Exterior view

The centrally planned church became a significant development of the Renaissance, evolving throughout the 15th century and reaching maturity in the 16th. Alberti described the circle as the perfect shape in Nature and its derivations — rectangular and polygonal — as ideal for the ‘temple’ or church (De re aedificatoria IV). Alberti himself employed the Greek-cross plan, at San Sebastiano (from 1460), Mantua, possibly derived from such Early Christian tombs as that of Galla Placidia, Ravenna.

Alberti’s most influential designs were in Mantua, for the churches of San Sebastiano (begun 1460) and Sant’Andrea (begun 1472), built under the patronage of the 2nd Marchese, Ludovico II Gonzaga.

Ludovico commissioned the building of San Sebastiano as part of a scheme of urban renewal that he had decided upon following criticism of Mantua by Pope Pius II, who had attended a Church Congress there in 1459. Ludovico’s choosing Alberti as his architect reflected his desire to modernize the city according to the new classical taste.

The church was constructed in two phases in the Renaissance and remodeled in the twentieth century. Luca Fancelli, a Tuscan-born architect and sculptor who worked in Mantua for the Gonzaga family for 35 years, supervised the construction of San Sebastiano from 1460 until construction ceased in 1479, the year after Ludovico’s death. In 1499, after a twenty-year pause, the church’s completion was assigned to a local architect who was neither aware of the original design nor understood the new principles of architectural design. An exterior staircase was added to the left side at that time. In 1925, steps running perpendicular to the fa�ade were added to the end bays, and much of the interior was reconstructed when the church was renovated as a war memorial.

Little remains of Alberti’s work apart from the plan, which is considered one of the earliest and most significant examples of centrally-planned Renaissance churches. The plan is in the shape of a Greek cross, with three identical arms centring apses, under a central cross-vaulted space without any interior partitions. The church sits on a ground-level crypt which was intended to serve as a mausoleum for the Gonzaga family. The complete absence of columns in the fa�ade signified a decisive turning-point in Alberti’s interpretation of architecture, moving beyond his statements in De Re Aedificatoria where he considered the column the noblest ornament of building.

The photo shows the fa�ade in the actual state.

View the ground plan of the church.