Tempietto del Bramante (San Pietro in Montorio)

It is easy to miss. You need to step into the courtyard of the monastery at the Church of San Pietro in Montorio on the slopes of the Gianicolo-and there, hemmed in by walls, stands a circular structure on steps: a ring of slender Tuscan columns, a Doric entablature, a balustrade, and a dome. Walking all the way around it takes a minute. It is worth climbing the hill just for this. The Tempietto was built around 1502 by Donato Bramante, commissioned by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. The site was not chosen for the scenic view: according to tradition, this is where the Apostle Peter was crucified, and the building was conceived as a martyrium-a monument at the site of execution. Hence the form: a circular temple over a focal point, rather than a hall for gathering people. Now for the main point-why there is so much fuss over this gazebo. Architectural historian Jonathan Glancey calls the Tempietto the most influential building of the entire High Renaissance. Bramante took an ancient circular temple-presumably the Temple of Vesta-as his model and reassembled it anew: he did not copy it, but spoke in its language. Glancey describes the effect thus: a colonnade where the sun plays and through which one can walk-and this whole little thing speaks of reason and dignity, rather than religious fear. And from it, the following emerged. Glancey draws a direct line from the Tempietto to three domes: Michelangelo’s dome at St. Peter’s Basilica, Christopher Wren’s dome at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and the dome of the Capitol in Washington. That is, from a building you can walk around in a minute stretches a thread to the U.S. Capitol building. And finally, why it is worth standing here for a couple of minutes. Four years after the Tempietto, in 1506, the same Bramante would begin demolishing the old St. Peter’s Basilica and building the largest church in the Christian world in its place. He would die in 1514, having seen nothing except the begun piers. So what stands here is his only completed Roman building-and it is the size of a gazebo.