Luigi Vanvitelli
Luigi Vanvitelli | |
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Palace of Caserta and Royal Palace of Naples | |
Movement | Baroque and Neoclassicism |
Luigi Vanvitelli (Italian pronunciation: [luˈiːdʒi vaɱviˈtɛlli]; 12 May 1700 – 1 March 1773), known in Dutch as Lodewijk van Wittel (IPA: [ˈloːdəʋɛik fɑɱ ˈʋɪtəl]),[a] was an Italian architect and painter. The most prominent 18th-century architect of Italy, he practised a sober classicising academic Late Baroque style that made an easy transition to Neoclassicism.
Biography
Vanvitelli was born in Naples, the son of an Italian woman, Anna Lorenzani, and a Dutch painter of land and cityscapes (veduta), Caspar van Wittel, who also used the name Vanvitelli.
He was trained in Rome by the architect
In Rome, Vanvitelli stabilized the dome of St. Peter's Basilica when it developed cracks and found time to paint frescos in a chapel at Sant Cecilia in Trastevere. He also built a bridge over the Calore Irpino in Benevento.
Beginning in 1742 Vanvitelli designed (along with
Reggia di Caserta
Vanvitelli's technical and engineering capabilities, together with his sense of scenographic drama led
Included in the Reggia di Caserta was the fan-shaped Vigna del Ventaglio vineyard. Planted on sloping terrain in the San Leucio frazione near the palace, the vineyard was planted in a semicircle design subdivided into 10 segments (or "fan blades") each planted to a different grape variety. Among the varieties known to have been planted in the Vigna del Ventaglio were native Campanian varieties Pallagrello bianco and Pallagrello nero.[2]
Vanvitelli worked on the project for the rest of his life, for Charles and for his successor Ferdinand IV. In Naples, he added to the city's royal palace (1753) and some aristocratic palaces, and churches such as the new church and monastery for the Missione ai Vergini. His engineering talents were exercised as well: for Caserta, he devised the great aqueduct system that brought water to run the cascades and fountains.
Luigi Vanvitelli died at Caserta in 1773.
Notes
References
- ^ For a detailed study of this chapel, see Sousa Viterbo and R. Vincente d’Almeida, A Capella de S. João Baptista Erecta na Egreja de S. Roque... (Lisbon, 1900; reprinted 1902 and 1997); and more recently, Maria João Madeira Rodrigues, A Capela de S. João e as suas Colecções (Lisbon, 1988), translated as The Chapel of Saint John the Baptist and its Col[l]ections in São Roque Church, Lisbon (Lisbon, 1988).
- ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2
External links
- Riccardo Cigola, brief biography of Vanvitelli
- Architectural and ornament drawings: Juvarra, Vanvitelli, the Bibiena family, & other Italian draughtsmen, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Vanvitelli (see index)