Porta Pia (Rome, Italy) : General view, from southwest, depicting entire front elevation and tower
- Creator:
- Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564
- Published/Created:
- Rome, Lazio, Italy
1561-1564 - Date Depicted:
- 5/1/1994
1500 AD - 1699 AD - Materials:
- brick
marble - Notes:
- Michelangelo's most wilfully eccentric secular design was the Porta Pia (1561-1564). The function of this city gate was to terminate the vista from the Quirinal to the Aurelian walls down Pius IV's new street the Strada Pia, which was then lined with villas and gardens. In it Michelangelo combined elements of Medieval and Renaissance city-gate tradition with ideas derived from garden and festival architecture, as well as his own rich invention. Thus joky castellation, remnants of rustication and the Doric order are used as metaphors for strength, while the main portal evolved through a series of extraordinary drawings (Corpus, 614-621), superimposing and metamorphosing one solution over and into another. The result is a compendium of all the most fantastic elements of Michelangelo's architectural vocabulary-broken pediments, swags, masks, displaced fragments of the orders, overlapping planes and juxtaposed façades and profiles.
- Topics:
- Architecture -- Italy -- 16th century -- (YVRC)
- Period/Style:
- Mannerist
- Culture:
- Italian
- Accession Number:
- 1A1-MB-PP-A1
- Genre:
- architecture (AAT)
city gates (AAT) - Format:
- Image
- Content Type:
- Sculptures, Models, & Architecture
- Rights:
- Copyright Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc
The use of this image may be subject to the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) or to site license or other rights management terms and conditions. The person using the image is liable for any infringement. - Access Restrictions:
- Yale Community Only
- Digital:
- architectural exteriors; City planning; Pius IV, Pope, 1499-1565 construction buildings; gatehouses; built works; city gates
- Source Creator:
- Gilchrist, Scott
- Source Title:
- Archivision Base Collection
- Source Created:
- 2878 Chamonix, Montreal QC
Archivision, Inc.
5/1/1994 - Source Note:
- Purchase, Visual Resources Collection, May, 2011; photographer Scott Gilchrist
- Yale Collection:
- Visual Resources Collection
- Digital Collection:
- Visual Resources Collection
- Local Record Number:
- 4152
- OID:
- 10090322
- PID:
- digcoll:1842270