Neoclassical architecture in Italy developed from the second half of the eighteenth century, in the context of small states, often in conflict with each other and dominated by foreign powers, which preceded the establishment of the unitary kingdom under Victor Emmanuel II .
For this reason Neoclassicism did not affirm itself in the same way throughout the territory; the absence of a unitary culture and the great poverty that gripped the Italian peninsula in the eighteenth century were not favorable circumstances for a flourishing architectural production.
At the beginning of the same century a short but extraordinary late-Baroque season had occurred: in Rome , monuments such as Piazza di Spagna , Fontana di Trevi and Piazza Sant’Ignazio were realized, while in Piedmont Filippo Juvarra and Bernardo were at work Antonio Vittone . The activity then moved to the Kingdom of Naples , where Ferdinando Fuga and Luigi Vanvitelli had been called to raise the Real Albergo dei Poveri and the Royal Palace of Caserta respectively ; in particular, the Palace, despite external hints of a certain neoclassical content, is considered the last great achievement and incarnation of the best tradition of Italian Baroque. The affirmation of Neoclassicism was therefore slow and tiring, and was essentially affected by foreign contributions, particularly from France .
To this overall picture is added the lack of interest of scholars in the Italian neoclassical architecture, which for a long time has limited a thorough and serene examination. Despite the difficulties generated by the socio-political context, Neoclassicism in Italy produced numerous remarkable works. More recent studies have in fact highlighted the distinctive features, peculiarities and, in some ways, the unitary characteristics of Italian production, in its regional or even local variations, in the context of that polycentrism that still characterized the Peninsula between the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century.
Historical context
The complex events that affected the Italian regions between the end of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century can be substantially distinguished in a pre-revolutionary or eighteenth-century phase, in a revolutionary phase coinciding with the French occupation, and in a third phase, that of Restoration , which preceded the annexation to the Kingdom of Italy .
With the French Revolution the relations between the Papal States and France deteriorated considerably. During the Italian campaign of 1796 the territories of the Church were invaded and the city of Rome was occupied; declared the Roman Republic , Pope Pius VI was deported first to Tuscany and then to France. The new pontiff, Pius VII , was able to return to Rome when coalition forces prevailed over the French. At the same time Napoleon Bonaparte replaced the revolutionary drive with the idea of constituting a world empire; with a view to establishing religious unity, he stipulated a concordat with the Church, but faced with the Pope’s refusal to stand against the enemies of France, the Papal State was again occupied, until the definitive capitulation of Bonaparte.
The first hostilities between France and the Kingdom of Naples occurred in 1793; in 1796 an armistice was stipulated, but in 1799 Naples and his kingdom were invaded by the French army. In the wake of revolution, in 1799 was established the Neapolitan Republic , which was bloodyly repressed within a few months and was followed by the first restoration of the Bourbons . In 1801 the kingdom stipulated a treaty of neutrality with France, but the violation of the pact caused the second French occupation of the city and the dismissal of Ferdinand IV , with the ascent to the throne of Joseph Bonaparte . Bonaparte held the state between 1806 and 1808, when it was replaced by Gioacchino Murat , who remained there until 1815, the year of the second restoration of the Bourbons.
The Republic of Venice ceased to exist in 1797 . It was occupied by Napoleon’s troops, but part of its territories were ceded to the Austrian Empire following the Treaty of Campoformio . The change of regime caused a serious economic crisis. Things improved with the return of the French; Veneto was thus annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , however, with the Congress of Vienna the unified territory of Lombardy-Veneto returned under Austrian control.
In 1737 the Grand Duchy of Tuscany passed under the Habsburg-Lorraine . With Peter Leopold of Lorraine , who was Grand Duke between 1765 and 1790, the state was affected by important reforms of commerce, public administration and justice. Following the French occupation there was the formation of the Kingdom of Etruria (1801-1807) and the subsequent annexation of Tuscany to the French Empire . The restoration of Ferdinand III of Lorraine in 1814, the ascent to the throne of his son Leopold II and the annexation of the Republic of Lucca in 1847 complete the Tuscan political affair of the neoclassical age.
Lombardy in the late eighteenth century was still subject to the ‘ Austrian Empire , but in 1797, with the rise of Napoleon, the former Duchy of Milan became part of the Cisalpine Republic . During the French administration, Milan became the meeting point of all the Jacobins and all the Italian progressives. For a short time the region returned under Austrian control, but on 2 June 1800 Napoleon entered Milan at the head of his army. After the battle of Marengo the second Cisalpine Republic was born, which at first changed its name to the Italian Republic and then into the Kingdom of Italy, until the fall of 1814.
The Kingdom of Sardinia , after the defeat suffered by the Piedmontese in 1796 by the French army in the context of the first Italian campaign, gave Nice and Savoy to France. In 1800, during the second Italian Campaign , Napoleone secured the possession of Piedmont and Liguria , which in the meantime had been transformed into the Ligurian Republic . Between 1802 and 1805 Piedmont and Genoa were united to the French Empire. After the Congress of Vienna, which re-established the Savoy on the Piedmontese throne, the Kingdom of Sardinia was increased by Liguria.
Regional variants
Veneto
Although much of the critics believe that Italian Neoclassicism originated in Rome, it was nevertheless in the Veneto region that an architectural taste was gradually beginning to take shape in the first half of the eighteenth century, more in keeping with European trends. Although it is difficult to establish the birth of a precise neoclassical orientation, the Museo Maffiano of Verona , completed in 1745 by Alessandro Pompeii (1705-1782), can be considered an anticipation of Neoclassicism.
At the same time, Venice played a role in the theoretical elaboration of neoclassical principles with the presence of Carlo Lodoli and Francesco Algarotti , supporters of functionalist and anti-barbarian ideas, who operated in a context still largely dominated by the legacy of Palladio , without therefore being able to exert a lot of influence on contemporaries. In Venice, however, it is possible to identify an architectural line of a certain consistency, already found in the portico of the church of San Nicola da Tolentino (1706-1714) by Andrea Tirali , which was followed by the churches of San Simone Piccolo di Giovanni Antonio Scalfarotto and della Maddalena (1780) by Tommaso Temanza , who already in 1748 had proposed a facade of rational flavor to the church of Santa Margherita in Padua . The Church of La Maddalena, in particular, can be taken as a manifesto of the new orientations. Strangely criticized by contemporaries for its excess of “paganity”, it was conceived as a compact cylindrical volume, around which the irregular spaces of the ancient Venetian urban fabric revolve.
In the early years of the nineteenth century most of the commissions were entrusted to foreign architects, such as Giuseppe Soli , author of the western side of Piazza San Marco , and Lorenzo Santi , who renewed the Patriarchal Palace .
After the Napoleonic interval, Giuseppe Jappelli (1785-1852) established himself; student of Selva, he owes his fame to the Caffè Pedrocchi and the Pedrocchino of Padua , an eclectic building in which neo-gothic forms are also combined. He also worked in numerous Venetian villas, showing a decisive and competent style, worthy of international Neoclassicism.
Rome
In Rome , after the extraordinary baroque and late baroque season that produced its fruits until the early decades of the eighteenth century, there was no particularly lively activity. In any case, the theoretical culture of Veneto found a point of reference in Rome: the admiration for Palladio and the study of the ancient world thus merged into a single cultural line. Moreover, in 1740, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) arrived in the capital of the Papal State from Venice; the study of the Roman vestiges provided an exciting stimulus for his incisor production, with the drafting of works that will greatly influence the neoclassical culture. However, his architectural production was limited: the church of Santa Maria al Priorato (1764) appears as a very traditional building, full of decorations absolutely distant from the Hellenic serenity desired by Johann Joachim Winckelmann . Another Venetian, Giacomo Quarenghi (1744-1817), before leaving for Russia , rebuilt the cathedral of Santa Scolastica in Subiaco , in a simplified Palladianism revisited through the knowledge of ancient monuments.
The second half of the century saw the active Marches Carlo Marchionni (1702-1786), who was called to build the villa of Cardinal Albani . Characterized by a redundant neocinquecentismo, the dwelling can be considered a theater for the new orientations of Roman architecture; just think that his client was a great collector of archaeological finds, promoter of excavation campaigns, to whose merits he added that he had appointed Winckelmann as his librarian. Nevertheless, the name of Marchionni is linked above all to that of the Sacristy of St. Peter’s in the Vatican , an unhappy, excessively lavish work, which suffered severe criticism from the only Italian scholar of a certain importance, Francesco Milizia . The Militia was in fact an admirer of the simplicity of Greek art and grandiose Roman public works. He supported the idea of architecture as a rational art at the service of civil society; an interesting aspect of his thought, however, was that of not excluding, in urban planning interventions, the need of the different, of the irregular, however controlled and not spontaneous, in order to annul the risk of monotony.
The real Neoclassicism came to Rome with Giovanni Battista Visconti , Commissioner of Museums and Superintendent of Antiquities, succeeded Winckelmann after 1768. Visconti promoted a series of significant transformations at the Vatican Museums , which began with the alteration of the octagonal courtyard by Alessandro Dori , later replaced by Michelangelo Simonetti . After 1775, under the papacy of Pope Pius VI , the work resumed with greater vigor. On the design of Simonetti himself and Pietro Camporese , impressive museum halls were added, such as the Muse, the Greek cross hall and the access stairway. Between 1817 and 1822, Raffaele Stern created the so-called Braccio Nuovo. Taken together, these environments constitute a sequence of different spaces, all characterized by an unusual archaeological correctness, which however will be difficult to apply to minor works.
The French occupation of Rome coincided with the assertion of a neoclassical style that was safe and easy to imitate. Giuseppe Valadier (1762-1839), who had worked extensively in the Papal States and in particular in Urbino where he had restored the Cathedral in neopalladian style, became the main figure of reference. To justify the architect’s success he contributed, at least initially, to the dual condition of a good Catholic and of a French origin. Valadier was involved in the restoration of the Colosseum , the Arch of Titus , the Pantheon and Ponte Milvio , also devoting himself to the projects of Villa Torlonia , the Caffè del Pincio , the façade of San Rocco and the arrangement of Piazza del Popolo , the latter considered a masterpiece of Italian Neoclassicism from an urban point of view.
Before the intervention of Valadier, Piazza del Popolo appeared as a chaotic, albeit strongly characterized, space between the Porta del Popolo and the baroque churches of Carlo Rainaldi . In 1793, taking into account the indications of a competition held twenty years earlier, the architect presented a first proposal for the arrangement of the square, characterized by an architectural space in the shape of a trapeze, with large buildings intended for barracks, shielded by two orders of columns. This design was followed by a second project, in which the trapezoidal plan was maintained, but, instead of the long buildings provided for in the initial solution, two gates were inserted, beyond which large gardens were planned. The final design, which was affected by some modifications introduced by Louis-Martin Berthault , was approved in 1813. Valadier took the square in an elliptical form, with the insertion of two symmetrical monumental walls on the sides of the Rainaldi twin churches; also connected the two hemicycles with the Via del Babuino and Ripetta thanks to the presence of new buildings, and similar symmetry gave the side facing the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo . As noted by the critics, in Piazza del Popolo Neoclassicism did not become the dominant element, but contributed to the perfect coexistence between the different architectural emergencies.
Naples
The agricultural colony of San Leucio belongs to the eighteenth-century phase of Neapolitan Neoclassicism, built starting in 1773 by the will of Ferdinando IV a few kilometers from the capital of the kingdom. The colony can be considered a link in the chain of utopias of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His system was based on a code that enshrined the right and duty to work, in addition to the parity of all settlers; the remuneration was made with an increasing fee based on capacity. Moreover, the matrimonial skills were abolished and there was a mutual assistance system for the sick and for the elderly. The government was entrusted to representatives of the people, but the constant presence of the king in San Leucio highlighted however all the absolutism of the sovereign. The urban composition of the colony was edited by Francesco Collecini (1723-1804), which was based on a precise symmetrical order. From an architectural point of view, the houses expressed a rustic character, not without a certain solidity. The main building, consisting of the Belvedere, contained the school, the church, the royal residence, the residence of the main citizens, the depots and the equipment of the opificio. The southern front, characterized by large glazed openings, giant pilasters and a high tympanum , bears witness to a classicistic taste derived from the work of Luigi Vanvitelli .
A more marked break with the Baroque tradition can be found in the architectural production carried out during the French decade (1806-1815). This period includes a series of important road axes, the Poggioreale cemetery , the San Carlo Theater façade and the start of works for the Palazzo di Piazza (then Piazza del Plebiscito ). The completion of the Palazzo di Palazzo, with the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola , the rebuilding of the Teatro San Carlo after the fire that in 1816 had destroyed the eighteenth-century structures, the completion of the botanical garden of the Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory (the latter by Stefano Gasse ), as well as the works for the Sala del Trono of the Royal Palace of Caserta and for the reorganization of the Palazzo Reale conducted by Gaetano Genovese .
The church of San Francesco di Paola is instead one of the most important sacred buildings of the period, so much so that it is considered by critics as “the richest and most accurate of the new Italian churches”. Its construction, linked to the complex political events of the Kingdom of Naples, was undertaken as the crowning achievement of the Palazzo di Largo. The first idea to order the square that opened in front of the Royal Palace was by Giuseppe Bonaparte , but the beginning of the works is due to Gioacchino Murat , who in 1809 announced a competition for the related project. The competition saw the design of Leopoldo Laperuta prevail, which created an elliptical colonnade in front of the Royal Palace. With the Restoration of the Bourbons of Naples , King Ferdinando wanted to emphasize the temple that was to be located in the center of the colonnade. A second contest was launched which, after several controversies, saw the project of the Lugano architect Pietro Bianchi (1787-1849) stand out. Bianchi created a church strongly inspired by the Pantheon of Rome, differentiating it only in its proportions and in the presence of two smaller domes on the sides of the main cap. The overall effect succeeded in grading the passage between the monumental order of the square and the confused buildings located on the back hill of Pizzofalcone . The inside of the church, however, is less happy than the outside, exuding a cemetery coldness in the rich decoration of marbles, stuccos and garlands. This obvious gap insinuated the doubt that Neoclassicism was more suited to the architecture of the villas, palaces, theaters and palaces rather than that of the churches; for this reason, shortly thereafter, the ecclesiastical architecture turned towards the neogothic .
Sicily
Linked to the activity of Naples, but distinct from it, it is the Sicilian one. In both geographic areas, despite the archaeological discoveries and the ensuing debate, Neoclassicism did not succeed in establishing itself on a large scale. In major urban centers, thanks to high commissions, there are episodes of great innovative scope, while in smaller towns the reality will remain linked to the consolidated types of island.
In Palermo , already in 1750, Palazzo Isnello was completed, whose main façade, the work of an unknown architect, presents stylistic elements that precede Neoclassicism in the region. In any case, it is believed that the overcoming of the sumptuous local Baroque coincides with the presence on the island of the French Léon Dufourny , a scholar of the ancient temples on the island, and who, starting in 1789, designed the main building of the new botanical garden of Palermo , with a Doric style pronaos .
Much later is attributable rather to nineteenth-century eclecticism , instead it is the construction, designed by Giovan Battista Filippo Basile and his son Ernesto , of the Teatro Massimo di Palermo (1875-1897), a pharaonic building embellished by an imposing decorative apparatus and a iron cover.
Tuscany
In the second half of the eighteenth century Pietro Leopoldo became Grand Duke of Tuscany ; an enlightened ruler, he focused his attention on the reform of the state, demonstrating a constant attitude of prudence towards the costs of architectural enterprises. In 1784 he founded the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence , entrusting its direction to Gaspare Paoletti , who, even if he is a continuer of the Renaissance tradition, can be considered the initiator of the neoclassical taste in Tuscany . Paoletti, who boasted an excellent preparation both on the architectural and on the technical level, transmitted to his pupils this dual attitude, precisely in the years when the split between the Académie des beaux-arts and the École polytechnique occurred in Paris. . Unlike other regions, where in the years of renewal architects from outside came often, the Academy of Florence directly formed the protagonists of a particularly dense and interesting season for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany: Giuseppe Cacialli (1770-1828), Pasquale Poccianti (1774-1858), Luigi de Cambray Digny (1779-1843), Cosimo Rossi Melocchi (1758-1820), Giuseppe Valentini (1752-1833), Alessandro Manetti (1787-1865) and Carlo Reishammer (1806-1883) .
In the years of French domination, Giuseppe Cacialli found a remarkable success: he worked at the Villa of Poggio Imperiale , at Palazzo Pitti , in the Napoleonic quarter of Palazzo Medici Riccardi . Often he found himself working with Poccianti, although the respective contributions are always distinguishable. So, while at the Poccianti we owe the central part of the facade of the Villa of Poggio Imperiale, to Cacialli goes the merit of the rest of the work. Concerning the construction site of Palazzo Pitti, at Cacialli we owe the Sala dell’Iliade, of Ercole, the bath of Maria Teresa; in Poccianti the completion of the Palazzina della Meridiana (initiated by Paoletti), the arrangement of the head rounds on the sides of the façade and the monumental staircase.
With the Pasquale Restoration Poccianti established itself as the main architect of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. His addition to the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (1816-1841), is one of the most relevant examples of the Neoclassic in Florence, although he has harmed the overall view of the Michelangelesque factory. In any case, his fame is essentially linked to the completion of the Livorno Leopoldine Aqueduct , which had been started in 1793 by Giuseppe Salvetti . Here he created works extraordinarily close to those of the architecture of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux , as the Cisternone (1829-1842), the reservoir at the end of the pipeline route and characterized by a ” revolutionary ” semi-dome decorated with coffered panels.For the aqueduct he also designed two other cisterns, namely the Pian di Rota reservoir and the so-called Cisternino di città . Overall, these are buildings with clear and contrasting volumes, where the French influences are combined with the evident knowledge of Roman thermal architecture and the Tuscan tradition of the fourteenth century (the latter can be seen in the narrow slit windows open along the massive bodies of the factory of tanks).
The Sienese Agostino Fantastici (1782-1845), who probably attended the Accademia di San Luca and studied under Raffaele Stern, was instead of Roman formation . Returning to his homeland, he was the author of numerous interventions of civil and religious architecture. He was profoundly influenced by Piranesi , from whom he will draw a decorative sample that can be found in many of his works, both in the field of architecture and in the design of furniture.
In the Duchy of Lucca worked Lorenzo Nottolini (1787-1851), that, in the same years in which Poccianti brought to term the aqueduct of Livorno, was engaged in the imposing supply system Lucca , realizing a duct raised , perfectly rectilinear , three kilometers long and supported by over 400 arches.
Trieste
The city of Trieste was affected by episodes at all secondary in the history of Italian Neoclassicism. Free port of the Austrian Empire , in 1729 it had four thousand inhabitants; at the beginning of the nineteenth century there were about thirty thousand. The eighteenth-century city was traced by Francesco Saverio Bonomo , who designed a checkered road system on the site of the abandoned salt pans. The new city coincided with the development of a neoclassical taste responding to the needs of the urban bourgeoisie.
The Villa Necker , the Villa Murat and Palazzo Pitteri (1780) are the works that anticipate Neoclassicism Trieste. In any case, the first factory adhering to a real neoclassical code was the Teatro Verdi , built starting in 1798 by Giannantonio Selva and completed in its majority by Matteo Pertsch (1769-1834). The resemblance of the theater at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan testifies to the formation of the architect, who had been a pupil of the Accademia di Brera and Giuseppe Piermarini .
Also in Pertsch is Palazzo Carciotti (1806), shielded by a slightly protruding hexastyle portico that holds a monumental balustrade behind which a hemispherical dome opens. The work, a mixture of Nordic classicism and Palladian reminiscences, influenced the Trieste civil architecture for a long time. Among his other achievements stands the Rotonda Panzera , of 1818, which was originally intended to house a Masonic lodge . The irregular conformation of the lot determined the formation of a curvilinear prospect, with a base on which rises a giant order of Ionic columns . In the competition for the Mercantile Stock Exchange, the design of the Pertsch was however preferred that of Antonio Mollari , who designed a valuable building shielded by a tetrastyle pronaos.
If the church of Sant’Antonio was defined as the most interesting work of its time from the spatial point of view, the Casa Costanzi , built by Nobile around 1840, is presented in a clear style and without ornaments, now out of fashion in the rest of Europe.
Lombardia
In the last decades of the eighteenth century, Lombardy was still subject to the Austrian Empire . The reformist climate initiated by Maria Teresa laid the foundations for a strong impulse in the architectural field; numerous artists were recalled, schools and professional studies were formed. In Milan the scene is initially dominated by Giuseppe Piermarini (1734-1808), whose language, however, can not yet be considered completely neoclassical. Trained in Rome, he was a pupil of Vanvitelli , of whom he had been assisting in the construction of the Royal Palace of Caserta; among his most significant works are the Palazzo Belgioioso (1772-1781), destined to become a paradigm for the Milanese palaces, the Villa Reale di Monza (from 1776), in which he refuses the search for spatial fluences and interpenetration of the different volumes , and the Teatro alla Scala (1776-1778), which will become the model for the European neoclassical theaters. In general, the vocabulary of Piermarini has an international flavor, which brings it closer to Ange-Jacques Gabriel , to the Austrian school, but especially to Vanvitelli; similarities that can be seen for example in the facade of Palazzo Belgioioso, whose central gable and the use of rustication refer to the Royal Palace of Caserta.
Simone Simoni was a contemporary of Piermarini (1739-1818), who had also worked for Vanvitelli and had trained at the Parma Academy , under Ennemond Alexandre Petitot , and in Genoa with Emanuele Andrea Tagliafichi . Compared to Piermarini, Cantoni was the architect of a more austere architecture, capable of arousing greater emotional values. In Milan he devoted himself to the design of the Palazzo Serbelloni , which has a central body with columns supporting a pediment; in Como he built the Villa Olmo , with a façade with noble eloquence.
At the same time, in Mantua , the foundation of the local Academy, in 1752, sanctioned a certain cultural autonomy from Milan. A key figure of the Academy was the Veronese architect Paolo Pozzo , whose neocinquecentismo originated from a profound reflection on the work of Giulio Romano . Under the teachings of Pozzo were formed Leandro Marconi , active in Cesena with significant works in the field of wall decoration, and Antonio Colonna , author of the Palazzo d’Arco in Mantua.
To Leopoldo Pollack (1751-1806) and Luigi Canonica (1764-1844), students of Piermarini, goes the merit of having affirmed the new architectural tendencies, giving them a more unified and coherent tone. Pollack, of Viennese origin and formation , worked above all for the Milanese nobility. His fame is linked to the Villa Reale in Milan (1790-1796), which despite referring to French and Palladian models , presents the compact character of the facade of Palazzo Belgioioso. Among the other works by Pollack we mention the Villa Casati in Muggiòand the Rotonda di via Borgovico, in Como, where the dominant element is the oval central hall. However, like those of the Piermarini and the Canonica, Pollock’s plants are not particularly interesting.
During the French occupation, Piermarini returned to his native Foligno and the Ticinese Canonica was named “Architect of State” and placed at the head of the ornate commission. The Commission, established in 1807, is responsible for the drafting of the Milan regulatory plan, an instrument aimed at regulating private construction and expropriating land for the construction of new roads. In this context, Canonica was able to follow various urban interventions and to build many public buildings: in particular, his is the enlargement of the Helvetic College for the Senate. An expert in theater architecture, he followed the expansion of La Scala and created others in several cities in northern Italy. His is the project for the Arena, the result of a larger design, also promoted by Giovanni Antonio Antolini , for the arrangement of the areas around the Castello Sforzesco .
The building that closes the Milanese Neoclassicism is the church of San Carlo al Corso , by Carlo Amati , a work, completed in 1847, in which Palladian and Bramante accents are grafted , considered however too imposing in its dimensions.
Piedmont
In Piedmont , the phase of transition to Neoclassicism saw active personalities often in close relationship with the societies of sub-Alpine scholars engaged in confrontation with the new circulation of culture, in Roman and Parisian direction; we remember Giuseppe Battista Piacenza , Carlo Randoni , and some early works by Filippo Castelli .
In any case, here the Neoclassic had a strong urban, rather than architectural, value. The city of Turin , between 1810 and 1816, went from 66,000 to 88,000 inhabitants; the ancient fortifications were demolished, with the construction of new roads and neighborhoods. The heart of the new expansions was the church of the Great Mother of God (1814-1831), a circular building, preceded by a pronaos on the model of the Pantheon in Rome, which was erected by Ferdinando Bonsignore (1767-1843) on the sidelines of the contemporary square Vittorio Veneto .
Teaching Bonsignore, university and academy in Turin he created several generations of skilled architects, which spread throughout the Piedmont and also in the Genoa area and nizzardo the results of a school of great validity and cultural depth. Amongst others, we find the educated Giuseppe Maria Talucchi , the right-hand man of Bonsignore at the university and the author of the imposing church of Santa Maria del Borgo in Vigone (1835 ff.), Benedetto Brunati , Luigi Canina , Ernesto Melano , this last active also in the court carloalbertini yards, the Swiss Giuseppe Leoni , Giuseppe Formento, the eporediese Giovanni Pessatti , Michelangelo Bossi , etc. In the court yard, starting from the years of Carlo Alberto di Savoia-Carignano , at Palazzo Reale in Turin , in the Pollenzo estate , at the Racconigi castle , he worked as artistic director Pelagio Palagi , assisted for the architecture, even with autonomous realizations, from Carlo Sada .
In the second half of the nineteenth century Alessandro Antonelli , a pupil of Bonsignore and Talucchi, author of the Novara Cathedral , covered the enormous buildings of the Mole Antonelliana of Turin and the dome of San Gaudenzio in Novara itself, forcing the canonical proportions towards a new idea of architecture, strongly marked by structural experiments.
Genoa
In Genoa , the precursor of Neoclassicism was Emanuele Andrea Tagliafichi (1729-1811); formed in Rome, he was the first urban planner of the Ligurian city, he taught in the local Accademia Ligustica and, from 1806, he was a member of the Istitut de France . Among his works, in which there are strong references to Palladio , are the works at Palazzo Durazzo-Pallavicini (about 1780). In 1777 he took part in the competition for the reconstruction of the Palazzo Ducale , which however saw the prevailing project of the Ticino Simone Cantoni .
A pupil of the Tagliafichi was Carlo Barabino (1768-1835), the most important Genoese architect of the nineteenth century. He started with the construction of a public wash-house in via dei Servi: a structure characterized by five arches topped by a highly expressive tympanum. The work of the Barabino established itself during the years of the Restoration, when Liguria became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia . In the twenties he created the first public garden of the city and took care of the reorganization of the center with the opening of Via Carlo Felice and the Piazza di San Domenico , with the theater (a masterpiece of Italian Neoclassicism, severely damaged during theWorld War II ) and the headquarters of the Academy.
Strong is the urban value of his works. In particular, the squared meeting between the Palazzo dell’Accademia and the Teatro Carlo Felice determines the creation of a widening in plan that, in elevation, has nothing static and monotonous. The façade of the theater, on Via Carlo Felice, sees fullness prevail over the empty spaces, while the side of Piazza San Domenico stands out for the high pronaos exastyle surmounted by a massive attic that continues along the perimeter of the factory, thus merging with the Palazzo Academy.
Other Barabino creations include the monumental Cemetery of Staglieno , completed by the pupil Giovanni Battista Resasco , where many elements of the classical tradition are inserted, such as a copy of the Pantheon , placed in an elevated position with respect to the base of the cemetery.
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