Abdul Qayum Ahmadi

Abhishek Singh
Anshul Abbasi
Shobha Suraj
 Michelangelo di Lodovico
Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian
sculptor, painter, architect,
poet, and engineer of the High
Renaissance.
The second of five brothers,
Michelangelo was born on
March 6, 1475, at Caprese, in
Tuscany, to Ludovico di
Leonardo di Buonarotto
Simoniand Francesca Neri.
Michelangelo's impassioned
and highly personal style that
resulted in Mannerism, the
next major movement in
Western art after the High
Renaissance.
As an architect, Michelangelo
pioneered the Mannerist style
at the Laurentian Library.

"I have never felt
salvation in
nature. I love
cities above all.
This quote
by Michelangelo describes his
attitude toward art extremely
well. Unlike one of his
contemporaries, Leonardo Da
Vinci, he did not draw on
nature, but did his best to do
away with it. This is perhaps
more evident in his
architecture than anywhere
else.
In his drive to be known as a great sculptor,
Michelangelo often declared that he was
neither a painter nor an architect. In fact, he
was both.
Michelangelo's forays into architecture,
namely the tomb of Julius II, the faade for
San Lorenzo, and theMedici Chapel, had each
entailed disappointment for Michelangelo.
Project after project fell victim to interruption
and change, and none was finished according
to his original plans.
Despite this failure to bring his grand
architectural visions to completion, he never
lost his passion for invention and design.
At the age of sixty-five, he had yet to embark
on two of the most important architectural
commissions of his brilliant career.
The Laurentian Library

The corner-turning lines to see Michelangelo's David at

the Accademia in Florence or his Sistine Ceiling and
Last Judgment at the Vatican Museums in Rome
testify to the artist's continuing allure. But on any
given day it is possible to stroll into his architectural
masterpiece the Laurentian Library in Florence and
experience it alone.
 It was constructed on the top level
of the existing convent, and
comprised two connected parts: a
two-story vestibule with a
monumental staircase and, on the
upper story, a long reading room
housing the books for quiet study.

The Laurentian Library, too, has the

power to move the uninitiated.

The library visitor with no

background in Michelangelo's
architectural thought is still likely to
experience a sense of tension and
compression while walking through
the vestibule, and of tranquility and
release while crossing into the
reading room.
 The design, particularly that of the
library's vestibule, is one of
Michelangelo's greatest architectural
achievements.
Its main feature is the spectacular
staircase, the idea for which came to
Michelangelo in a dream, whose
three flights of steps seem almost
alive as they cascade downward.
Preceded by the dynamic energy of
the vestibule, the orderly space of
the reading room conveys a sense of
quiet concentration.
The pilasters, ceiling beams, and
floor pattern converge to effectively
"trap" the rhythmic replication of
bays that run the length of the
room.
Michelangelo even designed the
furniture of the library's reading
room so that it would form a
seamless part of the room's overall
design.
 On a deeper level, Michelangelo's
architecture engaged in a playful
dialogue with classical stylethe
columns, capitals, bases and myriad
other elements that formed the lingua
franca of architecture from classicism's
invention in ancient Greece to the
dawn of modernism in the 20th
century.
Fundamentally, Michelangelo turns on
its head the modernist mantra that
"form follows function."
He takes elements that are apparently
simple, such as a door or a window,
and toys with our expectations by
making them enormously, needlessly
complex, often using them in ways
contrary to their nature.
This might not seem like a virtuebut
the complexity yields tremendous
visual interest for the visitor willing to
engage.
Basilica di San Lorenzo
 Michelangelo was commissioned in
1516 by Pope Leo X to build a
splendid faade for the Basilica of San
Lorenzo.
The Medici church had become
increasingly important with the rise to
power of the Medici family and the
Medici pope, Leo X. In 1516.
The artist labored on the project,
declaring with uncharacteristic pride
that the faade would be a "mirror
of architecture and sculpture of
all Italy."
Then, after Michelangelo had
invested three years and countless
trips to Carrara and Seravezza in
search of the perfect blocks of
marble, the commission was canceled
and the project abandoned without
the pope giving an explanation to the
furious and humiliated artist.
The Medici Chapel
 The Medici Chapel by Michelangelo, a
simple structure intended to house the
tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo de'
Medici, was commissioned in 1519 by
Cardinal Giulio de' Medici to mirror
another Florentine structure,
Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy for San
Lorenzo from the 1420s.

The coffered Medici Chapel Dome

echoes that of the Roman Pantheon,
although Michelangelo's dome is much
more airy and well lit.

Michelangelo paid close attention to

the positioning of the chapel's windows
to achieve the illumination so crucial to
the mood and purpose of the structure.

The four floating circles placed at the

base of the dome add to its buoyant,
soaring effect.
 The figures Michelangelo planned for the
Chapel steadily increased in size
throughout the first stages of construction.

The above figures, sumptuously sculpted

and polished, are set against a stark but
elegant two-tone backdrop of dark gray
Tuscan limestone supports and white
plaster walls.

Though never finished, the Medici Chapel

is the only one of Michelangelo's great
architectural-sculptural projects to be
realized in anything approaching entirety.

After Michelangelo left for Rome in 1534,

never to return to Florence, the sculptures
in the chapel were installed by his pupils.

This view highlights the artist's elegant use

of dark stone (pietra serena) and light-
colored marble to define the chapel's
architectural elements.
Piazza del Campidoglio
 Piazza del Campidoglio (begun
1538) was the result of
Michelangelo's plan for the
revival of the Capitoline Hill, a
site of great importance since
antiquity.

It began with the creation of a

focal point flanked by three
new or restored buildings.

At the center of the oval

courtyard stands a statue of
Roman Emperor Marcus
Aurelius, the only bronze
statue from antiquity known to
have survived intact.

The base of the statue was

designed by Michelangelo.
 The dazzling starburst pattern
Michelangelo imposed on the square
enhanced the dynamic interplay
between the surrounding buildings
and the square's center.

Michelangelo dramatically
reconfigured this building, which was
largely still standing when the project
began.

Moving its tower to a central position

that more forcefully corresponded
with the sweep of the two flights of
stairs leading to the building's
entrance, the artist created a striking
counterpoint to the two other
palazzos.

Today, the building serves as the city

hall of Rome.
 Michelangelo created a new faade
for the Palazzo dei Conservatori
(begun 1538), which was largely in
ruins when the artist began
reshaping the square.
The building shows Michelangelo's
use of a "giant Corinthian order,"
consisting of huge pilasters on tall
bases that unite the two stories.
The flat roof and level entablature
are signature features of
Michelangelo's architectural designs.
At the point of the Palazzo dei
Senatori stairs (begun 1538) where
the two flights of stairs meet is a
niche containing the statue of the
goddess Roma.
Seated triumphantly, a globe in her
outstretched hand, she symbolizes
the far-reaching power of Rome.
At the center of Piazza del
Campidoglio stands a bronze statue
from Roman antiquity.
Andrea Palladio
 Andrea
Palladio (30
November 1508 19
August 1580) was
an Italian architect active
in the Republic of Venice.
Palladio, influenced
by Roman and Greek
architecture, primarily by
Vitruvius, is widely
considered the most
influential individual in
the history of Western
architecture.
All of his buildings are
located in what was the
Venetian Republic, but his
teachings, summarized in
the architectural
treatise, The Four Books of
Architecture, gained him
wide recognition.
 Although his buildings are all in a
relatively small part of Italy, Palladio's
influence was far-reaching.
One factor in the spread of his
influence was the publication in 1570
of his architectural treatise, I Quattro
Libri dell'Architettura (The Four Books
of Architecture), which set out rules
others could follow.
The first book includes studies of
decorative styles, classical orders, and
materials.
The second book included Palladio's
town and country house designs and
classical reconstructions.
The third book has bridge and basilica
designs, city planning designs, and
classical halls.
The fourth book included information
on the reconstruction of ancient
Roman temples.
Villa Rotonda
 The design is for a completely
symmetrical building having a square
plan with four facades, each of which
has a projecting portico.
The whole is contained within an
imaginary circle which touches each
corner of the building and centres of the
porticos.
The name La Rotonda refers to the
central circular hall with its dome.
To describe the villa, as a whole, as a
'rotonda' is technically incorrect, as the
building is not circular but rather the
intersection of a square with a cross.
Each portico has steps leading up, and
opens via a small cabinet or corridor to
the circular domed central hall.
This and all other rooms were
proportioned with mathematical
precision according to Palladio's own
rules of architecture which he published
in the Quattro Libri dell'Architettura.
Villa Barbaro
 Palladio planned the villa on low lines
extending into a large park.
The ground floor plan is complex -
rectangular with perpendicular rooms
on a long axis, the central block projects
and contains the principal reception
room.
The central block, which is designed to
resemble the portico of a Roman
temple, is decorated by
four Ionic columns, a motif which takes
its inspiration from the Temple of
Fortuna Virilis in Rome.
The central block is surmounted by a
large pediment with heraldic symbols of
the Barbaro family in relief.
The central block is flanked by two
symmetrical wings.
The wings have two floors but are
fronted by an open arcade. Usually
Palladio designed the wings to provide
functional accommodation for
agricultural use.
Church of San Giorgio Maggiore
 The faade is brilliantly white and
represents Palladio's solution to the
difficulty of adapting a classical
temple facade to the form of the
Christian church.
Palladio's solution superimposed two
facades, one with a wide pediment
and architrave, extending over the nave
and both the aisles, apparently
supported by a single order of pilasters,
and the other with a narrower pediment
(the width of the nave) superimposed
on top of it with a giant order of
engaged columns on high pedestals.
This solution is similar to Palladio's
slightly earlier facade for San Francesco
della Vigna, where the other parts of
the church had been designed
by Sansovino.
On either side of the central portal are
statues of Saint George and of Saint
Stephen, to whom the church is also
dedicated.