Carlo Fontana
Carlo Fontana, (born 1634/38, Bruciate, near Como,
Milan—died 1714, Rome), Italian architect, engineer, and
publisher whose prolific studio produced widely imitated
designs for fountains, palaces, tombs, and altars, as well
as the curved facade on the S. Marcello al Corso (1682–83).
His many international students included M.D. Poppelmann of
Germany, James Gibbs of England, Filippa Juvarra of Italy,
Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt and Fischer von Erlach of
Austria, and others.
Fontana worked for Gian Lorenzo Bernini on Sta. Maria dei
Miracoli (1662–79) and finished Bernini’s Palazzo di
Montecitorio (1650–94) (formerly the Palazzo Ludovisi),
which had been started for the family of Innocent X.
Fontana’s students continued the Bernini tradition into the
18th century.
Fontana’s other works are the church of S. Biagio in
Campitelli (reassembled on Piazza Capizucchi; before 1665),
SS. Apostoli (1702–08), the Casanatense Library (1708), the
Cappella Sistina of Sta. Maria Maggiore, Cappella Ginetti in
S. Andrea della Valle (1671), the Cappella Cibo in Sta.
Maria del Popolo (1683–87), the Baptismal Chapel in St.
Peter’s (1692–98), and the Cappella Albani in S. Sebastiano
(1705). His tombs include those of Queen Christina of Sweden
in St. Peter’s (1702), Clement XI, and Innocent XII. His
largest ecclesiastical ensemble was the Jesuit church and
college at Loyola, Spain (1681–1738), which influenced
Spanish, Austrian, and south German architects.
After he was appointed surveyor of St. Peter’s, he
published the Templum Vaticanus, with its many engravings
(1694). Twenty-seven volumes of his manuscripts and drawings
are now in the Royal Library at Windsor.
Encyclopædia
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