About 1500, Rome superseded Florence as the center of the Italian Renaissance. Artists and architects looking for work flocked to Rome, hoping to be hired by the Pope, by Cardinals, or by noble Roman families. Among those architects that made it big in the Eternal City was Donato Bramante, who found favor with Pope Julius II as well as with other Roman movers and shakers. In the course of his Roman career, Bramante would build the Tempietto, design a new St. Peter’s Basilica, begin a massive courtyard complex in the Vatican, and reorganize city streets.
Bramante is also responsible for one of the most elegant enclaves in Rome today - the cloister of the monastery of Santa Maria della Pace, near Piazza Navona. Built between 1500-1504 and commissioned by Cardinal Oliviero Carafa (whose name is memorialized in the inscription on the architrave), the cloister reflects Bramante’s quintessentially Renaissance interest in all things antique, for he uses classical forms - arches and engaged columns - to frame an open courtyard. There’s little doubt he’d spent some time studying extant Roman buildings like the Theater of Marcellus and the Colosseum.
Today the Cloister of Bramante houses an art gallery and a chic cafe that offers free wifi. The exhibits on display in the gallery are often in striking contrast with the classical simplicity of Bramante’s architecture, and that’s certainly the case with the current show, called Cracking Art, which runs until 29 July.
Cracking Art, it seems, is the name of a cooperative of ironic and environmentally-aware artists in northern Italy who create plastic representations of wildlife. As the physical medium that provides the basis for their works of art, the members use a type of plastic produced via a thermo-chemical reaction in crude oil. This reaction, is known as “cracking” and therefore is the origin of the group’s name.
We’ll admit we didn’t crack open our wallets to see the whole show. But we were utterly smitten (and a bit bewildered) by the giant red-hot poodle and the eight shocking pink crocodiles populating Bramante’s Renaissance courtyard. Cardinal Carafa may be rolling over in his grave, but surely Bramante is cracking up.
