On Bittersweet Moment #218 Tempietto of Bramante, taken from our archives, Tiffany and Aurelio chat about their recent visit to one of Rome’s most secret and best-hidden gems.
Find out what makes this minuscule “temple” so utterly sublime, which ancient temple it was inspired by, and which domes around the world have been inspired by it.
Aurelio also chimes in about his favorite thing about visiting the Tempietto. (Hint: it rhymes with Tempietto but begins with C-O-R-N.)
And don’t miss your chance to visit Rome with us, on our intimate Rome listener trip, coming up in October 2025. Find out all about it here, or email us for more information!
You can listen to the episode right here, or find the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and elsewhere.
Related Episodes:
Bittersweet Moment #217: The Owl House of Villa Torlonia
Bittersweet Moment #75: Exploring Pompeii
Bittersweet Moment #66: Villa Doria Pamphilj
Bittersweet Moment #43: RAPHAEL
Bittersweet Moment #30: VILLA AURORA
Five key takeaways from the episode:
- The episode discusses the Tempietto, a small Renaissance shrine in Rome designed by Donato Bramante in 1502, located in the courtyard of San Pietro in Montorio Church.
- The Tempietto is described as a hidden gem in Rome, only 4 meters in diameter, with 16 Doric columns and a dome that inspired other famous structures like St. Peter’s Basilica.
- The site is now managed by the Spanish Academy in Rome, which has added a small museum with information about the Tempietto.
- Giorgio Vasari, considered the first art historian, praised the Tempietto’s design and proportions in his writings.
- The host, Tiffany Parks, strongly encourages visitors to Rome to seek out and experience the Tempietto in person, as its impact is difficult to fully convey through descriptions or photographs.
Full Episode Transcript:
Katy
Katy here with a quick note about today’s show. If you listen to next week’s Monday show, episode number 573, you will hear that Tiffany has been terribly ill for the last month or so and we’ll explain why and what happened. But as a result, the episode that she wanted to do today she could not quite get done. So instead we are visiting the archives back in time to visit a magical little place in Rome with Aurelio.
And if you listen all the time and you know he’s currently nine years old, he’s going to sound a lot younger in this episode you are about to hear. And as you listen, if you think, wow, this little place, the place she’s describing sounds absolutely incredible. It is, believe me. I finally got in to see it for the very first time with my own eyes just a couple of years ago. And if you join us on this October’s adventure, The Bittersweet Life Roman Adventure that we’re taking October 5th to the 11th, I promise you Tiffany and I will show you this gorgeous little place in person.
So take a listen if you think, wow, I want to stand on the steps of what she is describing. Come with us. You can find information about the Rome trip at our website, thebittersweetlife.net or just send us an email: bittersweetlifepodcast@gmail.com we would love nothing more than to see you in Rome and show you this beautiful overlooked gem. Hello, I’m Katy Sewall and this is a Bittersweet Moment with Tiffany Parks.
Tiffany
Welcome to the Bittersweet Life. I’m Tiffany Parks and this is your midweek Bittersweet Moment. I’m sitting here with… Want to say your name?
Aurelio
Aurello.
Tiffany
That’s right. And we were just thinking about our recent visit to a very wonderful, very special place in Rome. Do you remember what that place is called, Aurelio?
Aurelio
Tempietto.
Tiffany
That’s right, the Tempietto by Bramante. It’s a place that I recommend anyone who’s visiting Rome should seek out. It is really one of the true hidden gems of Rome. It’s literally hidden inside of a courtyard of a church. Happens to be hidden inside the courtyard of the church where I got married. But that’s not why I love it. Actually, that’s kind of why I picked that church. It’s absolutely magical and tiny and wonderful. It’s a tiny, tiny little, I guess you could call it a church, although it’s more of a temple. In fact, it’s more of a…
Aurelio
Can I say something?
Tiffany
Sure.
Aurelio
I love you, Mama.
Tiffany
Oh, honey, I love you, too. It’s more like a shrine. If you can think of a Christian shrine, that would be the case. It is a tiny…
Aurelio
I love you, Mama.
Tiffany
I’m going to talk about a little bit more once Aurelia is asleep. But it is a tiny, beautiful, lovely early church, early Renaissance shrine, and it was built in 1502 by. By the great Renaissance architect Donato Bramante, who was from Urbino. Aurelio, did you like visiting the Tempietto?
Aurelio
Yeah, so much. I love it like this.
Tiffany
Oh, he just put his arms out. That’s a lot. What did you love about the Tempietto?
Aurelio
And eating the cornetto.
Tiffany
Wait, the cornetto? The cornetto was after the Tempietto. That doesn’t count. What did you like about the Tempietto? Did you like it because it was just your size? A church that was just your size? He’s nodding his head. Anything else before we close? What?
Aurelio
I love you.
Tiffany
I’m gonna pause here for a moment and I’m gonna put this child to bed, and then I will tell you more about…
Aurelio
Child.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Aurelio
What child?
Tiffany
You.
Aurelio
No, I’m a man.
Tiffany
And I will be back with more info about Donato Bramante’s Tempietto.
Katy
Hi, there. I’m Katy.
Tiffany
And I’m Tiffany.
Katy
Taking a brief moment out of the show so I can ask Tiffany a question.
Tiffany
Yes.
Katy
So, Tiffany, you listen to podcasts, right? I mean, besides ours?
Tiffany
Of course I do.
Katy
Okay.
Tiffany
Yes.
Katy
Well, see, me too. I was just thinking the other day that sometimes when a show that I really love pops into my feedback, I feel a sense of relief. It might not be relief. I don’t even know what the word right word would be.
Tiffany
No, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, because, you know, you’re excited when the show that you love comes up and you wait the whole week so you can hear it, and then, yeah, I totally feel the same.
Katy
Yeah, it’s so great to have it there. Well, so my question for you is, do you think that there are listeners out there that think the same way about our show? Like, they get a little electric spark when they see it?
Tiffany
I know there are. I mean, we’ve had so many people write to us and tell us. I’m sure there are.
Katy
So the question is, are you out there, dear listener? Are you the person listening to the sound of my voice who feels a sense of relief or joy or just plain excited when the show appears? If you are that person who has found that through the months and years you’ve come to rely on the company and conversations that you’re finding here. Please keep those conversations going by pledging your support at our brand new Patreon page.
Tiffany
Yes.
Katy
Oh, by the way, do you know what Patreon is, Tiffany?
Tiffany
I do. Patreon is amazing website that makes it really easy for you to support the independent art that you love. Like us.
Katy
Like us.
Tiffany
And you can receive fabulous prizes too, depending on, you know, how much you want to pledge to support us. You. There are certain prizes. For example, if you’re thinking of moving to Italy now or in the future, if it’s an idea that interests you, you won’t want to miss my exclusive guide created just for our Patreon supporters called how to move to Italy without losing your mind and several others just for people who. Who might be traveling to Italy as well.
Katy
That sounds relatively important. If you’re planning on a trip to Italy or a move to Italy, you definitely don’t want to lose your mind. And that’s just one of the many exclusive gifts you can get. Pick out select when you pledge your support for our show at patreon.com/thebittersweetlifepodcast. We like to consider ourselves artists and we made this thing. And if you like what we’re making, please support it too.
Tiffany
Yes. And Patreon is spelled P A T R E O N. So that’s patreon.com/thebittersweetlifepodcast. And I will put this link in the show notes, of course. And we thank you so much for giving back to the show that keeps you in good company. And now back to the show. Hello again. I am back. The little one is asleep and now I can talk to you with a little bit more concentration about this amazing place, the Tempietto of Bramante.
Now, it’s located inside the courtyard, as I mentioned, of San Pietro in Montorio Church, which is on the Gianicolo Hill, just south of the Trastevere neighborhood. And it’s a nice walk to get there up Via Garibaldi from Trastevere. And it’s really easy walk on your way to the Fontanone. So if you’re up in that area, hey, even if you’re not in that area, if you’re in Rome, you really must stop by and see this amazing hidden jewel that surprisingly very few people know about, even people who live in Rome. And I’ve heard some people say, you know, I know the Tempietto is up there on the Gianicolo Hill. I know it’s near San Pietro in Montorio, but I can’t find it. And that’s because it’s actually inside of a courtyard that you can really only see through the closed gates of the courtyard. And if you don’t go over there, if you just go into the church, you don’t see it.
And now, the way that it is set up for the past year or so, it is basically managed by the Spanish Academy in Rome, because San Pietro in Montorio is the Spanish national church and the Spanish Academy is right next door. And so they now take care of the Tempietto. And actually they’ve done a really wonderful job. It used to be that you could just sort of walk in through the gates of the courtyard during open hours, obviously, and visit the Tempietto. Now you actually can’t get in that gate. That gate is now locked at all times. But if you walk straight into the Spanish Academy, right next door, they have a small museum that they have dedicated to the Tempietto, with some information, with some quotes, with some diagrams and photographs that make it much more interesting. This stuff did not exist before. And so now you can dig a little bit deeper, if you’re interested in that.
Now, a little bit about the background of the Tempietto. It was designed, shall I say, inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, which is a city about an hour southeast of Rome. And that’s why they call it the Tempietto, because, of course, in the Catholic or the Christian religion, we don’t technically have temples, but because it was designed to be very similar architecturally to the Temple of Vesta, they call it the Tempietto, the little temple. It is a consecrated church, but it’s really only a representative structure. There are no liturgical services that are held inside. To give you an idea of the size, it’s only 4 meters in diameter. It’s tiny. You could probably fit maybe four or five people in there comfortably standing up, fewer sitting down. So it’s a very, very small space.
The building itself is cylindrical. There’s a circular plan. It has about three or four steps leading up to it, a little pedestal upon which it sits, and it is surrounded by Doric columns, 16 Doric columns, which was, of course, the number 16 was considered the perfect number by Vitruvius. It is topped by a dome. And this dome was created. It was built in the same way that domes were built in ancient times, in concrete, in very large pieces. It was built in the exact same way that the Pantheon dome was created. Of course, it’s not a coffered ceiling like the Pantheon, it’s smooth, but it was made in the same way. And Bramante, like many artists and architects from that period, from the sort of High Renaissance period, were very inspired by the ancient architects. They didn’t want to copy what the ancient architects were doing, but they did want to be inspired by it and use the style of the day to reinterpret the ancient classical structures and ideals. This dome, although it’s so tiny and could be considered so insignificant, actually went on to inspire many important works of art, many important domes in the world.
Most importantly was St. Peter’s Dome in the Vatican. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that this dome is visually very similar to the dome of St Peter’s but there are certain aspects that Michelangelo used and borrowed from Bramante in the designing of his own dome, his most famous dome, but also the dome of the capitol in Washington D.C. and many other less well known places, like the Mausoleum of Hawksmoor in the Howard Castle in Yorkshire, and the Pantheon of Paris and the Cathedral of the Virgin of Kazan in St. Petersburg. So these are just a few of the buildings that were directly inspired by the dome of the Tempietto.
There’s a beautiful quote by Giorgio Vasari. If you don’t know Giorgio Vasari, he has gone down in history as the first art historian, really. He’s the first person to ever do major studies on the artists and write about them. And he was writing in the mid 1500s. And this is what he had to say about the Tempietto. First of all, he’s talking about Bramante and he says: “He made also in the first cloister of San Pietro in Montorio, a round temple of travertine, than which nothing more shapely or better conceived, whether in proportion, design, variety or grace, could be imagined. And even more beautiful would it have been if the whole extent of the cloister, which is not finished, had been brought to the form that is to be seen in a drawing by his hand.”
What he’s referring to here is that in Bramante’s original plan, there should have been another circle of columns, but actually around the outside of the Tempietto, not actually touching the Tempietto, but instead of just the sort of false arches that you can see inside that courtyard or that cloister, there should have also been a circular set of columns circling the shape of the Tempietto. This was never finished, unfortunately, but it just gives you an idea of how this space was considered back in its own day, 50 years after it was created. But even today, many writers and travelers and people who visited Rome and wrote about Rome have talked about the Tempietto and marveled at it. It’s really kind of difficult to describe.
If you haven’t seen it, you can look up photographs of it. We’ll post some photographs on social media, but until you really stand in front of it in this very small space, it’s so. It just fills the space. Despite being small, it fills the space in such a wonderful way that it’s almost even difficult to get a photograph of it because you can’t really get far away from it, far enough away from it to truly step back and see it all. But it is absolutely marvelous and I encourage everyone to seek it out if and when they are in Rome. Thank you so much for joining us for this bittersweet moment. I’m Tiffany Parks. Join us again.
Katy
Thanks for joining us. Subscribe to the show if you haven’t already. And if you love it, leave us a good review and tell all of your friends about us. Also, if you have an idea for a bittersweet moment, find us using the contact page at thebittersweetlife.net.