A Bramantesque Problem? The Palace of Urbano Rampini of Sant'Alosio, or Talenti of Florence

Abstract

This article offers new perspectives for the architectural history of Palazzo Talenti di Fiorenza in Milan, a singular building distinguished by the presence of tronchonos columns within a civil architectural context. The documentation presented here makes it possible, for the first time, to reconstruct the history of the building’s construction from its origins through the early decades of the nineteenth century. In particular, the original patron is identified as the little-known Urbano Rampini da Sant’Aloiso, a figure previously mentioned in connection with the construction of the Bramantesque cloister of Chiaravalle. What emerges is the history of a building of fifteenth-century origin that was deliberately and extensively enlarged and transformed in the second half of the sixteenth century, adopting historicizing Bramantesque forms. The palace thus belongs to a group of Milanese buildings currently under study that attest to the persistence of a “neo-Bramantesque” or “neo-Sforzesco” taste well into the seventeenth century, constituting a fundamental element for a new reconstruction of the fortunes of pre-nineteenth-century “historicism.” Furthermore, in order to better understand this phenomenon – centering on the system of cultural and social self-affirmation of the Talenti di Fiorenza family – the article also provides new preliminary elements for reconsidering, from a different perspective, the system of patronage developed by this lineage.