Giovanni Battista Vaccarini

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Giovanni Battista Vaccarini

Giovanni Battista Vaccarini (February 3, 1702 - March 11, 1768) was a Sicilian

Sicily

Sicily is an Autonomous regions with special statute of Italy. Of all the regions of Italy, Sicily covers the largest land area at 25,708 km? and currently has just over five million inhabitants....
architect

Architect

An architect is trained and licenced in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e....
, notable for his work in the Baroque

Baroque

In the the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural Epoch , starting roughly at the beginning of the 17th century in Rome, Italy. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in Baroque sculpture, Baroque painting, literature, Baroque dance, and Baroque music....
style in his homeland during the period of massive rebuilding following the earthquake

Earthquake

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are recorded with a seismometer, also known as a seismograph....
of 1693. Many of his principal works can be found in the area in and around Catania

Catania

Catania is an Italy city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse, Sicily. It is the capital of the Province of Catania, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city on the island....
.

arini was born in Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a historic city in southern Italy, the Capital of the autonomous region Sicily and the province of Palermo. The city is noted for its rich history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old....
. During the 1720s he studied architecture in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
, with the support of Pietro, Cardinal Ottoboni

Pietro, Cardinal Ottoboni

Pietro Ottoboni , was an Italian Catholic cardinal and grandnephew of Pope Alexander VIII. He is remembered especially as a great patron of music....
, the great patron of Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music....
.

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Encyclopedia

Giovanni Battista Vaccarini (February 3, 1702 - March 11, 1768) was a Sicilian

Sicily

Architect

Baroque

Earthquake

Catania

Biography

Vaccarini was born in Palermo

Palermo

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
, with the support of Pietro, Cardinal Ottoboni

Pietro, Cardinal Ottoboni

Pietro Ottoboni , was an Italian Catholic cardinal and grandnephew of Pope Alexander VIII. He is remembered especially as a great patron of music....
, the great patron of Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music....
. Vaccarini was mostly interested on combining the idioms of Borromini and Bernini. This was an eclectic fusion of architectural principles that was common at the end of the 17th century, producing such notable buildings as Giovan Antonio de' Rossi?'s Palazzo Altieri

Palazzo Altieri

Palazzo Altieri is a palace in Rome, which was the home of the Altieri family in the city. The palace faces the square in front of the church of the Church of the Ges?....
, and Palazzo Asti-Bonaparte.

Vaccarini returned to Sicily around 1730. His work seems then to have been influenced by the school of architecture of Alessandro Specchi

Alessandro Specchi

Alessandro Specchi was an Italy architect and etcher.Born in Rome, he trained under Carlo Fontana, specializing also as etching with a series of veduta of Rome....
, Francesco de Sanctis

Francesco de Sanctis

Francesco de Sanctis was an Italy literary critic, considered the most important scholar of Italian language and literature in the 19th century....
and Filippo Raguzzini

Filippo Raguzzini

Filippo Raguzzini was an Italy architect of the eighteenth century late-Baroque or Rococo period, mostly active in Rome.Among his designs are the hospital and church of San Gallicano and Piazza Sant'Ignazio in Rome....
, who tended to reject the classicizing of buildings in favour of a much more flamboyant style. Both Specchi and de Sanctis were closely involved with the design of grand exterior staircases, common to Italian buildings with a second story piano nobile

Piano nobile

The piano nobile is the principal floor of a large house, usually built in one of the styles of renaissance architecture. This floor contains the principal reception and bedrooms of the house....
, and of course the climate completely negating the requirement for an internal entrance hall on the ground floor in order to provide quick easy access. De Sanctis had taken this feature one step further in 1723 with his design for the Spanish steps

Spanish Steps

The Spanish Steps are a set of steps in Rome, Italy, climbing a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinit? dei Monti, dominated by the church of Trinit? dei Monti....
in Rome. This grand staircase approach to a building was to be invaluable in Sicily, not only for the practical reasons of entering the piano nobile, but also for the creation of a grand approach to churches and cathedrals, where the topography of the site permits such a feature.

Vaccarini's work in Sicily can be observed most clearly in Catania's Cathedral Square. The ground floor (already in construction when Vaccarini came to the project) shows the decorated rustication

Rustication (architecture)

Rustication is an architecture term that contrasts with ashlar, smoothly finished, squared block masonry surfaces. Rusticated masonry is squared-off and left with a more or less rough surface, with a deep "V" or square joint or with finished flanking corners that emphasize the edges of each block....
in a 16th century Sicilian fashion. But Vaccarini's upper floors are in a style quite different. The ground floor pilasters continue but unrusticated, the cornice

Cornice

The term cornice comes from Italian cornice, meaning ?ledge.?Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding which crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal....
they support is entirely in accordance with Roman contemporary design, as are the windows. The windows on the piano nobile have straight, but broken, pediments with canted sides, a theme commonly repoduced by Vaccarini in ensuing years. The free standing columns supporting a straight balcony endow a pompous grandeur to the entrance. The balcony was to become a feature of Sicilian Baroque, it was later to take many shapes, often curved, serpentine, or a combination of both juxtaposing. Such balconies were often decorated with elaborate wrought iron balustrade.

In front of this building Vaccarini designed a fountain, of an obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk An Obelisks is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid like shape at the top. Ancient obelisks were made of a single piece of stone, a monolith; however, most modern obelisks are made of individual stones, and can even have interior spaces....
upon the back of the Catanian elephant, itself a remnant of Bernini's fountains. Vaccarini completed the square by designing the main facade of the cathedral, a thirty year project not completed until 1768. According to Professor Anthony Blunt

Anthony Blunt

Anthony Frederick Blunt , known as Sir Anthony Blunt, Royal Victorian Order between 1956 and 1979, was a British spy, art history, formerly Professor of the History of Art, University of London and director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London ....
, the cathedral was not one of Vaccarini's successes.

As a church architect Vaccarini introduced into Sicily the church plans of the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
which had passed Sicily by. However, many of his churches are based on the designs of churches he had seen in Rome. The church of S. Agata in Catania, for instance, is based on Sant'Agnese in Agone

Sant'Agnese in Agone

Sant'Agnese in Agone is a basilica churches of Rome Rome. Construction started in 1652 under the planning of Carlo Rainaldi on the site where Saint Agnes was martyr in the Circus of Domitian, now the Piazza Navona in Rome....
(Rome).

Vaccarini's Baroque became prevalent in Catania, and much copied for three quarters of a century. However, he was not employed only in Sicily, since in 1756 he journeyed to Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in southern Italy, the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,800 years old....
to aid Vanvitelli

Vanvitelli

Both father and son are often tagged with the name Vanvitelli:* Caspar van Wittel, painter of Baroque vedute* Luigi Vanvitelli, his son, noted Rococo architect of Rome and Naples...
and Ferdinando Fuga

Ferdinando Fuga

Ferdinando Fuga was an Italy architect, whose main works were realized in Rome and Naples....
in the construction of the marble Palace of Caserta. Vanvitelli's influence is clearly visible in Vaccarini's final works, especially the Collegio Cutelli and the Piccola Badia.

Vaccarini died in Palermo in 1768.

Analysis

Vaccarini is notable today for his input into the development of Sicilian Baroque. While much of his work was later overshadowed by a younger generation of Sicilian architects, he was one of the founding architects of the style; in particular his handling of the Baroque double staircase, which continued to evolve, in a way peculiar to Sicily, after his death.