Baldassarre Peruzzi Bust

Baldassarre Peruzzi’s Roman work moves between the design of buildings and the illusion of architecture in paint. At the villa now called the Farnesina, the house commissioned by Agostino Chigi provided a setting in which those practices could meet. Painted views and real rooms participate in the same carefully arranged experience of space.

Born near Siena in 1481, Peruzzi developed a career in Rome before the sack of the city in 1527 disrupted its artistic life. He returned to work for Siena and later resumed major Roman commissions. His knowledge included practical building problems as well as the study of ancient forms.

Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne answers an irregular site with a curved street facade and a recessed columned entrance. The curve accommodates the irregular plot and gives the building its distinctive public face.

Peruzzi’s drawings also mattered to other architects, including Sebastiano Serlio. His influence therefore cannot be measured only by a list of completed buildings. Designs transmitted on paper could carry solutions into projects for which he held no direct responsibility.