The history of the construction of Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome, from the projects devised in the Fifteenth century to the remake of the Piazza in the early Twentieth century.
This volume explores the history of the construction of the Piazza del Campidoglio from its origins in the fourteenth century to the re-laying of the paving by A. Muñoz in 1938.
The square has always been the symbol of the city’s freedom and in 1538 it was decided to give it an architectural form to enshrine the ideals of the Roman People. The artist chosen by pope and people to remodel the palaces was Michelangelo.
He engaged in the redesign of the municipal square with his usual sense of civil commitment, though the outcome was in some ways remote from his original intention.
The text is accompanied by a series of graphic reconstructions which render the numerous projects for the square and the palaces through the centuries, in a struggle for personal and family prestige which was always reflected in the structure of the complex. The book presents a full documentation and analysis of the political decisions, the people present on the construction site, its organization,
the sequence of projects and the techniques adopted. An exhaustive appendix completes the book’s critical apparatus.