LAFRERI, Antonio

A noteworthy design by Bramante was that of the Palazzo Caprini in the Borgo, Rome, which became the model for many 16th-century palaces. This palazzo was later acquired by Raphael (called House of Raphael; later destroyed). According to Vasari, Bramante, about 1509, had designed the architectural background for the School of Athens by Raphael, and in return, Raphael represented Bramante in the fresco in the guise of Euclid.

The appearance of the main fa�ade is known from an etching by Antonio Lafreri and a partial sketch attributed to Andrea Palladio.

The palace had a fa�ade with five bays and two levels, with rustication (using stucco) on the lower floor which, as often in Rome, was let out to shops. The upper floor had windows divided by double Doric columns, 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 many buildings providing variations of the design include Somerset House in London.

Pilgrimage and procession were familiar aspects of urban life in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Sites of major relics such as Rome, Assisi, Padua, Chartres, Cologne, Santiago de Compostela, and Canterbury drew pilgrims in a constant stream, their attention focused on the redemptive powers of the saint or saints whose relics they had come to venerate and upon whose intercessions they believed their salvation depended. As the hub of Christianity, Rome had the greatest concentration of shrines and relics in Europe, and its seven (an appropriately symbolic number) major basilicas formed a well-defined pilgrimage route within and immediately outside the walls of the city itself.

The engraved depiction of the Holy Year of 1575 shows the pilgrims greeted by apparitions of the name saints of the major basilicas. St Peter with his keys is at the bottom of the print, standing outside his own church in the Vatican, as it appeared at that time, before the lengthening of the nave and the addition of the fa�ade we know today; the dome is only partially completed. Pilgrims kneel before him.

This engraving was published in Speculum Romanae magnificentiae (Mirror of Rome’s Magnificence)in Rome in 1575 by Antonio Lafreri (Antoine Lafr�ry), a French engraver and publisher active in Rome. The Speculum Romanae magnificentiae is a collection of engravings of ancient and Renaissance Rome and important for research in architectural history. In demand by tourists, this work made Lafreri the first major print publisher.

This engraving showing a view of the Roman amphitheater known as the Colosseum is from Antonio Lafreri’s “Speculum Romanae magnificentiae.”

The fabric of the grand ruin of the Colosseum had been mined for centuries because it provided an abundance of cut stone. The superimposed half-columns of the Colosseum’s exterior provided the Renaissance with a demonstration of how the ancient Greek architectural orders could be applied to a structure.

This engraving showing a cut-away illustration of the ancient Roman Pantheon is from Antonio Lafreri’s “Speculum Romanae magnificentiae.”