One of the earliest uses of this feature in the Renaissance was at the
Basilica of Sant'Andrea, Mantua, designed by
Leon Battista Alberti and begun in 1472; this adapted the Roman
triumphal arch to a church facade. From designs by
Raphael for his own palazzo in
Rome on an island block it seems that all facades were to have a giant order of pilasters rising at least two stories to the full height of the
piano nobile, "a grandiloquent feature unprecedented in private palace design". He appears to have made these in the two years before his death in 1520, which left the building unstarted. It was further developed by
Michelangelo at the Palaces on the
Capitoline Hill in
Rome (1564–1568), where he combined giant pilasters of
Corinthian order with small
Ionic columns that framed the windows of the upper story and flanked the
loggia openings below. The giant order became a major feature of later 16th century
Mannerist architecture, and
Baroque architecture. Its use by
Andrea Palladio justified its use in the seventeenth century in the movement known as
neo-Palladian architecture. It continued to be used in
Beaux-Arts architecture of 1880–1920 as, for example, in
New York City's
James A. Farley Building, which claims the largest giant order Corinthian colonnade in the world. ==Gallery==