Giles Worsley Rome Fellowship: Learning from Bramante: Donato Bramante's geometrical forms in Renaissance Rome and the digital revolution in architectural design

Abstract

Smith authored the medievalist design. The stay in Italy of the colonel and of his wife Julia was revealed as a tale of death, infidelity and the Gothic. In L. Jannattoni’s telling (1987), the thistled gateposts of the estate were the materialisation of Mills’ claim to Scottish heritage. The project argued that its iconography and style unfold a much more complex reality, which is telling of the ambition of Colonel Smith and the shadows of the British Empire. Moving to the ownership of the Sisters of Visitation, the study claimed that the Capture of Rome marked the end of the monastery’s expansion plan and the beginning of the Italian state’s interest in the heritage of the Palatine, resulting in the expropriation of the estate. It suggested that the commencement of the damnatio memoriae of the villa was tied to the critical reception of broader Italian neomedieval architecture and to the reasons behind the death of Villa Smith, culminating in Mussolini’s visit to the Domus Augustana. While revealing the politicisation of the classical past and how archaeology was instrumentalised in this process, the demolition was discussed as a glaring example of Anglophobic sentiment, at a moment when British–Italian relations were at breaking point. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Paul Mellon Centre and the BSR for believing in the project. My heartfelt thanks go to Abigail Brundin, Emlyn Dodd, Harriet O’Neill, and all who made me feel at home in Rome.