Around Vignola. On an unpublished drawing for the Pepoli chapel in San Domenico in Bologna

Abstract

Luigi Breventani (1847-1906), a distinguished scholar of Bolognese canon law, archeology and medieval topography, collected a series of drawings, mostly of architectural subjects, probably coming from the collection of Marcello Oretti (1714- 1787). Breventani attributed them to the architect Pietro Fiorini (Bologna, 1539-1629), but some sheets cannot be attributed to him, since the handwriting of notes and measures do not correspond. One of these sheets shows plan and cross section of a large chapel measured in Bolognese feet: a dimensional and formal analysis allows us to identify in it an unexecuted project for the Pepoli chapel in San Domenico in Bologna, under construction since 1551, merging Medieval and Renaissance elements, by the architect Antonio Morandi. In 1550, he had supplanted Vignola as master-builder of San Petronio’s Basilica. Probably, Filippo Pepoli, President of the Fabbriceria and belonging to one of the most influential families in the city, had first given the commission of the chapel to Vignola, later revoking it, for reasons of expediency, after his dismissal (1550). The chapel project, one of the few works dating back to the 1540s which can be attributed to Vignola, shows the successful fusion of ancient and modern sources, anticipating the research on ecclesiastical spaces with a central matrix that the architect was to develop later in Roman works.

Keywords

• bologna
• jacopo barozzi da vignola
• basilica di san domenico, pepoli, disegno d'architettura