Italian Baroque and Rococo Architecture

Abstract

From the late 1500s to the mid-1700s, Italy gave the world some of the liveliest and most imaginative structures in the history of architecture. This profusely illustrated book is the first comprehensive study in English of the works that emerged throughout the Italian peninsula during this critical period. If Renaissance architecture was to be contemplated on an intellectual level, John Varriano writes, architecture was to be experienced with the emotions and the senses. The grandiloquent projects of the Baroque age were generally sponsored, either directly or indirectly, by the Catholic Church, but as Varriano notes, their appeal has always transcended the immediate self-promotion of their patrons and held powerful sway over people of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. Coming from an era when architecture was considered a true art, the best Baroque buildings are capable of provoking universal human responses. Italian Baroque and Rococo Architecture offers chapters on the key architects of the time--Gianlorenzo Bernini, Francesco Borromini, Pietro da Cortona, Guarino Guarini--as well as detailed treatments of the work of many less well-known architects who were active from Sicily to Venice. More than half of the 190 photographs and illustrations were made expressly for this book or have not previously been published. These pictures wre chosen to convey the actual experience of the site. About the Author: John Varriano is Professor of Art History at Mount Holyoke College. He has published numerous articles in his field and is the co-author of Roma Resurgens: Papal Medals from the Age of the Baroque. The first comprehensive study of a key era in architectural history