Carlo Fontana e i disegni di progetto per il collegio Tolomei a Siena

Carlo Fontana’s projects of the Chigi Palace in San Quirinod’Orcia and Villa Cantinale in Ancaino are generally the onlyworks in the area of Siena to be remembered in the vastprofessional activity of the architect who worked for CardinalFlavio Chigi.Recent archive studies have brought to light other particularreferences to the activity of Carlo Fontana, thus confirming,what, in recent past, had only been hypothesized; unpublisheddrawings have been added to the new information of thearchive documents, now attributing the project to Fontana.The drawings are conserved in the British Library in London andare inside one of the 24 volumes bought by James Adam, forKing George III, in 1762, from the collection of Cardinal Albani.Drawings of Siena, dating from the late 1670s and early 1680s,illustrate a project by Carlo Fontana for the new building of theTolomei College in Siena.The project, which was never realised, is in any way significant.It enriches the catalogue of the Ticinese architect and shows theapproach of Fontana in the context of Senese architectural, thatwas traditionally very tied to medieval tradition.Different architectural forms and styles were also introducedinto Siena, following a path driven by the Roman academiccircles, leaving tangible testimonies in many interventions in theTuscan city from the first half of the eighteenth century