Bramante's Tempietto architecturally represents Da Vinci's Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Donato Bramante's Tempietto were sister projects created at the same time to express the religious doctrine of the "Two Faces of the Soul." The Tempietto's solid lower half symbolized the "animal soul," while its lofty domed upper half symbolized the "rational" or "human" soul whose purpose is to comprehend God and the cosmos. The Mona Lisa expressed, among other things, the idea of a single soul shared between a mother and her unborn child. Leonardo used the metaphor of the two-faced Roman god Janus to express the duality of the soul in his painting. The ideal proportions of Leonardo's Vitruvian Man are found in the architecture of the Tempietto, and he is thought to have influenced its design. Leonardo also used the god Janus to serve as the metaphor for his sacred land survey depicted in the background landscape of the Mona Lisa. The survey line stretched from the dome of the Vatican to the cult site of the pagan Childbirth goddess Diana, and intersected the location of the Tempietto on top of Rome's Janiculum hill. The dome of the Tempietto served as a model for the dome of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, for which Bramante was also the architect. The Janiculum hill was named after the god Janus, who was said to have brought civilization to Italy during a "Golden Age." His mythical citadel was thought to have been located precisely where the Tempietto was built.

The Tempietto: built in Rome by Bramante, Leonardo da Vinci's friend. Together they created a joint project to express the religious doctrine of the "Two Faces of the Soul." Bramante's architectural achievement was matched by Leonardo's painting of the Mona Lisa, which was a personification of the small chapel which sits at the top of the Janiculum hill--the site of the mythical citadel of the Sun-god Janus.