Francesco Borromini

A large genealogical print by Wenceslaus Hollar, done in Antwerp in 1645, was commissioned by Manuel de Moura y Corte Real, the second marquis of Castel Rodrigo, five years after the termination of his term as ambassador of Philip IV of Spain to Rome (1634-40). One of his projects in Rome was the construction of a funeral chapel destined for Sāo Bento in Lisbon by the Flemish sculptor François Duquesnoy, commemorating eight ancestors. The print traces the roots of the marquis's family tree along with that of his wife, Leonor de Melo, back to the Middle Ages. In a book of poems published in 1639 under Leonor de Melo's patronage we find the names of the eight ancestors. The monuments themselves, though probably shipped to Lisbon, remain undiscovered.

Le schede dei documenti esposti nella mostra "La fabbrica della Sapienza" sono articolate in cinque sezioni tematico-cronologiche che corrispondono
a quelle presenti nel percorso espositivo:
- i documenti biografici;
- il complesso di Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza;
- il progetto borrominiano di intervento su palazzo Giustiniani;
- l’università della Sapienza;
- i protagonisti del Barocco (Bernini, Borromini e Pietro
da Cortona).
Di ciascun documento, edito e inedito, sono forniti la datazione,
il regesto, la segnatura e la bibliografia espressa in forma abbreviata (autore e anno di pubblicazione). In alcuni casi sono inseriti anche la trascrizione integrale o parziale del documento e un commento.

The only project Mario Ridolfi (1904-1984) designed especially for the First Exhibition of Italian Architecture (opened on 28 March 1928 in Rome) was a cylindrical twisted Tower of restaurants. Although it did not capture immediate attention, it eventually became the emblematic image of the exhibition itself. The design also became a neuralgic point of Ridolfi’s architectural thought, especially for his exploration of the rotation of central volumes along their axis, resulting in some genius later solutions (the Agip motel in Settebagni near Rome, a design for a motel in Belgrade (Serbia), Terni communal offices (the so-called waste-basket) and house Lina in Marmore etc.).
Numerous hypothesis have been advanced regarding the formal genesis of the Tower of Restaurants, among which the architect himself mentioned a famous twisted column of the St. Peter’s baldachin by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1599-1681). Nevertheless, the analysis of the Ridolfi’s creative process reveals a much more complex procedure, with possible Baroque stimuli also including Borromini’s designs for the tower of San Carlino. Particularly important for the young Roman architect were the references to expressionist architecture, especially designs by Erich Mendelsohn (1887-1953), known to Ridolfi mainly through architectural and other publications. A comparison with the rounded angular solution of the Schocken department store in Stuttgart (1926-1928) is rather revealing, as Ridolfi could have assimilated (in a rather personal way) its circular matrix, skeletal structure and the very power of the architectural volume. The German architect also explored the idea that the form of industrial architecture and shops should reflect the product; thus influencing Ridolfi’s reference (with a ludic twist) to a restaurant tower as an unstable pile of plates carried by the waiter. Finally, the originality of Ridolfi’s project is not so much in the “spiral progress” of horizontal planes, but in his capacity to breathe life into the otherwise unanimated cylindrical volume.

Documento di ricerca e approfondimento sulla chiesa di San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane e sulla figura di Francesco Borromini, nell'ampio panorama dell'architettura barocca a Roma:

"[...] l'approccio di Borromini alla storia e alla tradizione è profondo e complesso. Egli studia il classico, lo rielabora a discapito dei dogmi dell'architettura del Cinquecento e indaga altre epoche fino ad allora stigmatizzate, riconducendo poi il tutto ad una sintesi".

Progetto realizzato nell'ambito del corso di Storia dell'Architettura II "Miti, figure e linguaggi della modernità", a cura del prof. Maurizio Gargano.
Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Dipartimento di Architettura, a.a. 2016/2017