Filippo Juvarra and Architectural Education in Rome in the Early Eighteenth Century

Author(s): Henry A. Millon

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 35, No. 7 (Apr., 1982),
pp. 27-45
Published by: American Academy of Arts & Sciences
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 Filippo Juvarra and Architectural
Education in Rome in the
Early Eighteenth Century
Henry A. Millon
In 1714, architect Filippo Juvarra arrived
in Turin, brought there by Vittorio Amedeo
II of Savoy, the ruler of the new kingdom of
Piedmont and Sicily. Over the next twenty
years, Juvarra was to realize the king's ambi-
tion to transform Turin from a ducal to a royal
capital of European importance. At the same
time, Juvarra established his own architectural
reputation throughout Europe.
Juvarra was called to Portugal by John V
and to Spain by Philip V to design royal
palaces, and to Paris to design a triumphal
arch and oval piazza for Louis XIV and a
theatre for the Soissons Palace. In Rome
he was asked to submit designs for a new
sacristy for St. Peter's, for a new palace to hold
papal conclaves, for the Spanish Steps, and for
the facade of San Giovanni in Laterano. He
was frequently asked to consult on design
issues by the Vatican and, even though based
in Piedmont, was appointed architect of St.
Peter's.
At Como and Mantua, Juvarra completed
earlier churches by vaulting the crossing with
drum and dome of his own design. In Genoa,
he designed a theatre. In Bergamo, he de-
signed altars and at Belluno the campanile of
the cathedral. All this activity was undertaken
while refashioning Turin and forging new
standards of excellence in construction and
design that sustained architecture in Piedmont
for two succeeding generations.
Juvarra's energy and fecundity recalls
Bernini. He was one of the most gifted drafts-
men of his age, and drew rapidly and with
great fluidity. Over fifteen hundred of his
drawings survive. They include architectural
drawings, scenic designs (he was one of the
masters from whom Piranesi learned a great
deal), city views, landscapes, and figure draw-
27
ings. Juvarra's drawings, sought already in his
lifetime, form part of the major collections in
Europe. Some of the drawings done in his stu-
dent days in 1704-05 have recently come to
light; other groups of drawings can now be
identified as some of the exercises he developed
for the teaching of architects in Rome in
1707-08 and again in 1711-12. These draw-
ings enable a reassessment of Juvarra in his
early formative years and, at the same time,
provide some information about architectural
education in Rome in the early years of the
eighteenth century.
The Early Life of Juvarra
Two lives of Juvarra are preserved. The
shorter of the two, written by Scipione Maffei,
who probably knew Juvarra, was published
two years after Juvarra's death; the other,
longer biography was perhaps written by
Juvarra's older brother Francesco, a silver-
smith and print maker. They both include the
story of Juvarra's early years in Messina,
Sicily, and his "education" at the Accademia
di San Luca in Rome.
Although trained as a youth to be a silver-
smith like his father, brother, and three half-
brothers, Juvarra showed a scholarly side.
While working in the family shop, he also
studied for the priesthood, to which he was
ordained in 1703 at the age of twenty-five. At
the same time he studied architecture, start-
ing in 1690 when he was twelve. The longer
life relates thatJuvarra had a copy of Vignola's
principles of architecture (probably the five
orders first published in 1562) from which he
drew or copied the plates. As he learned the
basics and rules, he acquired other books by
masters such as Vitruvius and Padre Pozzo
and other books on ancient Rome, all the while
studying assiduously without any instruction.
The life says that by age twenty-five Juvarra
could draw plans, elevations, and sections
much like a good student who had the benefit
of years of instruction from an excellent
teacher.
At this point, probably the summer or early
28
fall of 1704, Juvarra decided to go to Rome
to see and draw the architectureof great archi-
tects like Michelangelo. Because he had
embellished the church of San Gregorio in
Messina, Juvarra was sent to Rome with a
letter of introductionto the Maestro di Camera
of Pope Clement XI. In turn, the Maestro sent
him to Carlo Fontana, a former Principe of
the Accademia di San Luca and professor of
architecturefrom 1675. Fontana was surprised
that a priest wished to study architecture and
asked, first, what he knew of architecture, to
which Juvarra replied, "Only Vignola" and
secondly, was Juvarra serious, did he wish to
study for pleasure or professionally. Juvarra
is reported to have ended the interview with
the response, "If [the study of] architectureaids
the intellect [then] as a professional." Later,
in his studio, Fontana told his assistants and
students that if a priest came they were to ask
him to draw a Corinthian capital. When
Juvarra arrived at the studio the first morn-
ing he was told what he must do. Meanwhile
the students joked about their chaplain hav-
ing arrived. But, in very little time, Juvarra
drew a large, precise Corinthian capital with
a gifted touch, placed it on the drafting table
and left. Everyone marvelled as much at the
neatness and polish of the drawing as the speed
of execution. When Fontana saw the drawing
he, too, admired it saying, "I think the priest
has played a joke on us; this is not a drawing
by someone who has only studied Vignola."
When Juvarra returned, Fontana is said to
have questioned him about his abilities and,
seeing that he was already an architectand that
he had come to Rome only to finish his educa-
tion, sent him to draw Michelangelo's work
at the Campidoglio. The longer life says that,
in addition, Juvarra did not leave undrawn
any good window or door in Rome.
The shorter life tells the story somewhat dif-
ferently. As a test, Fontana asked Juvarra to
design a palace. This Juvarra did, following
his own imagination and ideas brought from
Messina. Fontana, after looking at the draw-
ing, toldJuvarra that if he wished to study with
29
him he would have to unlearn everything he
had learned. Pierced by the comment, Juvarra
spent a bad night but came back the next
morning, saying it was as if he had drunk the
waters of Lethe and that he wished to be shown
the path to follow. Fontana sent him to draw
the Palazzo Farnese and other "praised-but-
simple" architecture and counseled him to
always adhere to simplicity in his drawings,
assuring him that, with his keen talent, a
Juvarra design would never lack sufficient
ornament.
The accounts differ as to the test. The longer
life is more anecdotal and follows a familiar
pattern, the successful passing of a trial with
a masterful display. The second, shorter
biography depicts a more likely recognition
and chastisement of a talented provincial. But
it, too, carries echoes of legend in Fontana's
admonition that Juvarra unlearn all he had
brought from Messina. We may never know
what actually happened. No drawing survives
that can be associated with a trial exercise.
Both accounts agree that Juvarra was sent
to draw from buildings by Michelangelo.
Extant drawings confirm his drawing both the
Campidoglio and the Palazzo Farnese as well
as many buildings by Bernini, Borromini,
Fontana and others.
The more detailed life records that while
Juvarra was measuring and drawing, the Con-
corso Clementino for 1705 was announced,
one in a series of competitions at the Academy
sponsored by Pope Clement XI. Juvarra's
friends convinced him that he should ask
Fontana's permission to prepare an entry for
the first class. Fontana encouraged him and
asked to see some studies. Juvarra worked up
the studies and received Fontana's approving
comment, "I am happy that you will win the
prize." In the remaining months, Juvarra
prepared the design, drew plans, elevations,
sections and, although not required by the
terms of the competition, also a perspective.
These drawings survive.
The deadline for drawings was probably

30
March or April 1705. Juvarra was then in his
twenty-seventh year, older than many of his
competitors. The life says that when Juvarra
went to place the drawings on display, Carlo
Maratta, the Principe of the Academy, a
member of the jury, and no friend of Carlo
Fontana, attempted to block their exhibition,
saying that the competition was for beginners
and not for masters, which Juvarra's drawing
showed him to be. Fortunately, Francesco
Fontana, Carlo's son, a former professor of
architecture, and now Vice-principe of the
Academy, testified that Juvarra had been
studying in Rome only six months, and so he
was admitted to the competition. When the
time came for the supervised sketch problem
that would be compared with competition
drawings to insure authenticity (this year a
ciborium with columns and statues), Juvarra
drew not one but three different designs, now
lost, "eachmore beautiful than the other."The
life records that the three drawings made his
merit and talent even more obvious, so much
so that after receiving the first prize, the draw-
ings were hung in the exhibition room of the
Accademia with drawings by others of out-
standing talent. The award was conferred on
May 7, 1705 in a grand ceremony at the
Campidoglio. Juvarro had now 'graduated'
and was eligible for membership in the
Academy. Twenty months later on December
31, 1706 he was elected to full membership,
one of the twelve members allowed by the
statutes. He began teaching at the Academy
early in 1707 and taught through 1708, before
a three-year break. An album in the Royal
Library in Turin contains drawings prepared
by Juvarra for his classes in those first two
years of teaching. Two further albums in the
National Library in Turin contain drawings
that relate to preparation of students for
various competitions. In 1711 and 1712, when
he began teaching again, Juvarra taught only
perspective. We have remaining only a few
drawings that show what he taught in perspec-
tive; most have apparently been lost.

31
Eighteenth Century Curricula
We now have the basic information
necessary for an examination of the teaching
of architecture at the Academy of St. Luke in
this period. First we have a tentative outline
of a path through the Academy. As we have
seen, a student needed to be accepted by one
of the accredited architect/teachers, i.e., one
of the members of the Academy, to begin his
studies. (We will return to what he studied in
a moment.) At the point his instructor felt him
to be 'ready', a student was permitted or en-
couraged to enter a competition. The themes
of the competition at three levels of increasing
difficulty were set by the Academy, written by
a senior professor, and announced six months
to a year in advance. In the early eighteenth
century, the third class was usually asked to
prepare a measured rendered evaluation of an
existing niche, doorway, altar, or exterior or
interior facade of a building. The second class
often prepared a design for a portion of the
theme set for the first class, for example, an
altar for a church which was included in the
first class design of quarters, college, and
hospital for priests (1702) or a Royal Salon
within the Pontifical Palace that was requested
of the first class (1703). The second class oc-
casionally was given a design directed towards
a perceived current need such as a facade for
S. Giovanni in Laterano (1705), a problem
under consideration until 1732, or a public
fountain (1706) at the time new designs were
being prepared for the Fontana di Trevi.
The first class was usually asked to design
a large building of complex function and plan;
for example, a papal administrativecenter and
associated offices (1704), a villa for a prince
on an island in a lake (1706), or a palatial royal
villa for three individuals of equal rank (1705),
the subject when Juvarra won first prize.
The competition was judged by the mem-
bers of the Academy. A first prize winner in
the third or second class was admitted to the
next higher class. Winning first prize in the
first class, as stated in the regulations published

32
in 1716, meant a student should no longer
compete but be included among those con-
sidered for election to the Academy. Election
was provisional, requiring the preparation of
a set piece of adequate polish and quality (as
judged by the Academy) for confirmation of
election. Juvarra delivered his design of a
central plan church with two campanilli on
April 3, 1707, three
?
months after election.
-
. '.} , *'. . "..
; "
i,:a0;"%
** :-^ r*** i - ***
St

Filippo Juvarra. Half plan and elevation of church with two

campanili submittedbyJuvarrafor admission to the Accademiadi
San Luca, 1707. Berlin, Kunstbibliothek.
The competition records of the Academy
show that the length of study after reaching
a level of proficiency sufficient to enter com-
petitions was variable. Juvarra had less than
a year of study, but Pietro Passalacqua, later
a very able architect, won second prize in the
third class in 1706, first prize in that class in
1707, second prize in the second class in 1708,
and only two seconds in the first class in 1710

33
and 1713, after seven years of competing. His
birthdate unfortunately is not known. Gabrieli
Valvassori, apparently more talented (his later
architecture is known to be significant), won
three prizes in the second and first classes in
1702, 1703, and 1704, completing the se-
quence at the age of 21. Another young com-
petitor, Filippo Vasconi, who later became an
accomplished print maker but is unknown as
an architect, won first prizes in all three classes
in successive years, starting at age eighteen.
While Juvarra at twenty-seven was older than
many students, others were even older.
Bernardo Vittone, for example, won first prize
in 1732 when he was thirty.
According to Niccolo Pio's biography of
Antonio Canevari, students at the Academy
studied mathematics, plane and solid geom-
etry, perspective, and architecture. (Canevari,
who was later a member of the Academy, was
nineteen in 1700, around which time he
studied at the Academy.) But there were other
subjects as well. In an assignment of an Acad-
emy of Design for the Concorso Clementino
in 1708, there was to be a classroom for shades
and shadows, as Juvarra's drawings confirm.
Other subjects were measured drawing and
rendering; materials, construction methods,
the orders, and military architecture were also
included (most likely within the term "archi-
tecture").
Seventeenthand Nineteenth Century Curricula
Lacking a precise curriculum for the period
1700 to 1715, it may be useful, in addition to
examining the exercises prepared byJuvarra,
to consider known published curricula that
bracket the period. Anna Maria Corbo has
published a remarkablyfull account of the cur-
riculum dating from the early nineteenth cen-
tury, after reforms were instituted as a result
of Winckelmann's theories. About a hundred
years after Juvarra taught at the Accademia,
in 1819, Pope Pius VII took steps to reinforce
the Academy following the Napoleonic occu-
pation. Professor Guiseppe Landi, President
of the Academy, was requested to prepare a
34
report describing the curriculum and teaching
methods employed by the faculty in 1818 and
any changes proposed or planned for 1819.
The report was also to include a list of students
at the various levels and in the different fields,
a financial report for 1818, and a budget for
1819. Landi's report was submitted to Pacca,
the papal treasurer and Cardinal Protector of
the Accademia. It contained this material plus
reports by eight other faculty: four on architec-
ture, one each on history (including mythology
and the habits of people), anatomy, painting,
drawing, and two on sculpture (one by Thor-
valdsen). The subjects treated in architecture
were theory (meaning design), materials and
methods of construction, elements of architec-
ture and ornament (the five orders, geometric
proportion, measured drawings), and mathe-
matics and physics (geometry, perspective and
optics).
The theory course, described by Professor
Raffaele Stern, was divided into three year-
long sections, with prerequisite courses in
mathematics and the elements of architecture
and ornament. The first section, a full year,
discussed the theory that lay behind the use
of the elements and orders, decoration, and
the principles of architectural beauty, using
three Vitruvian principles of symmetry, har-
mony of proportional relations, and propriety.
Further, the professortaught the way these fac-
tors were combined in plan and elevation to
achieve suitability and convenience as well as
adhere to principles of solidity and strength,
using examples from ancient and modern
buildings to be measured and drawn (if in
Rome) or copied from drawings or publica-
tions if elsewhere.
The second year dealt with planning of
private structures from small houses to royal
palaces. The third year, devoted to public
buildings, was divided in two sections -sacred
buildings and those that concerned security,
health and public utility-in short, all possi-
ble buildings. Each public building was
studied in history, as to its purpose, with
discussions of what the major writers on ar-
35
chitecture had said about the building type.
All the while the students were also set to
measuring existing buildings, and each year
several students were selected to measure a
building utilizing scaffolding erected by the
Academy specifically for the purpose of
measurement and the study of restoration.
Professor Stern reported that he also dis-
cussed military and hydraulic architecture,
analysis of materials, quantity surveying, some
legal matters in architecture, and a limited
history of the most celebrated monuments and
architects. In 1819 Stern had twenty students.
Professor Camporese's course in materials
and methods of construction consisted of
thirty-three sections on stability, materials,
wood, trusses, brick, stone, cement, founda-
tion, walls, ancient and modern construction
methods, bridges and roads, vaults, ropes and
cables, and water and conduits. He had four-
teen students, twelve of whom were in Stern's
class as well.
Professor Mazzoli's course in elements
began with the drawing of the five orders. Next
he taught relations between plan, elevation,
and section followed by shades and shadows,
complex vaults, measured drawings and copy-
ing from books. Fifty-seven students are listed
by Mazzoli; only a few were also in Stern'sand
Camporese's classes.
Professor Delicati's subject, mathematics
and physics, also covered three years: the
first for geometry, the second for perspective
and the last for optics (light, reflection,
shadows, mirrors, etc.). Delicati listed sixty-
nine students.
Guiseppi Guattani, the history professor,
also taught a three-year course. The first year
covered from the creation of the world to the
first century A.D., the second to 1500, and
the third to the present (1819). He used Bian-
chini's Storia Universale as a text. Guattani's
six students did not overlap with Stern or
Camporese.
It seems, therefore, that four or five years
were required to complete the course, if you
were talented. Occasionally, though, a pupil
36
would study under four professors at once.
The subjects taught include those cited by
Niccolo Pio-mathematics, plane and solid
geometry, perspective, and architecture- but
also additional subjects in theory or design
(some of which we are certain were taught in
the "architecture"subject in 1700), materials
and construction, and history.
Cours d'Architecture,published in Paris in
1675, provides another point of comparison
to the period 1700-1715 in Rome. Nicolas
Francois Blondel, head of the newly-founded
Academy of Architecture in Paris, prepared
the textbook for his students there. The in-
troduction to the Courscites Blondel's visits to
academies in Rome, Florence, and elsewhere,
and the text demonstrates the author's interest
in the treatises of Vignola, Palladio, Serlio,
Alberti, and Scamozzi.
The Cours, it seems, is a textbook for the
architectural design portion of a curriculum
more to be compared with the theory course
of Raffaele Stern than any other in the later
curriculum. Blondel's Coursomits considera-
tion of mathematics, geometry, perspective,
shades and shadows, materials and methods
of construction and structure. Instead, it con-
centrates attention on the orders (always com-
paring Vitruvius, Vignola, Palladio, and
Scamozzi) including pediments and balus-
trades, the use of the orders in buildings of
varied extent and with multiple floors, the
orders in arches, vaults and arcades, and the
orders in relation to openings of all kinds. The
second edition adds discussion of dormers,
chimneys, triumphal arches, bridges, aque-
ducts, and stairs, concluding with an examina-
tion of proportion and a theory of beauty and
architecture.

Juvarra's Folios
Apparently the other basic and pragmatic
subjects which must have formed part of an
architect's training in Paris, as they did in
Rome, did not require texts. Let us now,
through Juvarra's drawings, look at some of
these subjects.
37
 The album in the Royal Library in Turin
consists of 134 folios. It was given its title
GalleriaA rchitettonicaby a follower ofJuvarra,
the Piedmontese architect Ignazio Agliaudi,
who bought it, presumably after the death of
Juvarra. Agliaudi may also be responsible for
binding it in its present form.
Folios 1-37 relate closely to Book One of the
Treatiseof Sebastiano Serlio. They deal with
principles of plane geometry, the determina-
tion of areas and volumes of regular and ir-
regular figures and bodies, and surveying and
methods of determining the area of topo-
graphicalentities. Two folios then demonstrate
geometric derivation of the shapes of vases.
As far as I know, only Serlio's treatise begins
with geometry and provides a parallel. Alberti,
Vignola, Palladio and Scamozzi do not.
The next section ofJuvarra's text deals with
the measurement of heights of structures and
widths of rivers using a theorem of parallel
triangles. At this point, folio 42, discussion of
shades and shadows begins. This is a major
change because the first folio indicates how the
length of a shadow from a point source may
be determined first by locating the source in
space. The eight plates that follow depict ob-
jects drawn in perspectivethat demonstrate the
casting of shades and shadows from a point
source. We know from Delicati's description
that perspective normally followed geometry
in the second year, with consideration of point
sources left for the third year as a portion of
optics. Serlio's second book is, as we now
would expect, devoted to perspective. We
know that Juvarra taught perspective. Clear-
ly the exercises and sections on elementary
perspective he prepared for teaching have
been lost.
Alberti, Serlio, Vignola, Palladio, and
Scamozzi do not consider shades and shadows
in their treatises. The subject was of greater
interest to painters than architects. These folios
of Juvarra suggest that he taught a general
subject in perspective for beginning students
in painting, sculpture, and architecture, not

38
omitting exercises that would be primarily of
interest to painters and designers of stage
scenery. The exercises now missing would
have been followed by exercises in shades and
shadows from distant and point sources for
which we have seen definite evidence.
Military formations of cavalry are drawn on
folios 54-7 withJuvarra's notation that he saw
cavalry of Clement XI perform the manuvers
he describes in Rome in the year 1708. All
three dates found in the manuscript fall within
the period Juvarra was first teaching at the
Accademia and confirm these to be exercises
prepared for his teaching assignments.
Folios 58 through 90 contain designs of
fortresses-ideal and existing, bastions,
ravelins, tenailles, and moats with examples
from various sites in Europe. Military archi-
tecture was added as a separate subject at the
Accademia di San Luca as early as 1675. Spe-
cialized literature on the subject was as exten-
sive as that on perspective. Pozzo included for-
tress design and representation in his treatise.
In 1819 Stern listed it as one of the subjects
his students studied in the appendix courses.
Blondel does not list military architecture
among the subjects in his Cours, although the
French became the acknowledged experts in
the field in the seventeenth century. It is likely
the subject was taught there as well. The draw-
ings in the album suggest thatJuvarra was also
teaching military architecture.
Almost a third of the Juvarra album is
devoted to the Doric, Corinthian, Ionic,
Tuscan and Composite orders according to
different authors. However, only a fragment
survives: twenty-six folios on Tuscan columns,
eight on the Doric order, four on the Ionic,
and a single Corinthian entablature folio.
Treatises usually accord the same number
of plates to each of the five orders. If the
minimum number of folios for Juvarra's
discussion of the Tuscan order were the 26
preserved then we could expect the total num-
ber of folios required to be 130. If all were
prepared prior to teaching a subject on the
orders (and he may have intended to do so but
39
not been able to complete any more than re-
mains) there are 92 folios missing. The 38 that
remain testify toJuvarra's preparation for the
subject and the way it would be taught. (If he
had learned, as we are told, to draw the orders
through study of Vignola, Pozzo and others,
these drawings are not likely to date from his
own student days.) The prescriptions of
Montano were relatively recent and used by
Juvarra for the orders, just as he used Pozzo's
volume for the teaching of perspective. Theo-
reticians of stature including Vitruvius and the
moderns from the fifteenth century onwards
were considered as well as the advances of re-
cent scholarship and talent.
The faculty description of the architectural
design course at the Academy in 1819 included
drawings from buildings, some from scaffold-
ing, some from books. The elements of archi-
tecture also included measured drawing and
copying from books and other drawings. What
buildings were drawn? Which drawings from
the buildings and which from books? Which
books? What was the relationship between
published measured drawings and the prob-
lems given the third class?
Juvarra, it will be recalled, was asked to
draw buildings by Michelangelo and other
"praised-but-simple"architecture. Some of the
drawings Juvarra did in 1704 still exist; they
include the Campidoglio and the Palazzo
Farnese (as specified in the two lives) and the
Porta Pia. The drawings in this group also
contain studies of Borromini: The Lateran
basilica, S. Agnese in Piazza Navona, details
of the Palazzo Barberini, the Palazzo
Falconieri and S. Andrea delle Frate, and the
Filarmarino altar in SS. Apostoli in Naples.
Of Bernini's works, Juvarra drew S. Andrea
al Quirinale, S. Tommaso at Castel Gandolfo,
the Palazzo Barberini again, Palazzo Monte-
citorio, details from St. Peter's portico and
colonnade, and the Triton Fountain. After
Cortona, he drew SS. Luca e Martina, Villa
Sacchetti, and S. Maria in Via Lata. In addi-
tion there are drawings after works by Carlo
Fontana, Carlo Rainaldi, Andrea Pozzo and
40
others. As might be expected, there is an
overlap between the works being measured
and drawn by Juvarra and the problems set
for the Concorso Clementino in the third class.
Joseph Siry has recently suggested that for
these "measured" drawings students did not
need to visit the monuments (and perhaps did
not, he argued) but could, instead, open a copy
of the newly published Studio di Architettura
Civile by Domenico De Rossi and copy it
directly without leaving the drafting stool. We
have seen that copying from books was sanc-
tioned early on for studying the classical
orders. In 1819, copying from books was rec-
ommended when the buildings were not in
Rome, suggesting that there may have been
criticism if students copied from books when
the monuments were available.
The De Rossi volume was not meant to be
slavishly copied and was not. De Rossi was
most likely intended to be a valuable collec-
tion of portions and details of significant
buildings in Rome. It is probable De Rossi
selected buildings that were thought to be im-
portant by the faculty of the Accademia. It
follows that the faculty would ask that these
buildings be studied by students. In addition,
the rendering of shadows in De Rossi's illustra-
tions is mechanical. Thus, the limitation of
his representations provided an opportunity
for the faculty to be critical and suggest im-
provements in rendering. In short, the mea-
sured drawings that were published were a
good teaching instrument and probably much
used but in concert with drawing from the
monument.
Classicism versus Ornamentation
You will recall that one of the lives of
Juvarra told of his 'trial'design of a palace that
caused Fontana to advise him to forget all he
had learned. A similar incident reported by
Leone Pascoli suggests some of the interests
of at least a portion of the Academy student
body-the portion that included Juvarra.
Mattia Loret has called attention to a passage
in Pascoli's life of Giovanini Battista Contini,
41
an architect who, with Mattia De Rossi, was
one of the two inheritors of Bernini's architec-
tural commissions at his death in 1683. The
passage records a meeting between Contini,
a professor of architecture, and a student that
probably took place around 1700, shortly
before Juvarra arrived in Rome. The student,
proud of his ability and accomplishment, hav-
ing arrived with previous training from else-
where, showed the Bernini heir Contini a
design for a church facade, inspired by
Borromini, Bernini's chief rival. He spoke
rapidly and uninterruptedly of the virtues of
his inventive design. To bring such a design
to Contini was hazardous but indicative of the
developing interest in Borromini, shared also
by Juvarra.
Contini finally interrupted the student's
voluble representation. He told him that he
was following a bad path and that his little
curves, scallops, and arcs (words used by the
student) should be left to cabinet makers,
carpenters, carriage men, sedan chair makers,
festival designers, flag makers, and to chil-
dren's shrines, for those forms were better
adapted to their use. Model your work,
Contini continued, on the facades of St.
Peter's, the Gesu, SS. Martina e Luca,
S. Maria in via Lata, and S. Susanna (i.e.,
Maderno, Della Porta, Cortona, avoiding the
obvious, Bernini, Contini's master). "To the
exclusion of everything else, try to imitate
them. Then you will do well, then in this way
you will not appear ridiculous to those who
know. In Rome, even though people do
nothing and don't know how to do anything,
they do know about architecture. And you,
little wretch, presumptuous little chatterbox,
little parroting child, you expect to walk
among them as an adult? And you, powdered
pedant, who arrived yesterday from the muck
with three pennyworth of clothes on your back,
do you think to play a little Borromini in the
capital of the world?" Contini then held the
design up in front of him, according to Pascoli,
called over the other students and, exagger-
ating the loathsomeness of the drawing, told
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them if one of them had ever happened on this
path he would have immediately thrown him
out of the school to avoid infecting the others
with the disease.
Fontana, Juvarra's teacher, was also a fol-
lower of Bernini, one who thought he ought
to have inherited many of the master's com-
missions. His negative reaction to Juvarra's
trial design, as reported in the short life,
records a similar incident though with less
colorful language. Juvarra's palace may have
contained Borrominesque elements derived
from contact with Guarino Guarini's work in
Messina. Like Contini, Fontana counselled the
drawing of simple buildings by excellent ar-
chitects. Yet we know Juvarra drew Bor-
romini's buildings, although later in his life he
was to say somewhat piously and pedantic-
ally that in his work solidity was apparent,
solidity derived from following the teaching of
Vitruvius and Palladio; and that he (uvarra)
had always been an admirer of the simple
within which each art finds its perfection. He
also said, I believe more forthrightly and
honestly, "But it is not that I have neglected
ornament or embellishment. I have used it in
moderation and I have endeavored with all my
strength to imitate in this (i. e., ornament) the
style of Cavaliere Borromini." It is evident
from this statement, from Juvarra's drawings,
and from his later work that Borromini was
an important influence on Juvarra during his
days as a student in Rome, while he taught
at the Accademia, and throughout his career.
By 1702, the faculty at the Academy recog-
nized Borromini's achievements to the extent
that a measured drawing exercise for the third
class in the first Concorso Clementino was a
plan and rendered elevation of one of the
twelve niches by Borromini lining the nave of
S. Giovanni in Laterano. But this choice may
have been prompted by Clement XI's decision,
probably made in 1702, to place large marble
statues of the twelve apostles in the niches. The
Borromini undercurrent, while present, was
not to break through to the surface except in
isolated eddies for another twenty years. Then,
43
those who had been students at the Accademia
in the first decade of the century began to
receive commissions.
The measured drawings to be done for the
Concorsi over the next five years (1703-1709)
were of works by Bernini in three of the five
years and of works by Cortona and Ponzio the
remaining two. But in 1710 and 1711, dur-
ing Juvarra's second pair of teaching years,
Borromini's adherents were gaining strength,
for the measured drawings were to be of his
works.
Rudolf Wittkower, in his volume on art and
architecture in Italy from 1600 to 1750, notes
that talent and works of sublime beauty were
crowded into a fertile twenty-year period after
the comparatively uneventful first quarter of
the century. Among the group of talented
architects (he cites a dozen), there were a
number who developed their own character-
istic eighteenth century manner out of
Borromini's ideas. Among this group were
Francesco De Sanctis, designer of the Spanish
Steps, Filippo Raguzzini, Guiseppe Sardi,
Pietro Passalacqua and Domenico Gregorini.
Passalacqua and Gregorini were students at
the Accademia in the period 1707-13 while
Juvarra taught there. The growing interest in
Borromini among the young students may
have been nurtured by Juvarra and other 'pro-
gressive' faculty. This interest also may have
aided the posthumous publication in 1720 and
1725 of the volumes Borromini had prepared
on his work at the Sapienza and the house of
the Filippini.
But the 'new wave' did not, in the end,
sweep aside the more classical and restrained
followers of Bernini. That tradition was more
easily maintained and transmitted, with its
simpler theoretical base and less revolutionary
goals, and it persisted and eventually pre-
vailed. In the later eighteenth century it was
Bernini and his sources (Palladio, Vignola,
and Bramante) who sustained the national
classicism which flourished.Juvarra, even with
his Borrominesque decoration, together with
Vanvitelli, Fuga, and Galilei were considered
44
by succeeding generations to be the architects
who had maintained the classical tradition. Of
fundamental importance to the continuance
of this tradition in the eighteenth century was
the educational program of the Accademia di
San Luca.

Henry A. Millon is Dean of the Centerfor

AdvancedStudyin the VisualArts at theNational
Gallery of Art.

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