Guarino Guarini
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Camillo-Guarino Guarini (7 January 1624 – 6 March 1683), was an Italian architect of the Piedmontese Baroque, active not only in Turin but also in other European sites including Sicily, France, and Portugal.
He was also a Theatine priest, mathematician, writer and architect.
Guarini was born in Modena. He was accepted as a Theatine novice in 1639, spent his novitiate at the monastery of San Silvestro al Quirinale in Rome, and returned to Modena in 1647, where he was ordained in 1648. He rose quickly in the Theatine hierarchy, becoming first auditor, then superintendent of works, treasurer, lecturer in philosophy, procuratore, and finally provost in 1654. Prince Alfonso supported another candidate, and Guarini was soon replaced and had to leave Modena. The next few years are poorly documented. He became a member of the Theatine house of Parma in 1656 and apparently visited Prague and Lisbon before publishing his play La Pietà trionfante in Messina in 1660, where he was a lecturer in mathematics.[1]
It is claimed he first became an architect to the Duke Philibert of Savoy. He wrote a range of mathematical books in both Latin and Italian, of which Euclides adauctus is a work on descriptive geometry. In 1665, he published a mathematical-philosophical tract Placita Philosophica defending the geocentric universe against Copernicus and Galileo.
He designed a large number of public and private buildings at Turin, including the palaces of the duke of Savoy, the Royal Church of San Lorenzo (1666-1680), most of the Chapel of the Holy Shroud (housing the Shroud of Turin, 1668, incorporating beginnings by Carlo di Castellamonte), the Palazzo Carignano (1679-85), the castle of Racconigi and many other public and ecclesiastical buildings at Modena, Messina, Verona, Vienna, Prague, Lisbon and Paris. He appears to have been influenced by Borromini. Between 1657 and 1659 he stayed in Spain, where he studied the Moorish constructions. This has influenced the style of some of his buildings in Turin.
Guarini died in Milan. In architecture, his successors include his pupil Filippo Juvarra, and Juvarra's pupil Bernardo Vittone. The latter published his designs in Architettura Civile in 1737.
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[edit] Works
- Church of the Somascian Order (never built in Messina)
- Facade of Santissima Annunziata and adjacent Theatine palace (Messina, destroyed in 1908 earthquake)
- Sainte Anne le Royale (1662, destroyed 1823)
- Santa Maria della Divina Providenca (Lisbon, destroyed by the 1755 earthquake)
- San Filippo Neri (completed by Juvarra)
- Colegio dei Nobili (1678, Turin)
- Capella della Santissima Sindone (Turin)
- San Lorenzo (Turin)
- La Consolate (restored later by others)
[edit] Notes
- ^ Meek, p. 6-11, 19.
[edit] References
- Meek, H.A. (1988). Guarino Guarini and his Architecture. Yale. ISBN 0-300-04748-7.
- Wittkower, Rudolf (1980). Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750, Pelican History of Art. Penguin, pp403-415. ISBN 0-300-07939-7.
[edit] External links
- O'Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F., “Guarino Guarini”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
- Optical Illusion and Projection: A Study of Guarino Guarini's Dome in Santissima Sindone
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
