Art & Architecture at the Campidoglio

UD Rome students stormed the Capitoline Hill on Wednesday 19 March. Their motivation? An in-depth study of Michelangelo's Piazza del Campidoglio.

It was not the first time that students found themselves on the Capitoline. Orientation tours on their first day in Rome brought them to this lovely hilltop, while just a few weeks later, they paid a visit to the Capitoline Museums that flank Michelangelo's piazza.

While the visit to the Capitoline Museums in February asked students to examine ancient art and architecture, this trip gave them insight into the principles of Renaissance architecture and urban planning, as the Piazza del Campidoglio was designed by Michelangelo for Pope Paul II Farnese in the 1530s.

What did they learn? Student Angela Cuba described her experience:

According to Dr. Flusche, Roman legend tells us that the Capitoline Hill was made into a place of asylum by Romulus, the founder of Rome. Later, it became the site of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the largest and most important temple in all of Rome. Yet, after the Barbarian invasions, the Capitoline Hill fell into disrepair, until, in the year 1536, Pope Paul III chose to showcase Rome's renewed prominence by revamping the area of the Capitoline. He wisely chose the artist Michelangelo for this project.

Michelangelo's architectural innovation was that of bringing unity and order to an asymmetrical space. He used ancient statuary (including the giant bronze Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius) to indicate the political prevalence of the Pope; his Giant Order was an invenzione on the ancient world; and the twelve-pointed star he designed for the pavement was an indication that Rome was the center of the world (incidentally, due to the death of Michealangelo the piazza was not finished until 1938 when the fascist dictator Mussolini finally laid Michelangelo's pavement).

The piazza showcases not only the invenzione, or creativity, of Michelangelo, but also was meant (above all) to convey that "I [Pope Paul III] have inherited the vast power that resides in this city". The power upon which he prided himself was not not limited to the present day, but even went back into antiquity. "The goal" concluded Dr. Flusche, "was not that of wiping the slate clean, but that of using antiquity, harnessing its power, and to making it your own."

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