ABSTRACT
In classical architecture, the boundary between emulation and invention is sometimes difficult to discern, but often it was a too-obvious predilection for the latter that spurred the censure of neoclassical critics. The difference between enriching the canon and violating it was a subject hotly debated in Piranesi's day. Within the elements of the architectural vocabulary, much that seems inventive, like Michelangelo's Ionic capitals at the Campidoglio's Palazzo dei Conservatori, are really transformations or syntheses of existing elements. Perhaps Bernardo Buontalenti can be said to have invented a new kind of pediment, in his broken and inflected overdoor for the Florentine mint. Francesco Borromini was essentially active as an architect only in and around Rome, but limited geographical scope to his practice did not limit his inventive approach to the classical language. Outside the city on the way to nearby Tivoli he explored the ancient villa of the emperor Hadrian, where he encountered a wealth of unusual plan and columnar forms.
