Donato Bramante. Quale antico?

This essay explores the reciprocal relationship between Antiquity and the Renaissance, focusing on Donato Bramante’s spiral staircase or lumaca. Beginning with Andrea Palladio’s reference to a lost archetype of the spiral staircase in the “Porticoes of Pompeio” in his Four Books of Architecture, the paper examines the widespread tendency to legitimize architectural forms ‒ particularly the lumaca ‒ through connections to antiquity. This ‘antiquization’ often leads to anachronisms and limits research, preventing us from fully appreciating the unique expressive and formal qualities of the staircase within its specific cultural context. This essay aims to offer a fresh perspective, moving beyond this singular interpretive framework.