Envisioning New St. Peter's: Perspectival Drawings and the Process of Design

摘要

The new basilica of Saint Peter's in Rome was the largest construction enterprise of sixteenth-century Italy, and it also generated an exceptional quantity of drawings, many of which survive (Figure 1). These record the various stages of the design, from its inception through realization more than one hundred years after construction began in April 1506. The quantity of drawings for St. Peter's demonstrates the attention accorded it by its early designers. But the extensive use of drawings in the design process also signifies a shift in architectural practice that is itself noteworthy. Not only were buildings now conceived through drawings on paper, but the architects also used far more perspectival drawings than has been previously acknowledged. These developments signal a change in the emerging profession of architecture.