Michelangelo Simonetti

• Name — Michelangelo Simonetti • Born — 5 May 1731 • Birthplace — Rome, Papal States • Died — 13 May 1787 • Place of death — Rome, Papal States • Occupation — Architect • Significant Buildings — Museo Pio-Clementino • Movement — Neoclassicism

Michelangelo Simonetti was born in Rome in 1724. He studied architecture with Mauro Fontana, the nephew of Carlo Fontana. His most important work was the building of most of the Museo Pio-Clementino in the Vatican under the direction of Giovanni Battista Visconti, who had replaced Johann Joachim Winckelmann as Commissioner of Antiquities in Rome in 1768. For Pope Clement XIV Simonetti continued the remodelling of the interior décor of the Casino of Innocent VIII, begun in 1771 by Alessandro Dori. He also redesigned the Cortile Ottagono, situated between the casino and Pirro Ligorio's nicchione in Donato Bramante's Cortile del Belvedere. • Illustration — Sala Rotonda, Museo Pio-Clementino For Pope Pius VI Simonetti designed a sequence of three new halls that links the Cortile Ottagono with the western wing of Bramante's complex. First to be built was the Sala a Croce Greca, which was named after its plan and based on Roman tomb architecture since it was designed to house the two colossal porphyry sarcophagi taken from the Mausoleum of Constantina. Its crossing (w. 9 m) is covered with a shallow sail vault, and its arms with coffered barrel vaults; the articulating pilaster order is a hybrid of Doric, Tuscan, and Ionic. This room is reached from the library wing of the main palace by a grand, double-return staircase flanked by free-standing columns and piers, which support the raking cornice of a coffered barrel vault. This was produced in collaboration with Pietro Camporese the Elder; the monumental vestibule for the staircase was added in 1786 by Pietro's son Giuseppe. The Sala Rotonda (c. 1780) is based on the Temple of Minerva Medica (4th century AD) in Rome. It is a domed cylindrical space (diam. nearly 18 m), ten bays in circumference, surrounded by statuary niches between fluted pilasters and lit by a drum of thermal windows. Leading from this hall to the Cortile Ottagono is the Sala delle Muse (c. 1782; l. 24 m), which consists of a central octagon with a high, coved vault and barrel-vaulted vestibules at either end. The form of this space and its articulation by free-standing Corinthian columns, with vault frescoes and canvases (1786) by Tommaso Conca, was intended to re-create the impression of similar halls in Roman baths and palaces.