TEMPIETTO DI S. PIETRO IN MONTORIO     (for italian version click here)

S. Pietro in Montorio has a great importance for the following developments we can nearly consider it the statute of the New Renaissance.
The temple was built for Ferdinando and Isabel of Spain, in the site where tradition placed the martyrdom of St Peter.

The round shape which has been chosen for this temple has great importance. they say that the Italian Sixteenth-century Architects, with their passion for churches with a central plan, ardently ran after pagan ideals, they also said that Bramante's St Peter, with the central plan represents the triumph of worldy pleasure.
All this is based on the false presupposition that christian churches had to be cross-shaped. As a matter of fact, the most ancient christian churches were of two types, the Martyrium and the Basilica, the former had a central plan because they were memorials, while the latter were cross-shaped to receive the believers.
So for Bramante, who was a studious man of Paleo-christian structures,and of the late-ancient Architecture, it was the only possible solution.
The small temple is formed by two cylinder, the peristyle and the naos, the former low and wide, the latter high and narrow. The width of the peristyle is the same of the height of the naos( not including the dome), these simple proportional ratios are traceable in all the building.
The dome is proportional to the naos because it is hemispherical.
The formal reference points of the "Tempietto"(small temple) are:
the round temple neat thr Tiber and the famous temple of Sybilla in Tivoli, both of them with peristyles similar to the "tempietto", but with an important exception.
The "tempietto" in Tivoli owes its fame thanks to the utmost richness of the Corinthian order frieze, instead the"tempietto" is the first modern building where the Tuscanic order is used correctly.
As a matter of fact, as Vitruvio taught and after Alberti confirmed, the orders tobe adopted in times had to be according to the personality of the ones they were dedicated to( virgin goddess: Corinthian; Hercules and Mars :Doric).
Bramante believed that the Tuscanic order, which is similar to the Roman Doric, would be suitable to St Peters' features. He uses recovered pillars fropm an ancient building, probably of a Ionic or corinthian order and he then supplies new bases and new marble capitals of Tuscanic kind. The distance between the pillars, for symbolical and visibility reasons of the small building, is at the limits of human dimensions, so with the real approachibility.The level at the back, the one of the wall body which is divided in parastas that are projections of the outer pillars, ends under this limit and presents himself like an unreal-like structure, represented, more than built; as a matter of fact,the points, that are necessarily tied up to the human ladder -doors-windows and niches- wholly occupy the very narrow intercolumns, or go far beyond from them, superimposing the parastas with a paradoxal interfering effect.
Also the architecture of the tambour that we can observe in the background behind the outcoming banisters in open light, is simplified like the pent-house in the Memorials. The frieze is decorated with alterning metopes and triglyphss. Metopes appear different than the ones in the usual classic order, instead they recall thre frieze in Vespasiano's temple in the bas-relief representing lyturgical furnishings.The shape of the outer frame of the Portico is repeated also in the inside frame, and also in the walls of the body frame, reducing only the measures on the plan and keeping faithful the ones in the front-view. In spite of the tiny dimensions, the "tempietto" contains the seed of the magnificent designs of the Bramante for the construction of St Peter; and it is in this context that he must be studied and analyzed if we want to understand Bramante's works and thru him, the Italian Architecture of 500.
In addition to the "tempietto", as we know from Serlio, Bramante wanted to re-organize the entire court-yard space so that the tiny church with a central plan wound have found itself in the middle of a large cloister which had also a central plan, with a similar spirit as S.Satiro in Milan.
Naturally the round court that had to surround the "tempietto" assumes an experimental character on the theory of priority of proportional and projective characters in comparison to the metric ones.
As a matter of fact, despite the courtyards' colonnade has a double diameter of the porticoof the tempietto, the columns are always 16, which means that the planned portico comes out from the projection of the existing portico, introducing a 3rd perspective level together to the pilaster strips of the smaller cylinder of the tempietto.
The courtyard thus projected demonstrates the experimental will of Bramante,but it is almost impossible to define precisely in front view.
If in the passage between the portico of the tempietto and the inner cylinder- the order height should result constant( even if we use the difference in level of the steps) the intercolumns would widen after any accepted limit, constructively and visibly. But if the height of the order would overgrow, the "tempietto" would result crushed in a giantic case, losing the prominence of his internal games.

Serlio's plan, must be then considered a trace of a theorical hypothesis not only unaccomplished but also an impractical scheme, placed beyond the experimental range when the Bramante proposes to stay though exploring his border limits.
Murray:139;Benevolo 279,282