Sangallo, Vignola, Palladio and the Roman «Accademia de lo Studio de l’Architettura»

Abstract

The three important Italian Renaissance architects (Sangallo, Vignola and Palladio) are not usually seen as closely related to each other. This article suggests that the theoretical and practical accomplishments by Vignola and Palladio are based on their early studies of ancient Roman architecture in the context of the forgotten Accademia de lo Studio de l’Architettura (active in Rome c. 1530-1555). Their project to amend, edit and translate Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture and to document ancient Roman architecture, as well as all artefacts that are helpful in interpreting and understanding it (e.g., decoration, ornaments, reliefs, sculpture, inscriptions, coins, paintings, tools and machines), survives in a description written by Claudio Tolomei in 1542 and published in 1547. However, this programme is obviously based on an earlier project by Sangallo, formulated in c. 1531 and revised in 1539, respectively. Some of the numerous achievements by the many members of the Accademia are mentioned and put into relation to each other, providing a glimpse of one of the presumably earliest and surely largest of such projects in Europe’s scholarly history of which there still remains evidence. The article, therefore, aims to create more awareness of this Accademia, its project and in$uence and the central role which the study of architecture, its history and theory played in the formation of the humanities.