Palazzo Caprini was a

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

palazzo in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, in the Borgo

rione A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the title of (). Formed a ...

between Piazza Scossacavalli and via Alessandrina (also named Borgo Nuovo). It was designed by Donato Bramante around 1510, or a few years before. It was also known as the Palazzo di Raffaello or House of Raphael, since the artist

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...

had bought it in 1517 and lived there until his death three years later,Gigli (1992) p. 46 although by then he was planning to build a much larger palazzo elsewhere. In the late 16th century, the Palazzo Caprini, already decayed and crumbling, underwent a total renovation and constituted the core of the much larger Palazzo dei Convertendi.Gigli (1992) p. 48 The garden house of the Palazzo Caprini was not destroyed until 1848. The appearance of the Palazzo Caprini's main facade is known from an

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...

published by Antoine Lafréry and a partial sketch attributed to Andrea Palladio.Gigli (1992) p. 54 It had five bays and two levels, with rustication (using

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

) on the lower floor which, as often in Rome, was let out to shops. The upper floor had windows divided by coupled columns of the

Doric order The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

, surmounted by a complete entablature. It was highly influential, providing a standard model for the integration of the rusticated ground floor with arched openings, characteristic of 15th-century Florentine palaces ''alla antica'' such as the Pitti Palace, with the classical orders. The decorative inclusion of large rusticated voussoirs and keystone instead of a lintel over the flat top of the lower rectangular openings in the end shop fronts was also a device with a long future. The apparent strength of a blind arched arcade with emphatic voussoirs on the rusticated ground storey gave reassuring support to the upper storey's paired Doric columns standing on rusticated piers, set against a smooth wall. The many buildings providing variations of the design include Somerset House in London and the Louvre Colonnade.Summerson 1980, p. 84.

Notes

Sources

* * * * Grimm, Herman. ''Leben Michelangelo's'' * Summerson, John (1980). '' The Classical Language of Architecture''. Thames and Hudson ''World of Art'' series, . {{Donato Bramante Houses completed in 1510 Renaissance architecture in Rome Caprini Donato Bramante buildings Caprini 1510 establishments in the Papal States 1510 establishments in Italy