Giovanni Fontana (architect)

Giovanni Fontana (Melide, 1540 – Rome, 1614) was a late-Mannerist architect, as well as brother of Domenico Fontana, and uncle of architect Carlo Maderno.[1]

Life

Fontana began his career as an architect as an assistant to Giacomo della Porta, implementing designs by Michelangelo.[2] In 1587 Pope Sixtus V had the church of San Girolamo dei Croati completely rebuilt for the Croatian-speaking community in Rome. The architects were Martino Longhi the Elder and Fontana.[3] In 1596 he undertook some engineering projects, such as the draining of the Rieti Valley which was commissioned by pope Clement VIII.

He built one of the most important rural villas of the Roman Campagna in 1601-1605 for the Aldobrandini family. Castello di Torrenova was originally a medieval farmhouse that Fontana enlarged and embellished with Renaissance details and crenellated walls. Next to the castle a small late Renaissance church was built dedicated to Saint Clement, the patron saint of the Aldobrandini Pope, Clement VIII.

Fontana dell'Acqua Paola

He also worked on the garden of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini's Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati.[4][5]

Fontana is the first great architect-engineer who carves out a role in hydraulics that deals with the leveling of land, the conduct of canals, and the control of the speed of water. He brought water back to Rome by reorganizing and exploiting the hydraulic works of the past.[2] Around 1612, Pope Paul V commissioned Fontana to design the Fontana dell'Acqua Paola on the Janiculum to create a source of clean drinking water for the residents.[6] The form of the fountain served as an inspiration for the later Trevi Fountain.

References
  1. "Giovanni Fontana", The British Museum
  2. Antonini, Checchino. "Giovanni Fontana, l'uomo che sapeva condurre l'acqua", tvsvizzera.it, October 24, 2021
  3. "San Girolamo dei Croati", Churches of Rome
  4. Attlee, Helena (2006). Italian Gardens - A Cultural History, London: Frances Lincoln. p. 92 ISBN 9780711233928
  5. Wass, Stephen. Seventeenth-century Water Gardens and the Birth of Modern Scientific thought in Oxford, Windgather Press, 2022, p. 31 ISBN 9781914427183
  6. D'Onofrio, Cesare, Le Fontane di Roma, con documenti e disegni inediti, 2nd edition, Rome, 1962
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