpture of Saint Peter stands on the altar. Bramante intended the setting to match the building: a circular colonnaded courtyard around it, echoing its form. That scheme was never carried out, and the Tempietto still stands within the rectangular cloister it was built in, which makes it feel even more compact.

Its influence was immense. Sebastiano Serlio and Andrea Palladio both published it in their architectural treatises, Palladio placing it among the ancient temples as the one modern building worthy of their company, and its domed, colonnaded silhouette echoes in many later domes, beginning with Bramante's own plans for St Peter's.

San Pietro in Montorio sits on the slope of the Janiculum, the ridge on the west bank of the Tiber above the old quarter of Trastevere. Rome, the Italian capital, gathers nearly three thousand years of building within its walls; the Tempietto is one of its smallest and most perfect monuments.

Getting there

The Tempietto is in the courtyard of San Pietro in Montorio on the Janiculum, about 4 km from the centre of Rome and close to Trastevere; Vatican City is around 2 km to the north. Ciampino Airport (CIA) is about 15 km to the south-east, and Rome's main airport, Fiumicino (FCO), lies further out towards the coast. Roma Trastevere railway station is the nearest main-line station.

From the encyclopaedia

The Tempietto del Bramante is a martyrium designed by Donato Bramante to commemorate the site traditionally regarded as the location of Saint Peter’s crucifixion. The small, freestanding chapel was commissioned by Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile and was completed c. 1502 for the cloister of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome, Italy. The structure is considered a masterpiece of High Renaissance architecture, with scholars and architects noting Bramante’s harmonious proportions and his symbolic adaptation of Classical and early Christian architectural elements.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tempietto

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

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From the encyclopaedia