Carlo Fontana e l’architettura dei palazzi nobiliari: da Roma alla Mitteleuropa

Carlo Fontana and Noble Palace Architecture: from Rome to Central EuropeResearch into Carlo Fontana’s architectural opus has not yet produced a systematic treatment of the wide range of the architect’s projects for residential structures, both those built and those never realised. The present contribution treats this question limiting itself to the typological and geographical ambit of the projects for noble urban palaces destined for Rome and for the Bohemian Kingdom. Rome was the city where Fontana experimented with various ideas for residential models during the 1670’s and 1680’s, between prerequisites of magnificence and logistical restrictions. The Bohemian Kingdom, traditionally very receptive toward the Italian architectural culture, was where Fontana sought to export his designs at the end of the 1690’s.In the first instance, this contribution discusses the projects for architectural amplifications and for new constructions at the Palazzo Grimani in Via Rasella (1677/78-1681), the Palazzo Massimo all’Aracoeli (1676-1680), and above all, the Palazzo Bigazzini in Piazza San Marco (1678-1786), Fontana’s principal work in the field of noble residential architectural projects. Also discussed are the architect’s unrealised projects for the Palazzo Altieri at the Gesù (1671), the Palazzo Mancini (1686), and the Palazzo Rucellai on the Corso - this last, designed toward the end of the 1670’s.In the second instance, the paper discusses three projects which were presented by correspondence between 1696 and 1700, for a palace for Count Johann Adam Andreas von Liechtenstein a Lanškroun (1696), and for two palaces in Prague; one for Count Ignaz Karl von Stenberg (1696- circa 1700), and one for the imperial ambassador to Rome, Count Georg Adam Martinitz (1700), the only one of the three to have been built, albeit with variations on the original designs.