Http Authorservices.wiley.com Bauthor OnlineLibraryTPS.asp DOI=10.1111 j.1477-4658.2010.00675

‘La zecca vecchia’: myth, archeology andarchitectural design in the high Renaissance concept

of rustication

Lola Kantor-Kazovsky

Rustication, or intentionally unhewn quadrangular masonry, whetherexecuted in live stone or imitated in cement, is an architectural motif ofclassical origins that was used variously and systematically in Italy from thethirteenth century, and that features in some of the most conspicuous Renais-sance buildings. However, there was no classical or modern theoretical dis-cussion of it until Sebastiano Serlio’s Regole generali di’architettura (1537) andthis treatise presents researchers of Renaissance rustication with a peculiardifficulty. Serlio’s publication divides the history of the use of this feature intotwo unequal parts. The semantics of rustication after Serlio is easy enough totrace, because in most of the cases it clearly has its source in his treatise.Rustication in Renaissance Italy before Serlio is more complicated, because,contrary to expectations, his concepts prove not to be really applicable there.Most contemporary researchers who inquire into the actual form, meaningand patronage of rusticated structures, whether private palaces or civic build-ings, approach early modern rustication as an all’antica architectural stylewhose intention was to express the Roman identity of a commune or theprincely status of the owner.1 Serlio’s discourse on rustication seems to

The first version of this paper was given as a lecture at the College Art Association Annual Conference in 2005.I want to thank Luba Freedman for reading the article before publication and for her deep and usefulcomments on it, and Frédérique Lemerle for presenting me with her publications on the French translation ofDiego de Sagredo’s architectural treatise.

1 The history of the question deserves a separate study; here only some important contributions are listed.Howard Burns, ‘Quattrocento Architecture and the Antique: Some Problems’, in Classical Influences on EuropeanCulture, conference proceedings, ed. Robert Ralph Bolgar, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 1:273–4; Staale Sinding Larsen, ‘A Tale of Two Cities: Florentine and Roman Visual Context for Fifteenth-CenturyPalaces’, Acta ad Archeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia 6 (1975), 163–212, esp. 190–92; Andreas Tönnes-man, ‘ “Palatium Nervae.” Ein antikes Vorbild für Florentiner Rustikafassaden’, Romisches Jahrbuh für Kunstge-schichte 21 (1984), 61–70; Margaret Daly Davis, ‘ “Opus isodomum” at the Palazzo della Cancelleria: VitruvianStudies and Archeological and Antiquarian Interests at the Court of Raffaele Riario’, in Silvia Danesi Squarzina(ed.), Roma, centro ideale della cultura dell’antico nei secoli VX e XVI. Da Martino V al Sacco di Roma 1417–1527 (Milan:Electa, 1989), 442–57; Brenda Preyer, ‘L’architettura del palazzo Mediceo’, in Il Palazzo Medici Riccardi di Firenze(Florence: Giunti, 1990), 62; Marvin Trachtenberg, ‘Scénographie urbaine et identité civique: réflexion sur laFlorence du Trecento’, Revue de l’art 99 (1993), 16; Amedeo Belluzzi, The Palazzo Tè in Mantua (Modena: Panini,1998), 1: 89–90; Georgia Clarke, Roman House – Renaissance Palaces (London: Cambridge University Press, 2003),

Renaissance Studies Vol. 25 No. 2 DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-4658.2010.00675.x

© 2010 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2010 The Society for Renaissance Studies, Blackwell Publishing Ltd

obscure rather than to explain this meaning. Other ideas are usuallyemphasized by scholars when Serlio’s approach to rustication is discussed.Thus Ernst Gombrich highlighted Serlio’s discussion of Giulio Romano,where he states that rustication used in conjunction with regular orders showsa pleasant comparison between ‘the work of nature’ and ‘the work of humanskill’.2 James S. Ackerman showed that in Serlio’s theory of the orders, rusti-cation is a secondary ornamental feature pertaining specifically to the Tuscan,the first and most robust of the five regular orders of architecture he estab-lished.3 However, the projections of these ideas onto the previous history ofrustication, in particular, the application of the ‘naturalist’ interpretation ofrustic work, based on Giulio Romano, to pre-Serlian architecture, has notreached satisfying results.4

I propose that Serlio deliberately shifted the emphasis from the traditionalmeaning of rustication to new approaches, which later became especiallypopular due to his influence. However, I shall also show that we have lost partof his meaning and that his discourse still contains elements of a traditionalunderstanding of rustication as bearing an association with venerable Romanmodels and history. To achieve this I would like to take a different approachtowards the text. Instead of using it to clarify architectural practice, I suggestthat the text be read in light and in the context of architectural developmentsof his time. Using Sansovino’s adoption of rustication on the Piazzetta, I willshow that the architect closest to Serlio at the time of writing the treatise, andin the opinion of many influenced by Serlio, was referring to a renownedRoman model not very differently from the way the architects of rusticatedcivic buildings before him had followed. What makes Sansovino’s case espe-

187–94; Rikke Lyngsø Christensen, ‘Live Stones : On the Phenomenon of Rustication and Its Relations to theall’antica Practice in Italian Architecture of the 16th century’, Analecta Romana Instituti Danici, 31(2005),77–104.

2 Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture. Books I–V of ‘Tutte l’ opere d’architettura et prospettiva’ by Sebastiano Serlio,translated from the Italian with an Introduction and Commentary by Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks (NewHaven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 1: 270. All subsequent references are to this edition of Serlio’sbook. Gombrich first advanced this idea in 1933 in his dissertation on Giulio Romano. For the latest revisedversion of his interpretation see his ‘Architecture and Rhetoric in Giulio Romano’s Palazzo del Tè’, in idem, NewLight on Old Masters: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance IV (Oxford: Phaidon, 1986), 161–70. Gombrich’sapproach was developed by Manfredo Tafuri among others: ‘Il mito naturalistico nell’ architettura del’500’,L’Arte 1 (1968), 6–36. See also Marcello Fagiolo (ed), Natura e artificio: l’ordine rustico, le fontane, gli automi nellacultura del Manierismo europeo (Rome: Officina, 1979).

3 James S. Ackerman, ‘The Tuscan/Rustic Order: A Study in the Metaphorical Language of Architecture’,Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 42 (1983), 15–34.

4 It either brings scholars to an anachronistic view of rustication as a precociously mannerist feature, orprompts them to search for its intellectual background in the contemporary philosophy of nature. For a‘mannerist’ interpretation of Bramante’s rustication, see Arnaldo Bruschi, Bramante Architetto (Bari: Laterza.1969), 958–9, 1045. For approaches to rusticated architecture preceding Giulio and Serlio in light of thephilosophy of nature, see Gianluca Belli, ‘Forma e naturalità nel bugnato fiorentino del Quattrocento’,Quaderni del palazzo Tè, n.s. 4 (1996), 8–38; Charles Burroughs, The Italian Renaissance Palace Façade: Structures ofAuthority, Surfaces of Sense (Cambridge University Press, 2002), 144–50. Whatever ideas of nature can be foundin contemporary philosophy, it has not been proved that the idea of imitating nature motivated an architect’schoice of rustic decoration before Giulio.

The high Renaissance concept of rustication 249

cially relevant for the discussion of Serlio’s meaning is that the very samestructure that Sansovino used as a model, the most ancient part of the Basilicaof SS Cosmas and Damian on the Roman Forum, dominates Serlio’s discourseon rustication in the Regole. He discusses this building twice in his text as amonument of great antiquity and of technical perfection, and refers to it infive illustrations. The historical, political and cultural connotations of thismodel, which led to Sansovino’s interest in it, find a strong echo in Serlio’stext. This is not surprising since, as I will show, these two projects, the buildingand the treatise, were simultaneously developed and mutually interrelatedenterprises that had their common roots in the culture of the High Renais-sance. The attempt to discover these roots and their lost meaning is thepurpose of my paper.

***

Sansovino’s Zecca, or Mint, begun in 1536 on the Piazzetta in Venice (Fig. 1),5

became the starting point for the rebuilding of the urban centre of the city asa part of renovatio urbis. In the course of construction Sansovino made theZecca’s presence on the site more and more prominent. In 1539 he incorpo-rated the shops between the building and the lagoon into the building and

5 This is the date of approval of Sansovino’s model for the building by the Council of Ten. See VincenzoLazari, Scrittura di Jacopo Sansovino e parti del Consiglio de’ Dieci reguardanti la rifabbrica della Zecca di Venezia (Venice,1851), 8–9.

Fig. 1 Jacopo Sansovino, the Mint, Venice, begun 1536 (Alinari: with the permission of Ministero per i Benie le Attività Culturali)

250 Lola Kantor-Kazovsky

thus brought its variously rusticated façade to the fore, making it fully visiblefrom the water, and in 1554–56 he added the rustic portal facing the PalazzoDucale.6 Later on, the emphasis on rustic style thus achieved was doubled bybuilding of the Prigioni (the prisons, begun in 1589) on the other side of thePalazzo.7 Seen from the lagoon (which was the main route for visitors toVenice), the rusticated Zecca and Prigioni became an important element ofthe official façade of the Venetian Republic.

Sansovino’s work on the Zecca has already been reconstructed in detail.8

The question that interests me is why the Piazzetta’s renovatio was conceivedfrom the start in terms of a stylistic opposition between the rustic ruggednessof the Mint and the smooth elegance of the Libreria and Loggetta. Theexplanation given by John Onians avoids dealing with this dualism, notingthat all the new buildings conceived by Sansovino are ‘strikingly different’,and that this difference was to demonstrate the concept of architecture as asystem of regular orders. In this, according to Onians and to the Sansovinoscholars who follow him, the architect was influenced by Serlio, who publishedthe Regole in Venice at the same time that Sansovino was working on therenovation of the Piazzetta area.9 In particular, according to Serlio’s newlyelaborated rules of decorum, the first order in his series of five, the Tuscan, towhich, as he stated, rustication was a regular ornament, was appropriate tofunctional and military structures including treasuries.10 The Zecca that servedas mint and state deposit presents the combination of rustication on theground floor with a rusticated Doric order in the first floor. The parallelismbetween the design of the Zecca and Serlio’s Regole is thus virtually palpable.If the idea of hierarchical relations between Serlio’s theory and Sansovino’spractice were the natural or the only possible conclusion of this observation,no further explanation to the Zecca’s style would be required. I think,however, that most scholars’ a priori assumption that Serlio’s set of rules wasthe dominant factor in Sansovino’s choice for rustication is influenced by therole given to architectural treatises in later epochs. To deprive Sansovino ofhis artistic independence, as this theory does, the transfer of ideas from Serlioto him must be firmly supported. This is not the case here, however. While

6 On the 1539 changes, see Deborah Howard, Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture and Patronage in Renaissance Venice(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975), 41. See also idem, ‘Alla ricerca del Sansovino architetto’,in Guido Beltramini et al. (eds.), Studi in onore di Renato Cevese (Vicenza: Centro Internazionale di Studi diArchitettura Andrea Palladio, 2000), 320. On the portal, see Eugene J. Johnson, ‘Portal of Empire and Wealth:Jacopo Sansovino’s Entrance to the Venetian Mint’, The Art Bulletin 86 (2004), 430–58.

7 Antonio da Ponte and Zamaria de’ Piombi collaborated on this building. See Umberto Franzoi, The Prisonsof the Venetian Republic (Venice: Stamperia di Venezia, 1966), 43–5, docs. 38, 39, 40.

8 Howard, Jacopo Sansovino, 38–46; Manuela Morresi, Jacopo Sansovino (Milano: Electa, 2000), 182–91;Johnson, ‘Portal of Empire’.

9 John Onians, Bearers of Meaning: The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Princ-eton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 287–94. Cf. Morresi, Jacopo Sansovino, 189; Howard, ‘Alla ricerca’,318.

10 Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture, 1: 254.


accepting Onians’ brilliant analysis of the Piazzetta, the question of Sansovi-no’s indebtedness to Serlio must be reformulated in the light of the new data.

Onians bases his conclusions on sixteenth-century reactions to Sansovino’swork, such as Aretino’s letter to him (1537), and the descriptions of Venice bySansovino’s son, Francesco (1556, 1581). Both of them, Onians stresses, knewthe architect well and must have been transcribing his ideas when theyremarked on the varied use of orders on the Piazzetta in terms very close toSerlio’s. However, Aretino’s letter cannot prove Sansovino’s dependence onSerlio and has to be discarded as a source for Sansovino’s theory because ofAretino’s evident connection to Serlio himself. Aretino was involved in theproduction of Serlio’s book, as Sylvie Deswarte-Rosa has shown, being Serlio’sliterary advisor and possibly the manuscript’s editor.11 The very reason Aretinowrote to Sansovino while preparing his letters for publication may have beento show to the public that Serlio’s theory was helpful in the analysis ofarchitecture, and to promote it. As for Francesco Sansovino’s discourses onthe Piazzetta, they are evidently a variation on Aretino’s approach in his letter.

But the greatest obstacle to the assumption that the rustication of the Zeccais the result of Sansovino’s implementation of Serlio’s theory is the fact thatSansovino planned the Zecca in 1535 and that the model of the building wasapproved by the Council of Ten already in March 1536, that is, more than ayear before Serlio’s book was published. Onians avoids this problem by sur-mising that Serlio’s book circulated in manuscript before printing and Sanso-vino could have read it.12 Yet whether Serlio’s treatise was written well beforepublication and to what extent and in what parts his theory was formulatedbefore 1535 poses another problem. Hubertus Günther suggests that thetreatise was written in the period directly preceding the publication, thuscontradicting the theory that it was thought out years earlier. Recent findingsconfirm that Serlio prepared the book within a year, that is, when Sansovino’sbuilding was already planned.13

11 Sylvie Deswarte-Rosa, ‘Le Traité d’architecture de Sebastiano Serlio, l’oeuvre d’une vie’, in Sylvie Deswarte-Rosa (ed.), Sebastiano Serlio à Lyon. Architecture et imprimerie (Lyon: Mémoire active, 2004), 1: 45–6.

12 Onians, Bearers of Meaning, 290. Other scholars take for granted that this model gave only a rough idea ofthe future building and did not concern the artistic solution: Manfredo Tafuri, Jacopo Sansovino e l’architetturadel’500 a Venezia (Padua: Marsilio, 1972), 72; Howard, ‘Alla ricerca’, 320. In my view, the final paragraph of thetext written by Sansovino to the Council of Ten contains the indication that the building’s decoration wasthought out by the architect. Such a memorandum was not however, the proper place for a detailed discussionof artistic questions. See Lazzari, Scrittura di Jacopo Sansovino, 15.

13 Deborah Howard suggested that already in 1528 the ideas of Serlio’s treatise were fairly complete, asindicated by the engravings of that year and by Serlio’s request for copyright privileges, see her ‘SebastianoSerlio’s Venetian Copyrights’, The Burlington Magazine 115 (1973), 515 and ‘Prolégomènes. Les neuf gravuresdes ordres d’architecture à Venise en 1528’, in Sebastiano Serlio à Lyon, 1: 74. Günther has interpreted the sameengravings differently: Hubertus Günther’, Serlio e gli ordini architettonici’, in Christof Thoenes (ed.), Sebas-tiano Serlio (Milan: Electa, 1989), 163. Earlier he highlighted Philandrier’s remark on Serlio’s ‘precipitous’preparation of his work: Hubertus Günther, ‘Studien zum Venezianischen Aufenthalt des Sebastiano Serlio’,Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 32 (1981), 43, note 27. Moreover, he has established the influence ofSagredo’s first French edition on the general layout and particular details of the Regole generali: Günther, ‘Gliordini architettonici: rinascità o invenzione? Parte seconda’, in Marcello Fagiolo (ed.), Roma e l’antico nell’arte e


It is thus plausible that Sansovino conceived of rustication as a motif appro-priate for the treasury design independently from Serlio. In fact, the veryconjecture that Sansovino had previous knowledge of Serlio’s theory is redun-dant, because he was not really in need of his theoretical guidance. Sansovino’scase was different from that of those students, amateurs of architecture andforeigners avid for information on classical Rome, whom Serlio did indeedinfluence in Venice through his then unpublished collection of drawings, asproved by recent research.14 Sansovino himself had worked as an architect inRome, where he first came already in 1506 as a protégé of Giuliano da Sangallo,where he formed his architectural ideas and was involved in important com-missions. The discrimination between different orders of architecture and thebusiness of defining them was the subject of a vivid exchange among architectsin the milieu to which he belonged in Rome.15 It is not surprising, then, thatanticipations of Serlio’s concepts should be found in the work of both Sanso-vino and Michele Sanmicheli, architects, who shared a formative Romanbackground, because they were all part of a larger tradition.16

Concerning the specific choice of rustication, I propose that substantialthought led to it, aside from the rigorous use of orders. Sansovino conceivedthe Zecca as a treasury all’antica, and rustication was the stylistic feature of thebuilding that he thought was the classical model appropriate for such anenterprise. The coincidence of this choice with the rules formulated by Serliolater, and the crucial role the same classical structure plays in both projects,raises the possibility of a process of cooperation and mutual fertilizationbetween the two men, during which both the design of the buildings on thePiazzetta and the concepts of Serlio’s Regole grew simultaneously.17 In thesecircumstances, an in-depth analysis of the Zecca and an investigation of thechoice of the classical model for its design becomes the best possible foil forwhat Serlio wrote on rustication in the treatise.

As the basis for such an examination one must refer first to the politicalmeaning of the Piazza San Marco, of which the Piazzetta was a part. Thisofficial and ceremonial space in the city was shaped already in the Middle

nella cultura del Cinquecento (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1985), 275. This undated treatise waspublished in 1536, as Frédérique Lemerle has recently proved, see ‘La version Française des Medidas delRomano’, in Diego de Sagredo, Medidas del Romano, ed. Fernando Marìas and Felipe Pereda (Toledo: AntonioPareja, 2000), 93. This can be accepted as the terminus post quem for Serlio’s work on the Regole.

14 On the circulation of Serlio’s drawings, see Marco Rosci, Il trattato di architettura di Sebastiano Serlio (Milan:I.T.E.C., 1966), 14–15; Günther, ‘Studien zum Venezianischen Aufenthalt’, and Maria Teresa Sambin deNorcen, ‘Studio dell’antico e insegnamento d’architettura nella Venezia del primo Cinquecento’, Saggi ememorie di storia dell’arte 21 (1997/1998), 9–32.

15 Günther ‘Serlio e gli ordini architettonici’.16 Cf. Paul Davies and David Hemsoll, ‘Sanmicheli’s Architecture and Literary Theory’, in Georgia Clarke

and Paul Crossley (eds.), Architecture and Language: Constructing Identity in European Architecture (CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000), 114.

17 Sabine Frommel suggested the same possibility concerning the similarity between the façade of theLibreria and Serlio’s design of the Doric façade included in the Regole: Sebastiano Serlio Architect (Milan: ElectaArchitecture, 2003), 67. See also Morresi, Jacopo Sansovino, 453–4.


Ages, modelled on an Imperial forum to give expression to Venice’s pre-tensions to political dominance.18 Sansovino’s contribution carried on theassociation of the city centre with an ancient Roman forum, using new stylisticmeans and concepts borrowed from Vitruvius, Pliny and their Renaissanceinterpreters.19 In particular, in deciding to fashion the new Zecca, previouslya simple functional structure, as a magnificent building all’antica, and tointegrate it into the ensemble of the Piazzetta, he was evidently followingVitruvius’ injunction: ‘the treasury, the jail and the senate house should beadjoined to the forum.’20 This is precisely what one now sees when approach-ing Venice from the lagoon, an effect that must have been calculated, espe-cially since neither mint nor prison were ever visible as an integral part of thisview prior to the renovation.21 I would even go so far as to suggest that fromthe start Sansovino conceived of a prison façade as an independent buildingand as a counterweight to the Zecca.22

The conspicuous position of the treasury and the prison in the newensemble thus clearly refers to a ‘forum of the (Venetian) Republic’.However, in contrast to the original concept of Piazza San Marco as the heirof the imperial fora, now an analogy was forged with an earlier concept of theforum and with the historical Roman Forum. This renewed identity is sup-ported by Daniele Barbaro’s commentary on Vitruvius. In response to thelatter’s prescriptions to include a treasury, a prison and a senate house,Barbaro describes these buildings as they existed on the Roman Forum – theAerarium (treasury), the Carcer Tullianum (prison) and the Curia (senatehouse). Then he draws the parallel with the buildings on the Piazzetta inVenice: the Zecca, the cells of the Palazzo Ducale and the Palazzo itself.23

Considering this historical analogy from an architectural point of view, it isevident that the Roman Forum alone could indeed have provided the model

18 Juergen Schulz, ‘Urbanism in Medieval Venice’, in A. Molho, K. Raaflaub and J. Emlen (eds.), City-Statesin Classical Antiquity and Medieval Italy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 438. On the myth ofVenice as a second Rome, see Barbara Marx, ‘Venedig – Altera Roma: Transformationen eines Mythos’, inQuellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 60 (1980), 324–73.

19 See Thomas Hirthe, ‘Il ‘Foro all’antica’ di Venezia. La trasformazione di Piazza San Marco nel Cinque-cento’, Centro tedesco di studi veneziani. Quaderni 35 (1986); Sarah Blake McHam, ‘The Role of Pliny’s NaturalHistory in the Sixteenth-Century Redecoration of the Piazza San Marco, Venice’, in Luba Freedman andGerlinde Huber-Rebenich (eds.), Wege zum Mythos (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2001), 89–105.

20 Vitruvius, De architectura, 5. 2.21 The former mint was hidden by a row of shops facing the Molo, while the convicts were held in the cells

of the Doges’ palace.22 From the 1520s awareness grew that convicts were held under appalling conditions, both in the cells in the

Palazzo Ducale and in the rooms used as cells in the building purchased by the Republic near where the Prigioniwere later built. See Giovanni Scarabello, Carcerati e carcere a Venezia nell’età moderna (Rome: Istitutodell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1979), 64; Franzoi, The Prisons, 29. Thus Sansovino would certainly have been awareof the pressing need for a new prison already at the time the Zecca was planned. Antonio da Ponte, the architectof the façade of the Prigioni, collaborated with Sansovino in the 1560s, carrying out his plans for the buildingof the Incurabili and installing the giants. This connection may explain the conceptual continuity between thetwo buildings whose construction is divided by decades.

23 I Dieci libri dell’architettura di M. Vitruvio tradotti e commentati da Daniele Barbaro (Venice: Franceschi &Chrieger, 1567), 220–22.


for the stylistic variety and even contrast seen in the Piazzetta, because, unlikeimperial fora ensembles, the structures of the Roman Forum were built overcenturies, in separate initiatives and in different historical periods. Painters ofthe first half of the sixteenth century who visualized the forum commonlydepicted buildings using a variety of orders, including the rustic. Rustic struc-tures contrast with other buildings by their sturdiness, despite their occasion-ally ruined state.24 This conveys the opposition between the meaning of‘smooth’ and ‘rustic’ in historical terms: rustication indicates greater antiq-uity. The question is now whether the Carcer and the Aerarium on the RomanForum, the classical models for the two rusticated buildings on the Piazzetta,were similar in style, suggesting rustication in some manner, and whether theywere held as distinct from other buildings by their greater antiquity.

Both questions can be answered positively by reconstructing the idea ofthese buildings that an erudite Renaissance viewer would possess. Fifteenth-and early sixteenth-century scholars had no doubt as to the very ancientorigins of these institutions and of the buildings themselves, in the earlyRepublic or even before. The Carcer Tullianum, according to a well-knownpassage from Livy, was built by the king Ancus Martius, and most of Renais-sance scholars identified it with the Mamertinum, the prison still extant at thefoot of the Capitol.25 This building is constructed of blocks of square stone,whose surface is roughly hewn (although not protruding as an intentionallyrusticated surface would do). It dates to the third century BC, being indeedone of the most ancient on the Forum (Fig. 2).26 Classical writers describedthe Tullianum as a grave, somber, terrifying structure, citing vaults and archesof stone, the mere sight of which was enough to deter Romans from commit-ting crimes. The awe-inspiring impression that the Tullianum conveyed thusplayed a civic role in antiquity, and this effect of its appearance was well knownin the Renaissance.27

To identify the Aerarium, the prototype of Sansovino’s Zecca, was a morecomplicated task for Renaissance scholars. The Aerarium was another name

24 A rustic structure is present in the ensemble of the Forum in Beccafumi’s painting The Story of Papirius(1519–21, National Gallery, London) as well as in his fresco The Reconciliation of Marcus Emilius Lepidus andFulvius Flaccus, in the Sala del Consistorro in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena (1529–35). The backgrounds ofRaphael’s The Fire in the Borgo (1514–17) and of Peruzzi’s Presentation of the Virgin to the Temple (1524–5) both ofwhich in the opinion of scholars are influenced by the Roman Forum, include conspicuous rustic structures. InThe Story of Papirius, as well as in Raphael’s St Paul Preaching in Athens (1517), also inspired by the idea of theForum, the rustic structures are ruined, and even more so in Raimondi’s engraving of Raphael’s painting.

25 Livy, 1. 33. See Francesco Albertini, Opusculum de mirabilibus novae et veteris Urbis Romae (Rome: IacobusMazochius, 1510), Bk. 2, n. p.; Andreas Fulvius, Antiquaria Urbis (Rome: Mazochi, 1513), fol. 57; idem, Antiqui-tates Urbis (s.l., s.a. [Rome, 1527]), Bk. 4, fol. 83v.

26 On the building of the Carcer Tullianum (Mamertinum), see Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae, ed. EvaMargareta Steinby (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 1993–2000), 1: 236–239; Giuseppe Lugli, La tecnica edilizia romana(Rome: Bardi 1958), 302.

27 Sallust, The Conspiracy of Catiline, 55; Calpurnius Flaccus, Declamations, 4; Livy, 1. 33. These terrifyingdescriptions are used in full in the fourteenth-century Polistoria by Giovanni Cavallini (Ioannes Caballinus,Polistoria de virtutibus et dotibus Romanorum, ed. Marc Loreys. Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner, 1995, 147–8); in thesixteenth century it was Andrea Fulvio who quoted them: Fulvius, Antiquitates, Bk. 4, fol. 83v-84r).


for the Temple of Saturn, the first temple built on the Forum, where theRomans placed their treasure still in early republican times.28 Consequentially,no fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century scholar identified the temple of Saturnin its actual remains as originating in the time of the emperor Diocletian.29

Flavio Biondo, who exalted the Aerarium’s civic functions in the RomanRepublic, stressing that it was a guarantee (nervus) of Roman freedom, erro-neously found that it was on the Tarpeia.30 In this case his erudition led himastray while the tradition, as expressed by the earliest version of the Mirabilia,located the Aerarium correctly on the Forum.31 Another, mainly oral traditionthat refers to the correct place of the Aerarium is reflected in early fifteenth-century sources. From them we know that the popular name of the area on theForum ‘to the side of the church of St Hadrian’ was la zecca vecchia or ceccaantiqua. Anonimo Magliabecchiano, author of the early fifteenth-century Trac-tatus de rebus antiquis et situ urbis Romae, quotes this name in Italian in his Latintext, with the comment dicitur and the authors of the official fifteenth-centurydocuments use this expression in the same way.32 The meaning of this

28 Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus, 10; Varro, On the Latin Language, 5. 183; Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1. 8. 3. For theTemple of Saturn on the Forum, see Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae, 4: 234–7.

29 It is referred to it as aedes Concordiae: Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti, Codice topografico della cittàdi Roma (Rome: Tipografia del Senato, 1946), 4: 235. A remark by Suetonius, that the temple of Saturn wasrebuilt in 42 AD, went unnoticed (Suetonius, Life of Augustus, 29. 4–5).

30 Blondi Flavii, Romae instauratae libri III (Verona: B. De Boninis, 1481), lib. 2, lxxxii, fol. 24r.31 Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti, Codice topografico, 2: 55.32 ‘Sub Capitolio, a latere Sancti (H)adriani, fuit templum Asili, vel exilium primum factum in Urbe per

Romulum, ubi nunc dicitur est la Zecca vecchia.’ Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico, 4: 139. In 1431 abuilder, Filippo di Giovanni di Pisa, received a license to take ‘quaecumque marmora de muris antiquis

Fig. 2 Carcer Tullianum (Mamertinum), the interior, Rome, third century BC (photo: author)


tradition is complex. On the one hand, during the Renaissance the expressionla zecca vecchia was applied to all former locations of the papal mint. This hasled modern scholars to suggest that this term in fifteenth-century sourcesindicates the place of the first mint of Martin V, which, according to NicolòSignorilli, was near the arch of Septimius Severus.33 On the other hand, it isplausible that the very choice of location for the mint after Avignon, preciselyon the Forum, was not coincidental but referred to the Aerarium’s presumedpresence there, as mentioned in the Mirabilia. The ancient Aerarium and themodern mint could have been conflated into one concept that gave its nameto the entire area.

The first specific indication of the Aerarium’s location in this part of theForum is again in the Tractatus de rebus antiquis by Anonimo Magliabecchiano.He states that the aeraium was situated in what became the Basilica of SSCosmas and Damian – a massive ancient structure built under Vespasian andtransformed into a church in the sixth century.34 In another importantfifteenth-century source on the topography of Roman monuments, GiovanniRucellai’s ‘Descrizione delle bellezze e antichità di Roma’, la zecha anticha diRoma che dimostra essere stata bella muraglia is included in the list of ancientRoman edifices, implying that Rucellai identified the tradition of la ceccavecchia or antiqua with the Aerarium.35 Moreover, for him it was not an area, buta specific architectural structure, while his description of it as bella muraglia fitsthe Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian. Over the centuries this classical edificebuilt, like the Carcer Tullianum, of massive square blocks and rusticated inlarge part, aroused curiosity precisely because of its stonework (Figs. 3 and 4).It impressed Renaissance viewers by its awesome appearance in the very sameway as the Carcer impressed classical writers. ‘Horribil molto grosso dun granmasso’, wrote the author of the Antiquarie prospettiche romane.36 Whether it wasthe ‘horrid’ square stone technique that misled him and other erudite viewersto believe that this Flavian structure was the republican treasury will be dis-

existentibus in loco ubi fuit Secca antiqua’. Quoted after R. Lanciani, Storia degli scavi di Roma e notizie intorno lecollezioni romane di antichità (Rome: Quasar, 1989), 1: 57.

33 Pietro Romano, Roma nelle sue strade e nelle sue piazze (Rome: Palombi, 1947–49), 473.34 ‘. . . iuxta templum Faustinae et divi Antonini quod Sanctus Laurentius in Miramento vocatur, est adhuc

ecclesia Sancti Cosmae et Damiani, quae fuit aerarium imperatoris.’ Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico,4: 144. This structure is what remains of the Templum (Forum) Pacis built in 71 AD. See James C. Anderson,The Historical Topography of the Imperial Fora (Brussels: Latomus, 1984), 110–11. The rotunda facing the Forumis a later addition from the fourth century AD. For an archeological review of the Basilica of SS Cosmas andDamian, see Philip Barrows Whitehead, ‘The Church of SS Cosmas and Damiano in Rome’, in American Journalof Archeology 31 (1927), 1–18; and F. Castagnoli and L. Cozza, ‘L’angolo meridionale del foro della Pace’,Bolletino della commissione archeologica comunale di Roma 75 (1953–55), 121–42.

35 Giovanni Rucellai e il suo zibaldone, Vol. 1: ‘Il Zibaldone quaresimale’, ed. Alessandro Perosa (London:Warburg Institute, 1960), 76.

36 ‘Et ecci vn templo chiamatol herario/ doue tenea romani lor thesoro/ altro che de Alexandro/ serxe odario/ assai de questi piu un roma ne fuora/ ma questo cie chal popul fu piu grato/ sempre dargento pienoe di fino oro/ Et ecci vn templo a medici sacrato/ horribil molto grosso dun gran masso/ che cosmo e damianoelle chiamato.’ Antiquarie prospettiche romane, fol. 3v. Whether the author sees the erario and the basilica as oneand the same building is not absolutely clear, but in my view their joint description is not coincidental.


Fig. 3 The south wall of the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian (formerly the south-western corner ofVespasian’s Forum Pacis, 71 AD), Rome (photo: Alexei Lidov)

Fig. 4 The stonework inside the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian (formerly the south-western corner ofVespasian’s Forum Pacis, 71 AD), Rome (photo: author)


cussed later. The main point is that Sansovino’s Zecca, employing rusticationand standing on the rustic arches with pentagonal voussoirs, both distinctivefeatures of the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian, evidently refers to theAerarium that this building was presumed traditionally to be.

Sansovino’s following of the tradition that located the Aerarium in thebasilica shows his independence from Serlio who abstained from acceptingthis identification in full. When referring to this structure in the Regole, heindicates only its location ‘in Roma a Santo Cosmo, et Damiano’, and its greatantiquity, but not its function.37 This difference of opinion has its roots in theRoman milieu itself. Among architects in Bramante’s circle and in that of theSangallo family, the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian was firmly identified asthe Roman treasury. One conspicuous example of this is folio 16r of theCodex Coner on which the plan of the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian isidentified with the inscription erarium romanum.38 Most learned antiquariansduring the same period, on the other hand, were inclined to identify thestructure otherwise, disregarding the popular tradition of la zecca antica.39

37 Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture, 1: 264 and 276.38 See also Antonio da Sangallo’s drawing identifying the structure as la zecha anticha (which is discussed

below at length) and Giovan Battista da Sangallo’s marginalia in his copy of Vitruvius, where an idea of theAerarium is illustrated with the plan of the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian: Incun. Cors. 50. F.1, fol. 54r: PierNicola Pagliara, ‘Studi e pratica vitruviana di Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane’, in Jean Guillaume (ed.), LesTraités d’architecture de la Renaissance. Actes du colloque tenu à Tours du 1 au 11 juillet 1981 (Paris: Picard, 1988),183. Vasari, describing the structure as an outstanding example of Roman stonework and rustication, refers tothe building as ‘l’Erario da San Cosmo e Damiano’: Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori,ed. Gaetano Milanesi (Florence: Sansoni, 1906), 1: 122.

39 Along with the Aerarium in the fifteenth century this building was identified as templum Romuli: PoggioBracciolini, ‘De varietate fortunae’, in Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico, 4: 234; cf. Blondi Flavii Romaeinstauratae, Bk. 2, lxvi, fol. 18v; Fulvius, Antiquitates Urbis, Bk. 5, fol. 84v. Later, in the course of the sixteenth

Fig. 5 Bramante, Palazzo Caprini, Rome, print by Antonio Lafreri, from Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae,1559–1602 (photo: Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome)


Whatever their opinion, the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian began influ-encing architectural practice first in connection with its presumed function asAerarium. Bramante, possibly the author of the Antiquarie prospettiche romane,40

introduced it into the repertoire of classical architectural models by copyingthe ‘horrid mass’ of its rusticated quoin arches in the design of the groundfloor of Palazzo Caprini, making them even more massive than in the original(Fig. 5). It is his patron’s occupation that allows us to believe that his designwas conceived in light of the ancient structure’s identification as the treasuryof the Romans: Aurelio Caprini, the owner of the palace, was an accountant atthe papal court, that is, a person directly related to the papal treasury.41

Moreover, the use of the same architectural means, evoking the zecha anticha,or erario to indicate the eminent position of one involved in papal finance,already had a conspicuous precedent in Rome, in the façade of the palace ofthe supervisor of the papal Zecca under Paul II, known as Pietro della Zecca.This is one of the few examples of painted façade decoration that has survivedin Rome since the late fifteenth century. Its upper level was painted withillusionistic architecture consisting of the same Aerarium motif that Bramantechose for the ground floor – rusticated blocks and arches with pentagonalvoussoirs (Fig. 6).42 Given this precedent, Bramante was, however, the first toemploy this motif in a monumental architectural structure. It is usually seen asthe archetype of a new scheme for a monumental private palace, but consid-ering the reference to the Aerarium, it is also the beginning of the emergenceof the concept of the zecca (mint or treasury building) all’antica.

A much-discussed drawing by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (1507/8,UA 992, Fig. 7) indicates that it was indeed Bramante who influenced the

century, the building was identified variously as the temple of Romulus and Remus, of Castor and Pollux, ofTemplum Sacrae Urbis, etc. Pirro Ligorio devoted a special investigation to the structure as an antiquarian, andrecorded the results of his surveys in a number of manuscripts, but his activities in any case postdate Sansovino’swork on the Zecca. On Pirro Ligorio’s research, see Licia Luschi, ‘Gli antichi edifici della basilica dei SS.Cosmae Damiano: osservazioni sui disegni ligoriani’, in Raffaella Farioli Campanati (ed.), Seminario internazionale distudi sul tema: ricerche di archeologia e topografia (Ravenna: Edizioni del Girasole 1998), 429–52. On the variousidentifications of the building, see Whitehead, ‘The Church of SS Cosmas and Damiano in Rome’ and GabriellaFlaccomio, ‘Storia degli studi’, in Il ‘Tempio di Romolo’ al Foro Romano (Quaderni dell’Istituto di Storiadell’Architettura), 7–16.

40 For the most recent discussion of the authorship of the poem, see Massimo Giontella and Riccardo Fubini,‘Ancora sulle “Antiquarie prospettiche romane”: nuovi elementi per l’attribuzione a Bramante’, Archivio storicoitaliano 164 (2006), 513–18; Maurizio Calvesi, ‘Il Mito di Roma e le “Antiquarie Prospettiche” ’, Storia dell’arte13/14(2006), 55–76.

41 Christoph Luitpold Frommel, who was the first to publish the information on the Caprini family, translatesAurelio’s job description, ‘sedis apostolicae acolytus numerarius’ as ‘päpstliche Messner’, Der Römische Palastbauder Hochrenaissance (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1973), 2: 84. Burroughs surmised that Aurelio directed the papal mint(The Italian Renaissance Palace Façade, 144–6), although he does not indicate sources different from those thatFrommel used.

42 See the entry on this façade in Maria Errico, Stella Sandra Finozzi and Irene Giglio, ‘Ricognizione eschedatura delle facciate affrescate e graffite a Roma nei secoli XV e XVI’, Bolletino d’arte 33–34 (1985), 92–4.Painted façade decoration in Rome often gestured towards the name of its owner: see Pierluigi Leone DeCastris, Polidoro da Caravaggio. Opera completa (Naples: Electa, 2001), 122; cf. Burroughs, The Italian RenaissancePalace Façade, 144–6.


choice of the putative Aerarium as a model for the design of the first Renais-sance mint all’antica. This sketch represents the northern wall of this structureand is inscribed: la zecha anticha a san chosimo e damiano.43 According to

43 This wall was destroyed under Urban VIII, hampering the identification of the structure represented in thedrawing. On the changes made to the old building, see Emilia Talamo, ‘Dati di archivio relative a scavi erestauri’, in Il ‘Tempio di Romolo’ al Foro Romano 26 (1980), 17–22. The drawing has been variously interpreted.

Fig. 6 The painting on the facade of the house of Pietro Paolo Franciscis (called della Zecca), Rome, latefifteenth century. (photo: author)

Fig. 7 Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. ‘la zecha anticha a santo cosimo e damiano’ (the north, destroyedwall of the basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian in Rome), Florence, Uffizi, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe. U 992 Ar. (with the permission of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivit à Culturali)


Günther, this drawing, from 1507–8, indicates precisely Antonio’s exposure toBramante’s drawing methods,44 and like other examples that Günther gives, itmay be a direct copy of a drawing by Bramante. This is especially plausiblesince, according to Micaela Antonucci, the systematization of the papalZecca in a new building in Banchi led by Bramante could have begun inthis period.45 A study of the presumed Aerarium could have circulated inBramante’s circle in connection with this plan. When years later Antoniodesigned the monumental façade of this building (1525, Fig. 8), he evidentlyused his early study of the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian for the design ofthe ground floor while referring to its concave entrance in the configurationof his plan.46

Both the Palazzo Caprini (bought by Raphael in 1517) and Antonio daSangallo’s façade of the Roman Zecca were unquestionably familiar toSansovino. The latter, in addition, was situated just across the piazza from thebuilding site of Sansovino’s Palazzo Gaddi, which was under construction atthe same time. The pseudoisodomic design of Antonio da Sangallo’s rustica-tion is repeated in Sansovino’s design of the Zecca’s piers. The connectionbetween Bramante’s pioneering interest in the Basilica of SS Cosmas andDamian as Aerarium and Sansovino’s Zecca can thus be clearly drawn.However, two other projects carried out at the very same period and in thevery same area of Rome where the Zecca and the Palazzo Gaddi stood must becited here. While providing further precedents for Sansovino’s building, theythrow light on another aspect of its meaning as well as on Serlio’s concept ofrustication. They are Baldassare Peruzzi’s painting, Presentation of the Virgin atthe Temple (1524–5, Fig. 9) in the tribune of Santa Maria della Pace,47 and thepainted decoration of the façade of Palazzo Gaddi in via della Maschera d’Oro

Michele Monaco says it represents a palace where the papal Zecca was situated in the mid-fifteenth century, nextto Palazzo Sforza-Cesarini, in front of which was a small church of SS Cosmas and Damian: La Zecca Vecchia inBanchi, ora detta Palazzo del Banco di Santo Spirito (Rome: Officina Poligrafica Laziale, 1962), 42–5. Frommel readsthe inscription as an indication that the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian was the place of the first papal Zeccaon the Forum: Der Römische Palastbau der Hochrenaissance, 2: 35. Micaela Antonucci in ‘Le sedi della Zecca diRoma dall’antichità ad oggi’, Rivista italiana di numismatica e scienze affini 104 (2003), 125, accepts Monaco’sargument, but in her subsequent publication, ‘Un’opera di Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane tra architettura ecittà: la facciata della Zecca in Banchi a Roma’, Römische historische Mitteilungen 46 (2004), 232–3, she supportsthat the building depicted is the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian.

44 Hubertus Günther, ‘Introduction. The Drawings of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger: History, Evolution,Method, Function’, in Christoph L. Frommel and Nicholas Adams (eds.), The Architectural Drawings of Antonioda Sangallo the Younger and His Circle (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1994), 1: 22. However, the inscription, a near quoteof Rucellai’s zibaldone, indicates the influence of his uncle, who quoted the same source in his Libro (Cod. Barb.Lat. 4424), fol. 2r, representing the Forum Augustum.

45 Antonucci, ‘Le sedi della Zecca di Roma’, 130.46 On the history of this building, see Antonucci, ‘Un’opera di Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane’: 201–44. The

influence of the entrance of the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian was noted by Pagliara, ‘Studi e praticavitruviana’, 199.

47 On this painting, see Christoph Luitpold Frommel, ‘Baldassare Peruzzi als Maler und Zeichner’, RömischesJahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 11 (1967/1968: Beiheft), 125–9; Cynthia J. Stollhans, Baldassare Peruzzi and HisPatrons: Religious Paintings in Rome 1503–1527, PhD thesis (Ann Arbor, Mich., University Microfilms Interna-tional, 1989); Cristiano Tessari, Baldassare Peruzzi, Il progetto dell’antico (Milan: Electa, 1995), 57–8.


Fig. 8 Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Palazzo di Banco di Santo Spirito, Rome, (photo: author)

Fig. 9 Baldassare Peruzzi, Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, 1523–4, Rome, Santa Maria della Pace, SegardiChapel (photo: Alinari, with the permission of Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali)


(another palace belonging to the family of Sansovino’s patrons) by Polidoroda Caravaggio and Maturino da Firenze (1523–4, Fig. 10).48 Both the paintingand the façade decoration contained rusticated half-columns, a motif thatSansovino used in the Zecca, even though it was not present in the Basilica ofSS Cosmas and Damian and in its modern derivates, such as Palazzo Capriniand Sangallo’s Roman Zecca. The classical model for this motif was the archof the Claudian aqueduct, the so-called Porta Maggiore (Fig. 11).

48 On the façade see De Castris, Polidoro da Caravaggio, 498, cat. F19.

Fig. 10 Unknown artist, sixteenth century. A copy of the façade decoration of Palazzo Gaddi (Cesi) in via dellaMaschera d’Oro, Rome by Polidoro da Caravaggio and Maturino da Firenze (© Albertina, Vienna, GraphischeSammlung, SD 213, inv. 15462)

Fig. 11 Porta Maggiore, Rome, built by Claudius (AD 41–54) (photo: author)


Concerning Peruzzi’s Presentation, Manuela Morresi has already recognizedthat the building on the left in the background is very similar to Sansovino’sZecca and must be a treasury.49 Peruzzi’s use of the Aerarium motif of rusticvoussoir arches for the ground floor of this building substantially confirms thisidea. His innovation was to combine the reference to the Aerarium with thePorta Maggiore motif, whose use here is one of the first.50 He thus identifiedClaudian rusticated half-columns and the quoin arches of SS Cosmas andDamian as elements of a continuous stylistic scheme, whatever the origins andfunctions of the buildings from which the elements were taken, and overlook-ing the contrast in building materials employed in these classical structures. Bydoing this Peruzzi provided a clear precedent for Serlio’s theoretical presen-tation of rustication in his Regole.

The meaning of this style – in the perspective of Peruzzi and his contem-poraries – is to be carefully reconstructed from their opinions about itsconstituents. The viewers’ reactions to the structure of the Basilica SS Cosmasand Damian are most revealing. While identifying it in diverse ways, all ofthem had a mistaken concept of its age: there was unanimous agreement thatit was extremely ancient. This in particular made it a possible choice for theTemple of Saturn. However, Poggio Bracciolini and Fulvio, both of whomheld the ‘templum Romuli’ theory, also defined it as vetustissimum.51 Serlio toowrote that the remains a San Cosmo e Damiano were not merely ancient, butantichissimi.52 These adjectives (unlike antico or vetusto) were then used todefine forms that seemed to Renaissance viewers truly archaic. Thus CesareCesariano, commenting on types of masonry in the second book of Vitruvius,applied these definitions to Etruscan tombs in Tarquinia and to polygonalwalls.53 Fulvio’s description of SS Cosmas and Damian shows that the idea ofthe archaic antiquity of this structure was based on visual evidence: ‘It is anextremely ancient (vetustissimum) temple judging from its construction andarches.’54

49 Morresi, Jacopo Sansovino, 190.50 The Porta Maggiore motif was first used by Antonio da Sangallo in a drawing of the portal of the Villa

Madama (UA 1518), Christoph Luitpold Frommel, ‘Villa Madama’, in C. L. Frommel, S. Ray, M. Tafuri, Raffaelloarchitetto (Milan: Electa, 1984), 334. Architectural orders decorated with rustication became known somewhatlater as one of the favorite motifs of Giulio Romano, but it seems that in the mid-1520s it was an object ofcommon interest for the closely knit group of artists to which he belonged, that included Peruzzi and Polidoro.Giulio used the motif for the first time in his own house in Rome, which was begun in 1524 – that is, more orless simultaneously with their works: Frommel, ‘Le opere romane di Giulio’, in Giulio Romano (Milan: Electa,1989), 126.

51 Poggio Bracciolini: ‘Romuli templus cuius pars muri vetustissima quadrate lapide nunc quoque mirandamspeciem sui praebet, hodie Cosmae et Damiano consacratum.’ Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico, 4: 234.Fulvio: ‘. . . est enim templum vetustissimum, ut eius structura et fornices, ostendunt.’ Fulvius, Antiquitates urbis,Bk. 5, fol. 84v.

52 Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture, 1:264 and 276.53 Cesare Cesariano, Vitruvio De Architettura. Libri II–IV: i materiali, i templi, gli ordini, ed. Alessandro Rovetta

(Milan: Vita e pensiero, 2002), 77, 81–2.54 Fulvius, ibidem.


Moreover, this mistake in dating was not an isolated case, because otherrusticated Roman ruins often left the same impression on viewers, althoughinscriptions, classical writers and other data could influence their opinions aswell. And still these ruins were often deemed to have originated in utmostantiquity, sometimes even against the evidence contained in the inscriptions.For Biondo, the heavily rusticated substructure of the Temple of Claudius wasthe Curia Hostilia, the most ancient Roman curia built by Tullus Hostilius onthe Caelium, and this opinion was repeated in the sixteenth and even in theeighteenth century, by Pirro Ligorio and Piranesi among others.55 Porta Mag-giore was identified by Biondo as Porta Naevia of the ancient Servian wall.56

Giuliano da Sangallo repeated this in his Libro. Moreover, he presented theviewer with an imaginary reconstruction of the wall of the Forum Augustum inwhich he tried to forge its Etruscan identity by means of decorative motifs. Onthe origins of the substructure of the Temple of Claudius, he did not expressan opinion, but it seemed to him an unfinished work.57

These problems with identification and appreciation of rusticated struc-tures were for all evidence due to the fact that Renaissance artists and scholarsdid not have such a definite idea of the development of quadrangularmasonry and of the origins of its accentuation with rustication as we do.Modern scholars have reconstructed the evolution of Roman stonework anddistinguish between archaic quadrangular masonry, such as that of the CarcerTullianum, and the sporadic use of this technique in special cases in laterepochs, when brick and cement usually displaced stonework. They have estab-lished, moreover, that the earliest examples of rustication, or the intentionaluse of un-hewn blocks, as in the walls of the Forum Augustum and of SSCosmas and Damian, date to the Augustan era. Under Claudius, rusticationwas already fanciful – rusticated structures were erected entirely of whitetravertine and rustication was employed in conjunction with the regularorders, covering the shafts of pilasters and half-columns.58 However, the ideathat the roughness of rusticated walls was a deliberate stylistic choice at thedeveloped stage of classical Roman antiquity was alien to Renaissance artistsand scholars. We can see this by analyzing Serlio’s attempt to introducehistorical order into masonry styles. His diagram of the evolution of stoneworkis not based on real architectural history but shows the development from

55 Blondi Flavii, Romae instauratae, Bk. 2, lxxvii. Cf. Fulvius, Antiquitates urbis, fol. 81r; Pirro Ligorio, MS.Canon. It. 138, fol. 85v; G. B. Piranesi, Veduta della Curia Ostilia, 1757 (in the second state of the print the titlewas changed).

56 Blondi Flavii, Romae instauratae, Bk. 1, x.57 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Cod. Barb. Lat. 4424, fols. 5r., 2r, 3v. On his view of the Porta Maggiore, cf.

Christian Huelsen, Il libro di Giuliano da Sangallo: codice Vaticano Barberiniano Latino 4424 (Leipzig: Harrassowitz,1910), 1: 10. On the Etruscan motifs in Giuliano da Sangallo’s reconstruction of the Forum Augustum seeFranco Borsi, Bramante (Milan: Electa, 1989), 322.

58 On Roman rustication, see Lugli, La tecnica, 208–10, 331; Peter Liljenstolpe, ‘Rustication and Decor inRoman Architecture: Their Reflection in the Architecture of the 16th Century with Special Attention to TheirUse in the Classical Orders’, Opuscula Romana 25–26 (2000–2001), 45–72.


roughly hewn surfaces of stone blocks to more delicate, elaborated and finally,to geometrically complex modes (Fig. 12). This is a good illustration of ageneral principle: for Renaissance architects trained in the Vitruvian traditionof refinement and precision of form, the more rugged the surface, the moreancient the structure; alternatively, it could be viewed as unfinished.

If, as it seems, rough rustication in High Renaissance Rome was mistakenlyseen as a style of utmost antiquity, we can conclude that its use in contempo-rary structures must have carried the meaning of intentional archaism. Thisapproach can be traced from Bramante, and indeed scholars have come tonote the ‘primordial’ character of his rustication.59 This definition fits wellwith Bramante’s intention. It is true, as we have seen, that the association withthe function of the Aerarium played an important role in Bramante’s choiceof it for the Palazzo Caprini. Moreover, the same is true of the Palazzo deiTribunali (Fig. 13), which included prisons and which was concerned with

59 Cristoph Luitpold Frommel, ‘Roma: Bramante e Raffaello’, in Arnaldo Bruschi (ed.), Storia dell’architetturaitaliana. Il Primo Cinquecento (Milan: Electa, 2002), 92.

Fig. 12 Sebastiano Serlio, diagram of the different kinds of rustic work. From Tutte l’opere d’ Architettura, eprospettiva (Venice, 1619), first published in the Regole generali di architettura (Venice, 1537). (©Jewish Nationaland University Library, Jerusalem)


jurisdiction, so that its rustication must have referred to the building of theCarcer, and perhaps even more so to its terrifying descriptions by ancientwriters.60 The Belvedere gate (Fig. 14), however, suggests an additionalreading, indicating that the reference to the ‘primordial’ past was what thearchitect indeed intended when interpreting these models with such avigorous expression, for, as Vasari wrote, Bramante’s original plan called for itto be crowned with a pseudo-hieroglyphic inscription inspired by that inViterbo.61

The contextualization of rustication by Etruscan motifs, as done by Giulianoda Sangallo, or by simulated Egyptian hieroglyphs, allows us to make a furtherconnection, that at the beginning of the sixteenth century this supposedly‘archaic’ architectural feature was deemed suitable to bear the associationwith one of the most important concerns of Renaissance thought – the inquiryinto Rome’s origins, its early history and destiny. The vision of Rome and ofthe Etruscan lands as the cradle of civilization was formulated by Annio daViterbo, whom Gombrich quoted as a possible source for Bramante’s idea ofhieroglyphic script.62 Annio and his compatriot Egidio da Viterbo, the mostoutstanding preacher of Julius II’s pontificate, together created a new mythol-ogy around the Golden Age of ancient Italy that, according to them, wasinhabited by pious Etruscans who, in one version fled to Italy from Egypt and

60 On the functions of the Palazzo, see Susanne B. Butters and Pier Nicola Pagliara, ‘The Palazzo deiTribunali and Via Giulia in Rome’, Zodiac 14 (1995), 15–29.

61 Vasari, Le Vite, 4: 158.62 Ernst Gombrich, ‘Hypnerotomachiana’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 14 (1951), 120.

Fig. 13 Donato Bramante, the basement of the Palazzo dei Tribunali, Rome (photo: author)


whose ruler was the biblical Noah, known to them as the god Janus.63

Bramante’s connection to the Roman branch of the Caprini family, belongingto the elite of Viterbo and connected, in turn, to Annio, may have made himespecially susceptible to these ideas. One of the older members of the Caprinifamily, Michelarchangelo da Constantino, even assisted Annio da Viterbo inhis research.64

In order to understand the strong appeal of Annio’s and Egidio da Viterbo’sincorrect historical views in these and later times we must remember, inparticular, that they were not the inventors of many of the ideas they advancedbut that they built upon deeply ingrained traditions. Their precedentsincluded Virgil, whose fourth eclogue prophesied the Golden Age’s imminentreturn; Macrobius’ Saturnalia, where the Golden Age in ancient Italy isdescribed as a state of natural justice and equality; the fathers of the Church,who first synchronized the euhemeristic interpretation of the early history of

63 On the historical writings of Annio da Viterbo, see Christopher R. Ligota, ‘Annius of Viterbo and HistoricalMethod’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 50 (1987), 44–56; Walter Stephens, ‘When Pope NoahRuled the Etruscans: Annius of Viterbo and His Forged “Antiquities” ’, MLN, 119 (2004), 201–23. On Egidio daViterbo’s appropriation of Golden Age rhetoric, see John W. O’Malley, ‘Fulfillment of the Golden Age underJulius II: Text of a Discourse of Giles da Viterbo’, Traditio 25 (1969), 265–338.

64 On Michalarchangelo Caprini’s assistance, see Annio’s Commentaria super opera diversorum auctorum deantiquitatibus loquentium (Rome: Eucharius Silber, 1498), e 4v, g 6v, h 6v.

Fig. 14 Domano Bramante, the gate of the Belvedere court (photo: author)


Europe with the biblical narrative; as well as medieval chronicles that devel-oped this approach. In the perspective of the Renaissance Rome, Macrobius’description of the Golden Age was especially rich in connotations. This, heexplained, was the mythical epoch when Saturn, expelled by his son, came tothe Janiculum, where Janus already lived. Under their joint rule, people,taught by Saturn, practiced agriculture and lived happily, because there wasno private property yet.65 This myth was given a Christian interpretation byLactantius, who developed the parallelism between the Saturnian Golden Ageand Christianity, which, according to him, would return believers to this idealcondition.66 In this context, the rustic style of the presumed Aerarium had aspecial significance. Macrobius wrote that the Romans placed their publictreasure in the temple of Saturn precisely because of its association with theSaturnian Age, when private property was unknown, and crime and theft didnot exist. The ‘archaic’ style of this building thus was a natural architecturalsymbol of the Golden Age with its happiness and moral perfection.

In both the classical and modern interpretations the Golden Age was thecentral theme of the spoken, written and visual rhetoric of Julius II’s and LeoX’s pontificates. While Julius II was the addressee of Egidio da Viterbo’ssermons describing the epoch of Noah and the Etruscans as a prefiguration ofthe new Golden Age coming with his pontificate, Leo X inclined to a moreclassical version of the story of Rome’s origins. The ceremony of grantingRoman citizenship to the members of his family referred to the joint rule ofJanus and Saturn, to the Etruscans’ presence in Latium and to the history ofRome after its foundation. Particular emphasis was made on King Numa,Leo’s ideal prototype, whose rule was a recognized ‘second reign of Saturn’.67

The relationship of High Renaissance rustication to the vision of theGolden Age and Rome’s mythical origins is made explicit again in a secondwork that could have provided Sansovino with the idea of rusticated half-columns – Polidoro and Maturino’s decoration of the façade of Palazzo Gaddiin via della Maschera d’Oro. Its painted architecture consists of rustic ‘PortaMaggiore motif’ repeated several times along the ground floor, with sphinxesflanking the entrance and statues between the windows. As in the Belvederegate, the rustication is connected to an Egyptian element, and this time thiscombination explicitly points to Annio da Viterbo. The central frieze of thefaçade represents the Etruscans coming to Italy from Egypt as described byAnnio.68

65 Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1. 8. 5.66 Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, 5–7.67 Philip Jacks, The Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity: The Origins of Rome in Renaissance Thought (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 177. On the ceremony and the celebrations see also FabrizioCruciani, Il teatro del Campidoglio e le feste romane del 1513 (Milan: Edizioni il Polifilo, 1968).

68 For the explanation of the subject of this frieze, see Flaminia Genari Santori, ‘La decorazione del palazzoFarnese di Gradoli’, Storia dell’arte 83 (1995), 82–110.


The recurrent connection between architectural rustication and the mythof the origin of the population in Italy suggests that the sporadic use ofrustication as a motif in palace and villa decoration in Julian and LeonineRome was not merely a formal device, but had a clear meaning for contem-porary society. Rustication of the ground storey, rustic arches, entrance doorsand corner strips as frequent motifs of façade decoration gave the privatedwelling a touch of great antiquity and consequently of nobility of family – theAlberini, the Baldassini and the Stati boasted their ancient Roman roots, whilethe Medici, the Farnese and the Caprini began their genealogy from theEtruscans.69 This meaning is supported and paralleled by the dominance ofsubjects taken from early Roman history, mostly republican, on the paintedfacades.70

We can now draw several conclusions. Rustication was the prominentfeature of the structure of the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian that wasidentified with the ancient Roman treasury by an old tradition. This was thenatural choice for the model of the Venetian Zecca standing on the Piazzettaas on a new republican Forum. That this tradition was a sort of legend, notuniversally accepted as truth in Sansovino’s time, was not all that important,because the rustication of the basilica was expressive of more than just func-tion. Stylistically and semantically, rustication was connected to the idea of thebeginning of Roman history, when classical refinement was still lacking butjustice and piety reigned. This period began in the Golden Age of Saturn,Noah and the Etruscans, and included the early Roman republic, whoseawesome Carcer prevented the Romans from crime and whose nervus was theAerarium. Accordingly, the rustic style had an important ideological functionon the Piazzetta: it was to add a stern republican note to the ensemble ofsumptuous buildings, suggesting the idea of a sound state based on moralvirtue, which Venice pretended to be.

We can suppose that these meanings were clear at the time both for Vene-tians and for visitors to Venice. In particular, Annio da Viterbo’s historicalconcepts, far from losing their force in Sansovino’s time, remained immenselyinfluential even in the late sixteenth century in Italy and abroad.71 Inciden-tally, it was Sansovino’s son Francesco who translated Annio’s Latin tract intoItalian and published it in 1583 with his own commentaries.72

69 See Frommel, Der Römische Palastbau for detailed family background of the owners of the palaces.70 An analysis of the topics represented in the private sphere shows that most of the subjects refer to early

Roman history, up to the late republic, while the imperial period is practically excluded. De Castris, Polidoro daCaravaggio, 126 and note 50.

71 On Annio da Viterbo’s reputation in Europe, see Stephens, ‘When Pope Noah Ruled the Etruscans’,204–05.

72 Le Antichità di Beroso Caldeo et d’altri scrittori, cosi Hebrei, come Greci, & Latini, che trattano delle stesse materie.Tradotte, dichiarate, & con diuerse utili / necessarie annotationi, illustrate, da M. Francesco Sansovino (Venice: AltobelloSalicato, 1583). To be sure, Egidio da Viterbo and his writings were also well known in Venice. He was the guestof the Republic in 1519, see Morresi, Jacopo Sansovino, 74. For his possible influence on the intellectuals inVenice, see François Secret, ‘Les cheminements de la Kabbale á la Renaissance: Le théâtre du Monde de Giulio


At the same time as the rusticated Zecca was being built, Serlio was addinga similar nuance by introducing the rustic mode into architectural theory. Hesuggested the concept and the term ornamento rustico and illustrated it with aseries of schemes of quadrangular masonry with quoin arches, largely basedon the study of the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian (Figs. 15–16),73 as wellas with a number of suggestions for their combination with the orders, even-tually rusticated (Fig. 17, cf. Fig. 7). He defined this architectural feature asappropriate to the Tuscan order, one inherited by the Romans from theEtruscans and bearing their name – and as we can see now, he could do so onhistorical grounds, since both these elements touched upon the Etruscan past.How and why he came to baptize this stylistic mode with the word rustico,which became so successful an addition to the vocabulary of architectural

Camillo Delminio et son influence’, Rivista critica di storia della filosofia, 14 (1959), 422; Antonio Foscari andManfredo Tafuri, Armonia e conflitti: la chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna nella Venezia del’500 (Turin: Einaudi,1983), 15.

73 Serlio represented two types of arches ‘a san Cosmo e Damiano’ and three more schemes developed fromthem: 129v, 130r, 130v.

Fig. 15 Sebastiano Serlio, stonework ‘a santo Cosmo e Damiano’ in Rome, from Tutte l’opere d’ Architettura, eprospettiva (Venice, 1619), first published in the Regole generali di architettura (Venice, 1537). (©Jewish Nationaland University Library, Jerusalem)


terms in all languages, and whether a literary advisor, such as Bembo orAretino stood behind it, deserves further inquiry.74 This word was previouslyunknown in this sense in the architectural milieu, even in the Roman archi-tectural school where a rusticated wall was called mur bozato, a term descriptiveof the mode of dressing the stone.75 If the word rustico (lat. rusticus) was usedbefore Serlio in architectural treatises it was in connection with edificii rustici,

74 Philological problems of Serlio’s terminology have been researched by Alberto Jelmini, Sebastiano Serlio: iltrattato d’architettura (Locarno: Tip. Stazione, 1986). On Serlio’s connections in the literary world, see LoredanaOlivato, ‘Per il Serlio a Venezia: Documenti nuovi e documenti rivisitati’, Arte Veneta 25 (1971), 286 and DavidClot, ‘Sebastiano Serlio et la literature’, Bulletin de l’Association des Historiens de l’Art Italien 10 (2005), 110–16.Deswarte-Rosa showed that the dedication of the Regole to the Duke Ercole d’Este was written with Aretino’sassistance: ‘Le Traité d’architecture de Sebastiano Serlio’, 46.

75 Giuliano da Sangallo on the wall of the Forum Augustum: Cod. Barb. Lat. 4424, fol. 2r. The classicalexpression lapide quadrato was also used to describe rusticated structures, both classical and modern, infifteenth-century sources. See the detailed discussion of pre-Serlian terminology in Belli, ‘Forma e naturalità nelbugnato fiorentino del Quattrocento’, and in Clarke, Roman House – Renaissance Palaces, 187–94.

Fig. 16 Sebastiano Serlio, stonework ‘a santo Cosmo e Damiano’ in Rome, from Tutte l’opere d’ Architettura, eprospettiva (Venice, 1619), first published in the Regole generali di architettura (Venice, 1537). (©Jewish Nationaland University Library, Jerusalem)


literally village buildings or villas.76 Serlio’s rustico evidently refers to a stylisticmode without the physical relation to the countryside. It epitomizes the rangeof significations otherwise implied in the Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian.It invokes the aesthetic roughness of the archaic epoch and the agriculturaland moral connotations of the Saturnian age. Of course, the idea of ruralsimplicity as expressive of nostalgia for the high moral standard of the pasthad a venerable tradition in classical literature. One possible source for this isCicero, who wrote that some orators used countrified pronunciation (rusticavox) ‘with the object that if their speech is in this tone it may seem to preservea greater flavour of antiquity.’77

From this analysis it follows that the association of rustication with Romanantiquity is definitely visible in Serlio’s treatise, as it is contained in the modelhe used for his designs as well as in the very term ornamento rustico that heinvented when introducing this feature into the architectural canon, but that

76 As in Vitruvius, De architectura, 6. 5–6. Cf. Cesare Cesariano, Di Lucio Vitruvio Pollione De architectura libridecem, ci.

77 Cicero, De Oratore, 3. 42. English translation by H. Rakham. (Loeb Classical Library, London:Heinemann, 1960)

Fig. 17 Sebastiano Serlio, rustic design, from Tutte l’opere d’ Architettura, e prospettiva (Venice, 1619), firstpublished in the Regole generali di architettura (Venice, 1537). (©Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem)


it was an archaic antiquity reminiscent of the Etruscan Golden Age. Rustica-tion as conceived by Bramante and his school and codified by Serlio brings anelement of primitivism into High Renaissance architectural aesthetics, andlike most primitivist styles, conveys moral and spiritual content by recedingfrom the classical standard to an imagined an earlier, rougher and moreawkward style, of a time when people were good and still uncorrupt, an augurof the advent of Christianity.

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