Baldassare Peruzzi

Baptized Mar. 7, 1481, in Siena; died Jan. 6, 1536, in Rome. Italian architect and painter.

Peruzzi worked with Bramante and Raphael. After Raphael’s death, he supervised the construction of St. Peter’s Church in Rome, adhering basically to Bramante’s centralized plan. Peruzzi combined High Renaissance and early mannerist influences. Whereas his early buildings, such as the Villa Farnesina in Rome (1509-11), are marked by a lyricism and lightness of form, his later Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne in Rome (1536) is distinguished by sharp contrasts between the supporting and supported elements and by a dynamic relationship with the urban surroundings.

Peruzzi’s frescoes, for example, those in the Villa Farnesina (from 1511), are delicately decorative and reflect a love of illu-sionistic effects. His settings for spectacles, including those on fantastic, fairy-tale themes (L. Ariosto’s I Suppositi, 1519), greatly influenced the use of perspective in set design.