Michelangelo's Campidoglio: A mean to an end

Michelangelo's Campidoglio complex in Rome is one work by the artist that can be profitably examined with the lens of the pervasive Neoplatonic theories of the sixteenth-century Italian Renaissance. This analysis will provide evidence of this Neoplatonic influence using concepts taken from ancient and contemporary writings, as well as facts known about the artist's life and education. I shall conclude that there is a strong correlation between the twelve-pointed star pattern on the pavement of the Campidoglio and the complex number theories set forth first by the writers of antiquity, and later adopted by Renaissance Humanists. I will argue that in designing this complicated pavement, Michelangelo used Neoplatonic number theories in order to glorify the papacy, Christianity, and Rome.