Aloisio Antinori

The study focuses on the presence of Italian artists in the first stage of a project by Jules Mazarin dating from the last months of 1656, namely the grand palace including an academy, a library and a church, which will then be known as the Collège des Quatre-Nations. The cardinal designed this imposing architectural ensemble, to be built on the left bank of the Seine just in front of the Louvre, as an everlasting celebration of his political work as well as the site of his own mausoleum. A systematic examination of the correspondence between the cardinal and his agent in Rome, Elpidio Benedetti, has enabled the author to follow in a complete way the evolution of the affair over time. It emerged, among other things, that Benedetti sent from Rome to Paris drawings by Carlo Rainaldi and most likely by Francesco Borromini, and that a few years later the now lost designs of these masters influenced those of Antonio Maurizio Valperga  – a Piedmontese military engineer working in Paris between 1659 and 1668 – for the church of Sainte-Anne-la-Royale and for Mazarin's tomb.

Four entries in the catalogue of the exhibition "Una rivoluzione silenziosa. Plautilla Bricci pittrice e architettrice" (Rome, Palazzo Corsini, 4 November 2021 to 19 April 2022), edited by Yuri Primarosa:
- the funeral ceremony in memory of cardinal Jules Mazarin (28 April 1661);
- the celebration at Trinità de' Monti for the birth of the Dauphin of France (2 February 1662);
- the funeral ceremony in memory of Anne of Austria, formerly the queen consort and the queen regent of France (11 October 1666);
- the celebration held at Elpidio Benedetti's house for the recovery of Louis XIV from a prolonged illness (21 April 1687).

The article stems from the examination of a letter belonging to the correspondence, today preserved at the Archives diplomatiques du Ministère des Affaires étrangères in Paris-La Courneuve, between Cardinal Jules Mazarin and Elpidio Benedetti, his agent in Rome. In the letter, dated August 1660, Benedetti refers to the Filomarino altar in the church of the Holy Apostles of Naples, indicating Gian Lorenzo Bernini as its author instead of Francesco Borromini. This significant document is not unpublished; however, it appeared in a mere footnote in a volume of historical studies on Mazarin, published in 1981. It therefore went almost unnoticed, and art and architecture historians have never taken it into consideration. In this article, Aloisio Antinori discusses the credibility and the various implications of the surprising attribution of Benedetti, who certainly witnessed the process during which the altar was designed in Rome to be then constructed in Naples, and perhaps took part in it directly as a collaborator of Ascanio Filomarino. The interpretation of the document also offers the author the opportunity to re-examine, through a study of all the available sources, the question of the end of the professional collaboration between Bernini and Borromini, an event that has never been entirely clarified.

The essay outlines the history and reconstructs the catalogue of an as far underestimated sculpture workshop, which was instead one of the most important in Rome during the first four decades of the eighteenth century. Francesco Pincellotti (1671/1672-1749) was the greatest specialist, and almost exercised a monopoly, in carving the "scogliere" (apparently natural rocks) of the monumental Roman fountains, including the Trevi. His son Bartolomeo (1707/1708-1740) sculpted, among other works, statues for the Corsini Chapel in San Giovanni in Laterano, the Portuguese church of Mafra and the Trevi Fountain. The essay also presents newly discovered documents and architectural drawings that shed new light on buildings erected in Castel Gandolfo and in Rome under the patronage of Cardinal Camillo Cybo.

By pointing out and discussing the various trends of the Roman architectural scene in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, the essay examinates the major buildings as well as the role played by the most important theorists, patrons and architects.

While polemising with Filippo Maria Bonini around 1662, Fioravante Martinelli wrote that "Borromini is being imitated in many buildings of this city". What was he referring to? Starting from this question, the essay discusses the early impact of Borromini's inventions on Roman architects.

The essay focuses on how Vitruvius' treatise was instrumentally misinterpreted in certain late-eighteenth- century Tuscan, Roman and Neapolitan architectural milieux. The treatise was used, more precisely, in order to prove that the temples of Paestum were Etruscan works and consequently argue that the ancient Italic civilization was superior to the Greek: a theory evidently influenced by the thought of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. N.B.: By mistake, the first illustration of this essay (Fig. 104) was printed in reverse.

In November 1735 the Jesuit Father Francesco Volumnio Piccolomini, rector of the Collegio Germanico Ungarico in Rome, and Cardinal Antonio Saverio Gentili made the decision to exhume the bones under the altar of the Cappella dei Santi Primo and Feliciano in the basilica of S. Stefano Rotondo in Coelio Monte, venerated as relics of the two martyrs. This event elicited great interest in Rome. In the months that followed, the chapel was completely restored, and in June of 1736, the skeletal remains of the two saints were reburied at the same site, but beneath a new altar. After describing the historical context in which the events took place, the author examines the work carried out on the chapel, directed by the architect Filippo Barigioni, on the basis of significant new documents.

The paper shows how seven Roman Catholic Popes of the seventeenth century – Paul V Borghese, Gregory XV Ludovisi, Urban VIII Barberini, Innocent X Pamphili, Alexander VII Chigi, Clement IX Rospigliosi and Clement X Altieri - tackled the problem of providing their relatives with a residence of the highest rank in one of the central "rioni" of Rome.

Between 1675 and 1690, a decisive span of years in Carlo Fontana’s career, the Roman publisher Giovanni Giacomo De Rossi produced some books of prints illustrating the major buildings of modern Rome: palace facades (“Nuovi Disegni delle architetture e piante dei Palazzi di Roma”, circa 1675), church facades (“Insignium Romae Templorum Prospectus”, 1683 and then 1684 in a new expanded edition), and finally church interiors (“Disegni di vari Altari e Cappelle”, 1688 or 1689). The paper focuses on the relation between De Rossi’s publications and the self-promotion strategy adopted by Fontana to attain professional success.  Initially, he ensured that two of his works were included among the buildings presented in “Nuovi disegni” (Palazzo Bigazzini) and “Prospectus” (San Marcello al Corso), even before they were completed. Later, he achieved to be present in “Disegni” with more plates than any other living architect, and one can even suppose that he actually played a role in planning that publication and selecting the works to be shown there. Furthermore, around 1690 German editions of both “Prospectus” and “Disegni” were published in Nuremberg by Johann Jakob von Sandrart and they spread rapidly throughout the Empire and the kingdom of Prussia, and even more widely in Europe.

Carlo Fontana’s history of the Vatican complex, published in 1694, is one of the most ambitious and admired architectural books of the age.
The lengthy and often tortuous story of its production and financing can now be told in full from recently identified sources in the archives of the Fabbrica di S. Pietro.
[For the article in its entirety, see burlington.org.uk]

Mattia De Rossi (1637-1695) spent two long periods in Paris: the first was from June to October 1665, together with Gian Lorenzo Bernini; he returned in the spring of the following year and stayed for about a year, with the job of perfecting Bernini’s final project for the Louvre. After returning definitively to Rome in July 1667, Mattia De Rossi continued to work as a Bernini assistant. As from the end of the decade, however, he also had his own professional career. Immediately after the election of Pope Clement X (Emilio Altieri) in 1670, Prince Gaspare Altieri and his wife Laura Caterina Altieri, the niece of the new Pope, decided to start expansion works on their palace in Piazza del Gesù, which had initially been built by Giovanni Antonio De Rossi in the 1650s. The new building works were entrusted to the same architect, but he was this time joined by Mattia De Rossi. Contrary to what was believed until now, the second stage of building works on the Altieri palace did not end in 1676, when Giovanni Antonio De Rossi left the project, but continued until 1679, under the direction of Mattia De Rossi. New research carried out on the Altieri Archives has revealed that, during this three-year period, Mattia designed and built the portal on Via Santo Stefano del Cacco, as well as the decorative panoplies atop the large doors leading off the large staircase to the apartments on the ground floor and second floor. It was not just the dating that led to these works being attributed to Mattia De Rossi. Both the external portal and the two internal doors are in fact completely out of character for the repertory of architects working in Rome in the second half of the 17th century, while they appear very similar to a number of works that Mattia had the opportunity to see and appreciate in France. Mattia De Rossi’s contributions to the Altieri palace are therefore the first case in which, in the architectural decoration of a Roman late-Baroque building, an architect chose to import French models: a significant indication of the artistic translatio imperii that was about to take place between the two capitals.

By reconsidering three ephemeral artworks presented to the Roman public between 1744 and 1746 – an allegorical sculpted group placed on show in Palazzo Mancini, seat of the French Academy, to celebrate the recovery of Louis XV after a serious illness (September 1744), and two pyrotechnical machines erected in piazza Farnese for the annual Chinea feast and designed as a triumphal arch (June 1745) and a temple (June 1746) – the essay focuses on the French painter and engraver Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain, who lived in Rome as a pensionnaire from 1740 to 1749, and discusses the evolution of his artistic expression in the framework of his relationships with the influential architect Gabriel-Martin Dumont on one side, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi on the other.

The essay focuses on two patrician buildings in Rome, designed in the 1670s and 1680s, and highlights their as yet unidentified affinities with important hôtels particuliers built in Paris a few decades earlier. The first is Palazzo Muti Papazzurri in piazza della Pilotta, built by Mattia De Rossi between 1675 and 1678; the unusual open courtyard flanked by wings, the portal with coupled columns, and several decorative elements are all inspired by French models such as the Hôtel de La Vrillière, which De Rossi had seen while staying in Paris. The author then identifies several similarities between the Hôtel de Beauvais in rue Saint-Antoine and the second building, Palazzo Mancini al Corso, built in 1687 based on a design by Sebastiano Cipriani. The similarities between the two buildings, explained by Cipriani’s sojourn in France, are seen in relation to the important role played by the Hôtel de Beauvais in the life of Filippo Mancini, the nephew of Cardinal Giulio Mazzarino.

In November 1735 the Jesuit Father Francesco Volumnio Piccolomini, rector of the Collegio Germanico Ungarico in Rome, and Cardinal Antonio Saverio Gentili made the decision to exhume the bones under the altar of the Cappella dei Santi Primo and Feliciano in the basilica of S. Stefano Rotondo in Coelio Monte, venerated as relics of the two martyrs. The event elicited great interest in Rome. In the following months, the chapel was completely restored, and in June of 1736, the skeletal remains of the two saints were reburied at the same site, but beneath a new altar.
After describing the historical context in which the events took place, the author examines the work carried out on the chapel, directed by the architect Filippo Barigioni, on the basis of significant new documents discovered in the Fondo Gentili in the Archivio di Stato di Roma, and in the archives of the Collegio Germanico Ungarico. The author addresses particular attention to the restoration of the 7th-century apse mosaic — a process that can be reconstructed even in regard to its technical aspects thanks to one of the newly found documents — and to the construction of the new marble altar designed by Barigioni and carried out by the renowned sculptor Francesco Pincellotti.
The final part of the article presents a description and interpretation, also based on a previously unpublished source, of the long and elaborate ceremony that took place on 10 June 1736 for the inauguration of the restored chapel, a magnificent celebration for which the church of Santo Stefano Rotondo and its entire urban surroundings were embellished with ephemeral furnishings of exceptional richness.

The essay presents and discusses an as yet unknown work by Carlo Marchionni, which still survives in the sacristy of the Roman church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva: a small monument in honour of Benedict XI, a member of the Dominican Order who was elected Pope at the beginning of the fourteenth century. New documents are also published about the sculptures made by Marchionni for the monumental tomb of Benedict XIII, which he designed in the same church. New light is shed, in particular, on the chronology of this outstanding work as well as on Marchionni's relationship with both the Dominicans and Cardinal Alessandro Albani, who was his most important patron.

The paper focuses on Filippo Raguzzini's work in the Roman church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, begun just a few weeks after his arrival from Naples in 1724. This particular historical circumstance provides the opportunity to discuss, also in relation to Raguzzini's later achievements, the implications of the sudden encounter of architectural and decorative languages having different origins.

After reconsidering Bernini's language at Santa Bibiana, his first important work as an architect, the paper shows that in the second and early third decade of the seventeenth century, the Roman architectural milieu was interested not only in the celebrated works of Michelangelo, but also in those of Palladio, even if they were distant and less known. So, Bernini's education as an architect was influenced by both of those traditions.

The essay deals with Cardinal Domenico Passionei's architectural patronage, focusing on the relationship between his veneration of the ancient Rome and his interest in the thought and way of life of the French Jansenists. In this regard, two works are especially significant: the unusual type of villa that Ferdinando Fuga arranged for the Cardinal by readapting two cells of the Camaldolese hermitage near Frascati, and the "humble" underfloor tomb that Passionei planned for himself right in the centre of San Bernardo alle Terme, so that the round church, originally one of the corner towers of the Baths of Diocletian, became a sort of ancient mausoleum, similar to those of Augustus and Hadrian.

The essay outlines the history and reconstructs the catalogue of an as far underestimated sculpture workshop, which was instead one of the most important in Rome during the first four decades of the eighteenth century. Francesco Pincellotti (1671/1672-1749) was the greatest specialist, and almost exercised a monopoly, in carving the "scogliere" (apparently natural rocks) of the monumental Roman fountains, including the Trevi. His son Bartolomeo (1707/1708-1740) sculpted, among other works, statues for the Corsini Chapel in San Giovanni in Laterano, the Portuguese church of Mafra and the Trevi Fountain. The essay also presents newly discovered documents and architectural drawings that shed new light on buildings erected in Castel Gandolfo and in Rome under the patronage of Cardinal Camillo Cybo.

The essay focuses on how Vitruvius' treatise was instrumentally misinterpreted in certain late-eighteenth- century Tuscan, Roman and Neapolitan architectural milieux. The treatise was used, more precisely, in order to prove that the temples of Paestum were Etruscan works and consequently argue that the ancient Italic civilization was superior to the Greek: a theory evidently influenced by the thought of Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
N.B.: By mistake, the first illustration of this essay (Fig. 104) was printed in reverse.

By pointing out and discussing the various trends of the Roman architectural scene in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, the essay examinates the major buildings as well as the role played by the most important theorists, patrons and architects.

While polemising with Filippo Maria Bonini around 1662, Fioravante Martinelli wrote that "Borromini is being imitated in many buildings of this city". What was he referring to? Starting from this question, the essay discusses the early impact of Borromini's inventions on Roman architects.

The paper outlines, by presenting newly discovered documentation, the development of the early residence of the Muti Papazzurri family - the so-called "Casa grande" in piazza dei Santi Apostoli in Rome - between the early fifteenth and the early eighteenth century. The history of the palace is considered in connection with the transformations undergone in its urban context, namely the southern part of the "rione" Trevi.