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[Ganganelli, Lorenzo (Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio)]

(b Santarcangelo di Romagna, Oct 31, 1705; elected May 19, 1769; d Rome, Sept 22, 1774).

Italian pope and patron. He completed his studies in the Romagna and in 1723 entered the Franciscan Order. In 1728 he went to Rome, where he acted as an adviser to Pope Clement XIII from 1746 and became involved in such issues as whether to include the books of Voltaire (1697–1778) on the Index librorum prohibitorum (on which he took a moderate position) and whether to suppress the Society of Jesus. He was made a cardinal in 1759 and received the titles to two churches in Rome: S Lorenzo in Panisperna and, later, SS Apostoli.

As a patron Clement XIV tried to modify the loss to Rome’s heritage represented by the lively trade in antique works of art. He reinforced surveillance on exports and also purchased some of the most precious objects, such as the Mattei and Fusconi collections of Classical sculpture, which he bought in 1770. He was supported in this campaign by Giovanni Battista Visconti and Giovanni Angelo Braschi, the future Pope Pius VI. He played a seminal role in fostering public interest in antique sculpture. To display the finest antiquities in the papal collection he established the ...

(b 1739; d 1816).

Portuguese bishop and patron. He was representative of the Catholic Enlightenment in Portugal during the Pombaline era. In accordance with his training as an Oratorian and his concern for the welfare of his flock, his interests were more pastoral and less doctrinal than those of his friend, Frei Manuel do Cenáculo Villas Boas. His concerns led to the building of seminaries and hospitals, and his spiritual and humanist tendencies led him to write and translate works on both religious and secular subjects, of which his essays on agriculture are an example. He believed that art was a means of human improvement and architecture a manifestation of human and Christian dignity, and his patronage of the arts, to which his visit to Rome must have contributed, was an aspect of his pastoral service. Following Gomes do Avelar’s appointment as Bishop of the Algarve in 1789, he commissioned the Italian architect Francesco Saverio Fabri to build an episcopal palace in Faro and many churches (including S Maria, Tavira) as well as to work on other projects in Faro including the Arco da Vila (...

(b Lübeck, Dec 24, 1707; d Alt-Döbern [Niederlausitz], nr Dresden, Jan 23, 1791).

German art scholar and collector. At school in Lübeck he became acquainted with the ideas of Leibniz and Christian Wolff; from 1724 he studied law and literature in Leipzig. There he developed an interest in the Enlightenment thinking of Johann Christoph Gottsched and in art, particularly the many private collections. In 1730 he became a private tutor in the Dresden house of the elector’s court poet Johann Ulrich König. Two years later he published a treatise on morality, Die wahren Absichten des Menschen. Heinecken then became steward at the house of the minister, Graf Sulkowsky. After Sulkowsky’s fall Graf Heinrich von Brühl, the most powerful man at the Saxon court, took on Heinecken as librarian and private secretary. In 1737 he translated Longinus’ On the Sublime from the Greek. In this work Heinecken pointed to the importance of ancient art theory long before Winckelmann, attracting much attention and the enmity of Gottsched. Under Brühl’s protection Heinecken, who was without wealth, was knighted, awarded the Alt-Döbern estate and managed Brühl’s estates, factories and finances. He was promoted to Oberamtsrat at the Saxon court; his unusual expertise in art and his clear judgement caused the king, ...

Dutch, 17th – 18th century, male.

Born 1649, in Dordrecht; died c. 1727.

Painter, collector. Religious subjects, portraits.

Jakob Moelart studied with Nicolas Moos, and became well known as an excellent portrait painter and a painter of historical subjects. Houbraken singles out several of his works for praise, especially his ...

(b Wangen, Allgäu, Nov 24, 1670; d Ottobeuren, Oct 20, 1740).

German churchman, writer and patron. He entered the Order of St Benedict in 1688 and studied philosophy and theology at Ottobeuren and at the Benedictine university at Salzburg. He was ordained a priest in 1694 and began pastoral work in Tisis, Vorarlberg. His first theological writings date from 1702. Having served as agriculturalist (1703–10) to the abbey of Ottobeuren, he was elected the 52nd abbot of Ottobeuren on 8 May 1710. In 1711 he became regional governor, in 1712 imperial councillor and hereditary chaplain and in 1718 praeses (president) of the Benedictine congregation at Salzburg. He is regarded as the second founder of Ottobeuren through his commissioning (1711) of an extensive building programme (see Ottobeuren), in which the architecture mirrors the mind and faith of its builder, being a synthesis of Benedictine order and freedom, severity and serenity, individual and community, nature and art, worldliness and spirituality. The building marks the flowering of German late Baroque monastery architecture in the prestigious, imperial style. The exact progress of the building of the monastery and its new church can be reconstructed from the 14 surviving volumes of the Abbot’s diaries (Ottobeuren, Benedictine abbey; Munich, Bayer. Haupstaatsarchv), which are divided into political, ecclesiastical and economic sections. Portraits of ...

Italian former Benedictine abbey near the mouth of the Po River and 45 km north of Ravenna in the province of Emilia Romagna. Although first documented in ad 874, a monastic settlement probably existed there at least two centuries earlier. Pomposa rose to prominence in the 10th and 11th centuries through the support of the Holy Roman emperors. Over the course of the 14th century, a notable series of wall paintings in three different buildings were sponsored despite the monastery’s waning fortunes. In 1663 the monastic community was suppressed by papal decree. The site was secularized in 1802 and became property of the Italian state after 1870.

The proportions of the wooden-roofed basilican church, along with the polygonal outline of its main apse, reflect influence from nearby Ravenna and Classe and suggest a date in the 8th or 9th century. An elaborate pavement of mosaic and cut stone (opus sectile...

Polish family of patrons and collectors. Their patronage was influential from the late 16th century to the early 19th. They held the highest offices and owned vast estates in the eastern part of the Commonwealth of Two Nations, including main seats at Nieśwież (now Nesvizh, Belarus), Ołyka (now Olyka, Ukraine), Birże (now Biržoi, Lithuania) and Biała Podlaska. They were prominent representatives of Sarmatian Baroque culture (see Sarmatism) and aimed to glorify the family, its genealogy and military achievements. They built magnificent residences in the prevailing fortified castle style (mostly destr.), established art collections (mostly untraced, although a number of laurel-wreathed portraits are now in the Belarus Art Museum, Minsk), and members of both Catholic and Calvinist lines founded many ecclesiastical buildings. The castle at Nieśwież, with twelve great halls and seven gilt domes, was begun in 1583 for Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł (‘Sierotka’, 1549–1616), who established there the family portrait gallery, a library and armoury. A devout Catholic, he founded the Jesuit monastery at Nieśwież, which has one of the first Polish Baroque churches (...

(b c. 1720/30; d 1781).

. French collector. He was one of the greatest collectors of Boucher’s drawings but little is known about him. His Christian names are known only from an inscription on the back of the mount of a Boucher pastel of him (1761) and he is described as an ‘Ecuier premier’ and an ‘ancien valet de chambre du Roi’. According to Fessard’s and Nochez’s engravings (1759 and 1763) after two female Académies from his collection he was no wealthy financier and indeed the short notice devoted to him in the catalogue of his posthumous sale (3 December 1781 onwards) says that he satisfied his ‘passion violente’ for the works of Boucher ‘aux depens de sa propre aisance’. He was tireless in his pursuit of Boucher’s drawings, having spent hours watching him paint and exchanging his knowledge of literature for Boucher’s demonstration of his art, but in 1777 the ...

Dutch, 18th century, male.

Born 1694 or 1695, in Haarlem; died 10 May 1731, in Haarlem.

Painter, engraver (etching), collector. Religious subjects, figures.

Nicolaus Six was a pupil of Carel de Moor. In 1715 he entered the guild of Haarlem and was deputy mayor of that town. The museum of Bremen has a canvas by him entitled ...

(b Oberhollabrunn, Oct 31, 1674; d Dürnstein, Jan 13, 1740).

Austrian prelate and patron. He entered the Augustinian Order of Canons at Dürnstein on 12 March 1693 and after studying philosophy, theology, history and law was unanimously elected prior of Dürnstein on 15 June 1710. He set his stamp on the foundation by extensive alterations and additions to its buildings, taking personal charge of the whole process. He was his own engineer and architect, creating a Baroque unity of style with the carefully planned collaboration of artists and craftsmen.

With the assistance of Jakob Prandtauer, he began by building the Kellerschlössl (1714–20); in 1716 he converted the former church of the Order of St Clare into a granary and from 1715–16 to 1733 rebuilt and extended the monastery building over the Danube. The architects of these projects were Joseph Munggenast and Matthias Steinl, while the following craftsmen and artists executed the work: the stucco workers Domenico Piazoll (...

(b Lisbon, 1724; d Évora, 1814).

Portuguese archbishop, politician, collector and scholar. Of humble origin, he became a Franciscan friar and rose to be Provincial of the Order in 1768. He was a prestigious figure in Portuguese intellectual and cultural circles and was particularly associated with the education reforms of Sebastian Carvalho e Mello, 1st Marquês de Pombal, on whose recommendation he was made tutor to the Infante Dom José and was successively appointed President of the Real Mesa Censória (the state board of censorship) in 1770 and of the Junta da Providência Literária (committee for the reform of higher education) in 1772; in the latter capacity he collaborated in the reform of the University of Coimbra.

Cenáculo was the first Bishop of Beja (1770–1802), where he founded the Museu Pacense (1791), one of the first in the country, based on his own collection of antiquities, medals and coins. He was Archbishop of Évora from ...