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The show

From 7 April to 9 July 2023, the Palladio Museum is proposing, on the tenth anniversary of its foundation, “Raffaello. Born an architect", exhibition curated by Guido Beltramini, Howard Burns and Arnold Nesselrath, promoted by CISA - International Center for the History of Architecture as part of the initiatives of the National Committee "Raffaello 1520-2020"

Everyone knows the painter Raphael, but few know that he was a great architect, one of the most influential of the entire Renaissance. It was Raphael who defined the theoretical and practical status of architectural drawing, with which buildings were designed for the following five centuries, until the revolution of computer drawing. It was always Raphael who transformed the study of ancient Roman architecture, placing it at the basis of forms and decorations of the new Renaissance architecture. It was Raphael who laid the foundations for the "invention" of the architectural orders; to be the first to design the giant columns that Michelangelo would develop on the Campidoglio decades later; to build "tailor-made" palaces for the high officials of the inner circle of Pope Leo X, which make them recognizable in the city as real portraits in masonry. It is Raphael who revives the ancient Roman tradition of country life with the first Renaissance villa, Villa Madama, on the slopes of Monte Mario.


What the exhibition is determined to demonstrate is that Raphael was not born a painter and then became an architect, but that he has been an architect since the beginning of his activity as an artist, and that even in his figurative works he immediately lives a new and innovative idea of space, fueled by the study and imitation of the architecture of ancient Rome.

Original drawings on display, including precious autographs by Raphael, from the Royal Institute of British Architects in London and the Uffizi, notebooks and manuscripts from the Central Library of Florence, ancient sculptures and Renaissance books, present not only the architecture built by Raphael but also those – no less fascinating – that remained on paper or were destroyed, such as Palazzo Branconio in L'Aquila. Two very high fidelity reproductions of the enormous, untransportable cartoons for the tapestries of the Sistine Chapel, such as the Sacrifice of Lystra or the Preaching of Saint Paul in Athens, will bring to the exhibition the inseparable interweaving of Raphael as painter and architect. Accompanying the exhibition, a scientific catalog that collects the results of new research on Raphael's built and painted architecture. In particular, the volume, which brings together the contributions of the curators and all the specialists who participated in the working group, sees the reconstructions of Raphael's lost projects published for the first time.

Gallery

Works on display

Timetable and tickets

Address

Contra’ Porti 11
36100 Vicenza

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