The climb I didn't do again
Vignola built a road to make the climb compulsory. Four centuries later, two helmets and a lazy Sunday defeated it. On knowing the right way — and taking the easy door anyway.
Hi,
I've been to Caprarola twice, and the two visits have nothing to do with each other.
The first time I was a student. I was preparing an exam on the historic centre of nearby Nepi, and I took the chance to go and see the palace I had only studied in books. I was alone, I had time and no hurry, and I did the right thing without even knowing it: I parked at the bottom and walked up the Via Diritta. Those six hundred and fifty metres of dead-straight road that Vignola built on purpose, demolishing half a medieval town, so that the arrival at the palace would be a slow climb, a kind of procession. The palace growing above you with every step, never at your level, never behind you. I did it without fully understanding it — but I did it.
The second time I came back on a motorbike, with my wife. Beautiful curves all the way to Caprarola, the kind of road motorbikes exist for. And then I parked right in front of the palace and walked in. I skipped the climb.
I knew, while I was doing it, that I was losing the important part. I knew — as an architect, having written about it, having studied it — that the Via Diritta is Caprarola, that arriving from the top flattens everything Vignola had designed. But we were on the bike, with helmets, jackets, and a wife who had absolutely no intention of walking that climb. It wasn't feasible. So I went in through the easy door, knowing exactly what I was missing.
And here's the thing that stayed with me. Vignola spent seven years building a road whose only purpose was to prevent exactly what I did: arriving without effort. He made the climb compulsory by design. But the design, four hundred and fifty years later, is powerless against a convenient car park, two helmets and a Sunday's tiredness. The most intentional architecture of the Renaissance, defeated by the practicality of a motorbike outing.
I don't know whether it's a defeat for Vignola or a small victory for ordinary life. Maybe both. I know that if I go back a third time, I'll do the climb. But I said that the second time too.
The flag, for the record, got planted anyway.
Talk soon,
Giulio Romano — The Slow Architect
P.S. This week's piece is on Caprarola: the palace that is really a town, the Via Diritta, the Scala Regia, the rooms painted by the greatest artists of the Cinquecento. [link].
And if you look closely at the photos, some are worse than others. Those are from the first visit — the one on foot. I kept them on purpose.
