SANMICHELI, MICHELE. - Architect, son of Giovanni, a military architect, probably originally from Ticino, born in Verona in 1484, died there in 1559.
In 1509 he was master builder at the cathedral of Orvieto, as assistant to his uncle Bartolomeo; works of his are: the main pinnacle of the facade, in which Renaissance motifs are grafted onto the Gothic scheme harmonizing with the rest of the building, and the altar of the chapel of the Magi, of classicizing design. Also in Orvieto he erected the Petrucci chapel in the church of St. Dominic, which for sobriety of line recalls works of G. da Sangallo. At
At Montefiascone he erected the imposing Cathedral, characterized by the combination of two bell towers with the octagonal plan covered by a great dome and by the mighty base structure, almost like a fortress.
Having returned in 1523 to his native city, he carried on there a most fruitful architectural activity: his first work was the Pellegrini chapel in S. Bernardino, conceived as a building standing on its own after the Raphaelesque example, and which — through its circular plan covered by a coffered dome and through its adoption of the architectural orders — shows a full adherence to the classical forms and proportions to which he would hold fast throughout his entire artistic output. For the church of S. Giorgio in Braida he erected the dome above a high drum with large round-arched windows and began the bell tower, which remained unfinished at the first order, upon which three others were to have been superimposed, similarly to the one he designed for the Cathedral (likewise interrupted at the lower part). In Venice he built the church and convent of S. Biagio alla Giudecca, demolished in the last century.
Once again in Verona he finally provided the designs for the chapel of the Lazzaretto (1548) and for the church of the Madonna di Campagna, begun in the same year as his death and completed by others, with modifications to the original project. In both these works the S. attests to his predilection for the central plan and for classical proportions.
His activity in civil building was also very extensive, carried on likewise predominantly in Verona, where the Palazzi Pompei, Bevilacqua and Canossa are to be remembered; the Palazzo Grimani in Venice is also noteworthy, in whose façades the architectural orders always predominate.
But the S.'s principal fame remains entrusted to his works of military architecture, scattered not only throughout the Veneto but also in the eastern Mediterranean, where he held important fortification commissions for the Venetian Republic, introducing new conceptions in this field. It is, however, above all in Verona that the S. left his most famous works: the Porta Palio and the Porta Nuova, masterpieces of their kind. One may indeed assert that Verona owes principally to the S. the Renaissance imprint that dominates its entire architecture.
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Mario Zocca