BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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French

     A priest in the order of the Theatines, a mathematician, writer and architect, Guarino Guarini is one of the most brilliant representatives of the Italian baroque style; his best known creations in Turin, the Carignan Palace, San Lorenzo Church and the chapel of the Holy Shroud, figure among the strangest and most virtuoso achievements of 17^th century architecture. In addition to several writings on mathematics, during his lifetime he published a treatise entitled Il modo di misurare le fabbriche (1674) and a book on military architecture, the Trattato di fortificatione che hora si usa in Fiandra, Francia, & Italia (1676). After his death the Theatines published the Disegni d’architettura civile et ecclesia, an engraved collection of his projects (1686). The complete treatise, his major work, the Architettura civile, came out in 1737 thanks to the care taken by Guarini’s spiritual successor, the architect Bernardo Vittone. This enormous treatise draws on and completes the 1686 plates and precedes them with a very developed theoretical part which presents not only the mathematical foundations of architecture, but also an ensemble of models of unpublished orders as far from Vitruvius’s as possible. This liberty and inventiveness make Guarini the heir of Michelangelo and Borromini.
Guarini’s reputation spread all over Europe and extraordinary projects for Theatine churches are attributed to him (Santa Maria della Divina Providenza in Lisbon, Santa Maria da Altötting in Prague and San Gaetano in Nice).In Paris, Sainte-Anne-la-Royale (quai Voltaire) was begun by the Theatines with the support of Mazarin in 1648, but after many hesitations, the construction project was entrusted in 1662 to Guarini, who then travelled to France. The church was never finished, but the Architettura civilehas the plans for it, as well as a few drawings. Therefore Guarini is an interesting figure in French architecture, in the same way as Cavalier Bernini and his plans for the Louvre. The project for Sainte-Anne was much more radically baroque than the one for the Louvre. Its excessive splendor and the originality of its solutions contain the extravagances that Chambray forcefully denounced in the Parallèle in 1650. The reactions that the plans inflamed no doubt contributed tothe development of the French “grand style” in which they could not beincluded appropriately, any more than the Theatine concept of liturgy, which provoked La Bruyère to write “What! Since they are not yet dancing at the Theatines, am I required to call this spectacle a church service?” (Caractères, 14).

Yves Pauwels (Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2014

Critical bibliography

H. A. Meek, Guarino Guarini, Milan, Electa, 1991 (1^st ed.: Guarino Guarini and his Architecture, New Haven, Yale University, 1988).

P. Portoghesi, Guarino Guarini1624-1683, Milan, Electa, 1956.

B. Quillet, “Heurs et malheurs de la théatralité théatine (XVII^e-XVIII^e siècles)”, M. Plaisance (ed.), Culture et idéologie après le Concile de Trente: permanences et changements, Abbeville, Paillart, pp. 183-197.

V Viale (ed.), Guarion Guarini e l’internazionalità del Barocco, Turin, Accademia della Scienza, 1970.