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Redesigning the Piazza del Campidoglio on the Capitoline Hill was one of Michelangelo's most successful architectural achievements and one of the most perfectly realized examples of Renaissance urban planning. Although the project was only partially completed in his lifetime, the engravings published by Etienne Dupérac in 1568 and 1569 made it possible in later centuries to follow the general lines of his design.
Initially Michelangelo was asked to design a base for the ancient equestrian statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, which Paul III had moved from the Lateran to the Capitoline in 1538. His choice of an oval base is echoed in the oval pavement (from 1561). The triangular, double-ramp staircase in front of the Palazzo Senatorio (restored 1984) was carried out in 1544-52, but it would have been uncharacteristic for Michelangelo to adhere to fixed overall designs for over 30 years. After the election of Pius IV in 1559, the monumental stairway ramp (cordonata) up to the Piazza del Campidoglio was built and the oval steps around the piazza put in place. The year before Michelangelo's death, the façade of the Palazzo dei Conservatori was started according to a new set of drawings produced under his supervision, and the building was completed (1568-84) by Giacomo della Porta. The construction of a palazzo of the same design across the square, the Palazzo Nuovo, which established the symmetry of the composition, followed in 1603-60.
The Palazzo dei Conservatori's giant order of Corinthian pilasters on high pedestals gives the façade its immensely powerful character, culminating in a sculpture-crowned balustrade, which dissolves the skyline. A minor order of Ionic columns on the ground floor supports monolithic stone beams, the wide intercolumniations producing effects of dense shadow. The composition is a dramatic opposition of verticals and horizontals, in which the pilaster order is laid like a grid over wider brick piers that form the structural support. Few Renaissance buildings convey such a powerful sense of structural forces at work.
As completed according to Michelangelo's design, the trapezoidal piazza has strictly symmetrical flanking façades and an oval central space and statue podium, which serve to divert circulation to left and right towards the Palazzo Senatorio staircase. The pattern on the pavement tends to magnify the effect of the statue.
Etienne Dupérac's engraving from 1569 shows (right) the façade of the Palazzo dei Conservatori (after 1561), with (left) the Palazzo Nuovo (built 1603-60 to the same design) and (centre) the staircase to the Palazzo Senatorio (1544-52).
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