Bramante's Tempietto

A small circular shrine built by Donato Bramante in 1502 in the courtyard of the monastery of San Pietro in Montorio, in Rome, on the spot where tradition places the martyrdom of Saint Peter. The cella is barely 4.5 metres across, ringed by a peristyle of sixteen Doric columns and topped with a dome on a drum. It was the first High Renaissance building to take back the classical system of proportions in full, and it became the model for the domes that followed, including Bramante’s own design for St Peter’s in the Vatican.