Anna Sansieva
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
By the middle of the 18th century works of Italian architects had been increasingly exposed to classical influence. The 1732 competition for the facade construction of the Sun Giovanni basilica in Laterano in Rome is recognized as the conditional starting point for the dissemination of neoclassicist trends in the architecture of Italy.
Recognition of ideal in antiquity, interest in studying it and its emulation became the basis of neo-classicism ideology formation for Europe. But for Italy the antiquity was one of the components of the unique heritage, but not a single dominant prototype.
For this reason masters of the second half of the 18th century who were educated in the Academy of S. Luca in Rome and acquainted themselves with monuments of the city, more often gave their preference to research into the Renaissance architecture. Regarding monuments of the Renaissance as a source for borrowing of constructions, plans of compositions and decorative elements, the architects processed the collected material again, and it was spread on all the territory of Italy as well as abroad.
Perception of the Renaissance heritage by architects followed several directions. The first one was determined by the origin of separate masters. In the middle of the 18th century among the cultural figures in Rome the so-called “Florentine party” was formed which united the architects Alessandro Galilei and Ferdinando Fuga from Tuscany. All their works were labeled by traits of influence of the late stage in the Renaissance in Florence, namely mannerism. In particular, it refers to the presentation of the palazzo facade as a theatrical scenery as it was in the works of mannerist architect Bartolomeo Ammanati.
Another direction represents the reelaboration of Renaissance church architecture. Such masters as Luigi Vanvitelli and again Alessandro Galilei turned to the centric building in their works, borrowing the majority of ideas from Michelangelo’s project for the Sun Giovanni dei Fiorentini church in Rome. Vanvitelli and Galilei cited even architecture of the earlier Renaissance architects. Creating projects for churches in England, Galilei used images of Filippo Brunelleschi and Vanvitelli in secular buildings in Naples, reworking ideas of Donato Bramante’s centric space.
Renaissance traditions of Italian architects of the second half of the 18th century give the clearest understanding of neoclassicism in Italy.