Discover San Pietro in Montorio and the Tempietto

San Pietro in Montorio — 'Saint Peter on the Golden Mountain' — is a church in Rome which includes in its courtyard the Tempietto del Bramante, a small commemorative martyrium built by Donato Bramante. It stands on the Janiculum, on the site of an earlier 9th-century church dedicated to Saint Peter, and serves as a shrine, marking the supposed site of St Peter's crucifixion.

The church was rebuilt through the generous funding of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, with groundbreaking in 1481, and was consecrated in 1500 by Pope Alexander VI. In the fifteenth century the ruins had been given to the Amadist friars, a reform branch of the Franciscans founded by the Blessed Amadeus of Portugal.

The Tempietto was completed around 1502, commissioned by Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile to commemorate the site traditionally regarded as the location of Saint Peter's crucifixion. It is considered a masterpiece of High Renaissance architecture, with scholars and architects noting Bramante's harmonious proportions, and is composed of slender Tuscan columns — the Tuscan being a form of the Doric order — carrying a drum and a dome.

Inside the church, the first chapel on the right contains Sebastiano del Piombo's Flagellation and Transfiguration (1516–24), and the second chapel on the left, the Raimondi Chapel of 1640, was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

The complex is now occupied by the Real Academia de España en Roma, which opens it to the public Tuesday to Sunday, 10.00 to 18.00, with last admission at 17.30, and states that entry is completely free.

The Tempietto is an argument about proportion, made at the size of a room. It is a martyrium — a building raised over the site of a martyrdom — and it is considered a masterpiece of High Renaissance architecture, with scholars and architects noting Bramante's harmonious proportions. That reputation does not rest on scale, cost or ornament. It rests on the relationship between a ring of columns, a drum and a dome.

It is circular, and that is the radical part. A centrally planned temple was an ancient form that the Middle Ages had almost no use for; Bramante revived it not as a quotation but as a working solution to a Christian problem — how to mark a single point on the ground.

The order is Tuscan. Slender Tuscan columns carry the colonnade — the Tuscan being a form of the Doric order, the plainest of the classical orders and the one carrying the least decoration. For the most important small building of the Renaissance, Bramante chose the austerest vocabulary available.

What is missing is as important as what is there. Bramante planned to surround the building with concentric rings of colonnades, the columns of which would have been radially aligned to those of the Tempietto — turning the whole courtyard into a set of expanding circles centred on the martyrdom. This plan was never executed. The Tempietto therefore stands in a rectangular yard that is too small and too square for it, and every photograph you have seen is of a fragment of an idea.

The church beside it is a different and earlier thing. Rebuilt from 1481 with Spanish money and consecrated in 1500, it is a late-quattrocento church that later received a Bernini chapel — the Raimondi Chapel of 1640, second on the left — and Sebastiano del Piombo's Flagellation and Transfiguration of 1516–24 in the first chapel on the right.

It was built because two Spanish monarchs wanted to mark a spot. The Tempietto is a martyrium, commissioned by Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile to commemorate the site traditionally regarded as the location of Saint Peter's crucifixion. That brief — mark one point, exactly — is what produced a circular building rather than a hall, because a circle has a centre and a nave does not.

The church came first, with the same money. Ground was broken in 1481 and the church was rebuilt through the generous funding of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, on the site of an earlier ninth-century church dedicated to Saint Peter, and consecrated in 1500 by Pope Alexander VI. The ruins had been given in the fifteenth century to the Amadist friars, a reform branch of the Franciscans founded by the Blessed Amadeus of Portugal.

Then Bramante built the small thing in the yard, around 1502. It went up for the cloister of the church, which is why it is a courtyard building rather than a street one — and why it was conceived as something to be walked around rather than entered and processed through.

He designed a setting that was never made. Bramante planned to surround the Tempietto with concentric rings of colonnades, the columns of which would have been radially aligned to those of the Tempietto. The whole court would have been a diagram of circles radiating from the point of the martyrdom, with every column on a line through the centre. This plan was never executed. What was built is the core of a scheme whose outer two-thirds exists only on paper — and the reason the building feels cramped in its yard is that it is.

The materials are deliberately plain. Slender Tuscan columns, the Tuscan being a form of the Doric order. Nothing about the Tempietto's construction is technically difficult; a dozen Roman buildings are harder. Its difficulty is entirely in getting the proportions right, which is why it has been measured, drawn and engraved ever since — including in Sebastiano Serlio's Book III.

And then it was added to for another century and a half. Sebastiano del Piombo painted the Flagellation and Transfiguration for the church between 1516 and 1524; Bernini designed the Raimondi Chapel in 1640. The complex kept being worked on because it never stopped being Spanish, and it is Spanish now.

When is it open? Tuesday to Sunday, 10.00 to 18.00, with last admission at 17.30. Closed Mondays.

Is it free? Yes. The Real Academia de España en Roma states that entry is completely free. There is no ticket and nothing to book.

Why are the hours hard to find? Because Turismo Roma has no page for this site. The city portal is the usual fallback for Roman monuments and it is silent here, so the Spanish Academy that occupies the complex is the only source.

What is the Tempietto? A martyrium — a building raised over the site of a martyrdom — designed by Donato Bramante and completed around 1502 for the cloister of San Pietro in Montorio, commemorating the site traditionally regarded as the location of Saint Peter's crucifixion.

Who paid for it? Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had also funded the rebuilding of the church itself.

Why is it so important? It is considered a masterpiece of High Renaissance architecture, with scholars and architects noting Bramante's harmonious proportions. The argument is about proportion rather than scale: it is about the size of a room.

Why does it look cramped? Because the setting was never built. Bramante planned concentric rings of colonnades around it, radially aligned to its own columns, and that plan was never executed.

What is in the church? Sebastiano del Piombo's Flagellation and Transfiguration (1516–24) in the first chapel on the right, and the Raimondi Chapel of 1640 designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, second on the left.

Is Beatrice Cenci buried here? Tradition says so — below the high altar, with no grave marker. She was executed in 1599 for the murder of her abusive father, and the original simple tombstone was lost in 1849 during the Unification of Italy.

Is it accessible? There is a published accessible route: since December 2015 the Academia has provided a new itinerary through the complex as a first step in eliminating architectural barriers.

How long does it take? Forty-five minutes for the courtyard and the church. The climb up the Janiculum takes longer than the visit.