Places of Performance: Baldassarre Peruzzi (1481-1536) - A Renaissance Painter-Architect

With far-reaching consequences, early modern painters in cities like Rome bent established rules of the guild system and participated in the building industry which had been traditionally controlled by masons and carpenters who had expert knowledge on construction materials. My dissertation examines the career of Baldassarre Peruzzi (1481-1536) as one of the best examples of the “pittore- architetto” (painter-architect) - an important yet little-studied professional trajectory that emerged in the Renaissance art world. By appropriating into the structural design process both, techniques and theories from the representational arts, painter-architects like Peruzzi actively helped transform architecture from a mechanical art to a visual (and therefore a liberal) art with consequences that continue to guide practice to this day.
This dissertation considers Peruzzi’s skillful synthesis of media as a case study to explore broader questions on Renaissance creativity and disciplinarity. The project not only offers a new synthetic profile of this influential figure, but also argues for a more inclusive approach towards the history of the arts - moving away from the medium-specific model that has dominated modern historiography.