He entered the ecclesiastical career while still young and served as governor of various cities in the Papal States. Named Bishop of Aleria (Sardinia) in 1475, Sixtus IV sent him to King Matthias of Hungary (1478) and later to Emperor Frederick III. Upon his return to Rome he held various offices, including that of negotiating with foreign ambassadors. Created Cardinal of the title of SS. Giovanni e Paolo (9 March 1489) and Administrator of Olomouc (1489), he stood a good chance of being elected pope in the 1492 conclave, being supported by the Duke of Milan. Weary of active life, he wished to renounce the cardinalate to become a friar, but the Sacred College opposed this. His sarcophagus is in the Vatican Grottoes.
Renata Orazì Ausenda
In the Romanesque period the desire for complexity and variety in structural elements is reflected also in the form of portals. On the framing of the portal the arch is developed, forming a lunette, often decorated. Within the outer arch, concentric arches are inscribed, at first projecting. A Lombard creation is the splayed portal, in which a series of arches and cords penetrate the wall in the shape of a funnel, with abundant sculptural decoration (portal of S. Michele at Pavia, first half of the 12th century). The Cosmati gave the portals of their buildings the typical characteristics of geometric rigor and lively mosaic work.
In the Gothic period, especially in France, the portal assumes great importance in the façade, with the deepening of the reveal and the addition of a strongly projecting gable that frames the series of arches, now pointed. In Italy characteristic examples are found in S. Antonio of Ranverso, in the cathedrals of Chivasso and Pinerolo. The abbey of Fossanova inserts a tympanum in the pointed arch portal.
In the Renaissance the classical features of the portal reappear. Alongside the type of portal surmounted by a tympanum, which as the 16th century approaches becomes curvilinear, and the round-arched portal, the rustic type is in use, outlined by rustication, without projection from the wall. The decoration is of the most varied kinds. Often the portal is surmounted by a window, later by a balcony. The broken pediment, the double pediment, the increasingly projecting members, in relation to the search for solids and voids and the dynamic tendencies of 16th-century architecture, bring notable modifications to the form of portals, beginning with Michelangelo.
In the 17th century the portal becomes an element of enormous importance in the façade, seconding its dynamic structure and adapting to its curvilinear design (S. Carlino alle Quattro Fontane) and with the use of columns attached to the wall, and then of free-standing columns, in place of pilasters (church of the Gesù, S. Marcello). In the 18th century the more or less unchanged elements of the Baroque portal adapt to the more streamlined architectural vision. Neoclassical architects drew on classical or Renaissance examples.
Vedi tav. CXXI.
Maurizio Calvesi
(1st. Bildarchiv d. Ö. Nationalbibliothek)
PORTA - The main portal of the Benedictine abbey of Lambach (Austria), built in 1693 by G. Auer of Landegg.