Friday, December 22, 2017

St. IGNATIUS SQUARE

PIAZZA S. IGNAZIO
1727/28 brilliant urban masterpiece of the great Neapolitan architect Filippo Raguzzini (1680/1771), unfortunately afflicted, like so many beautiful squares in Rome, by the uncivilized presence of cars
“The state of mind of the spectator who enters is determined by an instant perception more than by a progressive revelation. Unlike Piazza S. Maria della Pace center stage here is taken by the private houses, as sceneries of a stage, no longer by the old façade of the church” (Rudolf Wittkower)
“Filippo Raguzzini draws his way of composing from his own personal culture where are placed the possible combinations of the classical orders along to the memory of other styles, sometimes combined with personal creativity. Exponent of a frank Neapolitan joyousness tilting towards the picturesque, translated with stucco cornices, moving and curving thin profiles and the natural color of the century, the painting as sky air that made masses and volume impalpable. He produced an unexpected masterpiece nestled in Piazza S. Ignazio that will be a model capable of influencing the Roman civil buildings of the eighteenth century” (Mario Pisani)

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