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(b Braga, 1748; d Oporto, 1815).

Portuguese architect and military engineer. He was the most distinguished of the late 18th-century architects of northern Portugal, where he introduced the new spirit of Neo-classicism. He was the son of a musician at the episcopal court at Braga, whose protection and influence were valuable to him. Working in Braga during a period of transition, Amarante ended the architectural tradition inherited from André Ribeiro Soares da Silva, and, although he lacked Soares’s creativity, he made an important contribution to the city. Amarante’s later work in Oporto was in a more developed Neo-classical style and was an integral part of the new face of that city.

Though he trained as a military engineer, his first activity was designing rocaille ornament. His source for the new aesthetic forms may have been Jacques-François Blondel’s Cours d’architecture (Paris, 1773), lent to him by the royal archbishop, Dom Gaspar de Braganza (1716–89). His first contract, won in competition with João Bernardes de Silva, was for a design, submitted in ...

(b Paris, 1749; d Paris, July 29, 1821).

French sculptor. He was a pupil of Augustin Pajou. He was never a member of the Académie Royale and until 1791 had no access to the official Salon, exhibiting instead at the Salon de la Correspondance, Paris, from 1781 to 1787; he was also denied access to the marble provided by the Bâtiments du Roi for royal commissions, for which only Academicians were eligible, and was forced to be principally a modeller producing works in terracotta or bronze. His chief patron was Prince Louis-Joseph de Condé, and among works commissioned by the Condé family were a bust of Louis II, the Grand Condé (bronze, c. 1780; untraced), and a statuette of the Grand Condé at Fribourg (exh. Salon de la Correspondance 1782), the terracotta (1780; Chantilly, Mus. Condé) and bronze (1785; Chantilly, Mus. Condé) versions of which were made were made by the great bronze-founder Pierre Philippe Thomire. Three further commemorative statuettes in bronze are at Chantilly. They represent ...

(Aleksandrovich)

(b Nikol’skoye-Cherenchitsy estate, nr Torzhok, 1751; d Moscow, 2/Jan 3, 1804).

Russian architect, theorist, illustrator, poet, Musician and inventor. An enlightened dilettante and encyclopedist from a princely family, he studied architecture on his own and travelled in western Europe (1775, 1776–7), above all in France and Italy. On his return to Russia L’vov worked at the Foreign Ministry and acquired a reputation as an architect from the early 1780s. His earliest works—the Neva Gate (1780–87) of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St Petersburg, the single-domed cathedral of St Joseph (1780–98) in Mogilyov and the similar five-domed church (1785–96) at the monastery of SS Boris and Gleb in Torzhok—are characterized by their austere simplicity, spareness of form and pronounced monumentality. They became the model for many Russian Neo-classical churches of the late 18th century and the early 19th. L’vov’s works for St Petersburg include the Post Office (1782–9), unexecuted designs for the Cabinet on the Nevsky Prospect (...

(b Lisbon, 1812; fl Lisbon, 1840s).

Portuguese architect and stage designer of Italian descent. He was a son of Francisco Lodi, the impresario of the Teatro S Carlos, Lisbon. Nothing is known of his academic training, and his importance to the architecture of 19th-century Lisbon is largely due to his design of the Teatro Nacional Dona Maria II (1842–6), Praça do Rossio, Lisbon. When a public competition for the design of the theatre was proclaimed in 1841 none of the entries submitted was chosen, but the Conde de Farrobo, a powerful capitalist and the principal financial backer of the theatre, ensured the presentation and acceptance of the designs of Lodi, who was his brother-in-law. In spite of the unusual way in which Lodi was appointed to build the theatre, over the heads of more highly reputed and experienced architects and academics, the result was nevertheless a satisfactory one. The theatre was built swiftly and became a landmark in one of the most important squares in the city. Of Neo-classical derivation with Palladian elements, the design of the building is notable for the erudition of its central portico of six Ionic columns, which elegantly emphasizes the comparative austerity of the wings, and for its balanced proportions, which blend into the overall context of the city. The building became one of the most familiar sights of Lisbon. Lodi also designed the Teatro da Quinta das Laranjeiras (...

(b San Miniato al Monte, Florence, April 21, 1772; d Naples, March 9, 1850).

Italian architect, stage designer and writer. He grew up in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, where his father, who worked as a prison guard, was interested in architecture and encouraged his son when, at the age of 14, he began to make drawings of buildings in Florence and to study the treatises of Vitruvius, Alberti and Palladio. He painted frescoes of architectural views in the workshop of the painter Pasquale Cioffi and was introduced to the art of theatrical design by Francesco Fontanesi (1751–95). Niccolini was greatly drawn to the culture and art of central Europe and was undoubtedly influenced also by the circle of the dramatist Vittorio Alfieri who had founded an academic theatre in the Palazzo d’Albany, Florence, for which Niccolini painted the scenery. He was also engaged in restoring and designing sets for a number of other Tuscan theatres, and his reputation for this work soon spread outside the Grand Duchy. In ...

(b Besançon, Oct 25, 1745; d Besançon, Aug 1, 1819).

French architect and stage designer. He was the son of Pierre-François Pâris, a master builder turned architect. He was brought up in the modest court of the Prince-Bishop of Basle at Porrentruy in Switzerland, where from 1750 his father was official architect and topographer. He went to Paris probably in 1760 to study under the architect Louis-François Trouard, and after three unsuccessful attempts at the Prix de Rome in 1766, 1768 and 1769, he obtained the support of the Marquis de Marigny and the Duc d’Aumont with his project for entertainments at the wedding of the Dauphin and Marie-Antoinette, planned for 1770. He then went to the Académie de France in Rome as tutor to Trouard’s young son. During his five years there he associated with Cardinal de Bernis, Charles de Wailly, Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Bergeret de Grancourt and contributed to the Abbé de Saint-Non’s Voyage pittoresque with drawings of antique monuments at Pompeii, Paestum, Herculaneum and elsewhere. He also travelled through Italy, from Sicily to Venice and the Piedmont, and kept travel journals of considerable interest. His many portfolios of architectural drawings were highly successful on his return to Paris and brought him employment: improvements to the Duc d’Aumont’s residence on the Place Louis XV (...

[Jean-Jacques]

(b Geneva, May 23, 1790; d Bougival, June 4, 1852).

Swiss sculptor, painter and composer. Prompted by his early displays of artistic talent, Pradier’s parents placed him in the workshop of a jeweller, where he learnt engraving on metal. He attended drawing classes in Geneva, before leaving for Paris in 1807. By 1811 he was registered at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and subsequently entered its sculpture competitions as a pupil of François-Frédéric, Baron Lemot. A more significant contribution to his artistic formation around this time was the guidance of the painter François Gérard. Pradier won the Prix de Rome in 1813 and was resident at the French Academy in Rome, from 1814 until 1819. On his return to France, he showed at the Salon of 1819 a group Centaur and Bacchante (untraced) and a reclining Bacchante (marble; Rouen, Mus. B.-A.). The latter, borrowing an erotically significant torsion from the Antique Callipygean Venus, opens the series of sensuous Classical female subjects that were to become Pradier’s forte. In ...

(Ivanovich)

(b Dec 18, 1775; d St Petersburg, April 18, 1849).

Russian architect and urban planner. He came to Russia as a ten-year-old child with his mother, the dancer Gertrude Rossi. He was one of the major Russian Neo-classical architects during the period of the French Empire style, with work reflecting the public enthusiasm and triumphal mood following the 1812 victory against Napoleon. This versatile architect, whose work included applied art and interiors and who created model designs for use in public and private residences and in estate buildings, was one of Russia’s greatest urban planners. The grand ensembles built to his plans largely determined the appearance of the centre of St Petersburg.

Rossi was a pupil and assistant of the St Petersburg architect and designer Vincenzo Brenna, and in the 1790s he participated under Brenna in the construction of the Michael Castle (later Engineers’ Castle; completed 1800) for Paul I (reg 1796–1801). Rossi’s early designs, the ‘Memorial to Great Men’ and the Triumphal Arch—ceremonial, grandiose, highly decorated structures—were completed under the influence of his teacher. In ...

(b Neuruppin, Mark Brandenburg, March 13, 1781; d Berlin, Oct 9, 1841).

German architect, painter and stage designer. He was the greatest architect in 19th-century Germany, and his most important surviving buildings in Berlin (see Berlin, §I, 3) and Potsdam (see Potsdam, §1) show his sense of German idealism and technical mastery. He became Geheimer Oberlandesbaudirektor of the Prussian state and influenced many architects in Germany and abroad.

Schinkel’s father, a Lutheran pastor, died after attempting to save victims of a fire in 1787 that destroyed most of Neuruppin, a town 27 km north-west of Berlin. Much of Schinkel’s boyhood was spent in a town under reconstruction, a model of royal benevolence and rational planning. In 1794 his mother and her six children moved to Berlin to a home for the widows of Lutheran pastors. At the 1797 Akademie der Künste exhibition in Berlin the 16-year-old Schinkel was so fascinated by a project for a monument to Frederick II of Prussia...

(b Florence, Nov 2, 1727; d Milan, Nov 14, 1812).

Italian painter and engraver. He trained in Florence with Agostino Veracini (1689–1762) and Francesco Conti (1681–1760), and studied architecture and stage design under Antonio Galli-Bibiena. His earliest known painting is a fresco of 1758: Heavenly Father in Glory in the Dominican church in Livorno. He enriched his art by the study of Correggio’s works in Parma, and also those of Bolognese painters, making engravings (1764–7) after paintings by Guido Reni, Agostino Carracci, Annibale Carracci, Guercino and others. These were praised in 1765 by Pierre-Jean Mariette and were later collected in an album entitled Venticinque quadri ai maestri eccellenti incisi da Giuliano Traballesi (Milan, 1796).

In 1764 he won a competition at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Parma with the painting Furius Camillus Liberating Rome from the Gallic Senones, a work that is deeply influenced by the Bolognese tradition and by the Roman classicism of Nicolas Poussin. The success of this painting won Traballesi major commissions in his native Tuscany, where the transition from Rococo to Neo-classicism had been encouraged by the reforms initiated by Leopoldo II Habsburg-Lorraine when he became Grand Duke of Tuscany in ...

(b Regensburg, Feb 7, 1800; d Munich, July 24, 1873).

Bavarian architect and painter. After working with the stage designer Domenico Quaglio II he studied at the Königliche Akademie der bildenden Künste in Munich under the Neo-classical architect Karl von Fischer. Following Fischer’s death, Ziebland completed many of his projects, including the Hof- und Nationaltheater (1811–18) in Munich. An exhibition of Ziebland’s paintings brought him to the attention of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria ( see Wittelsbach, House of family §III, (3) ). In his quest to transform Munich into a museum of architecture, Ludwig sent Ziebland to Italy to study Early Christian basilicas, so that he could design one for Munich. After two years in Italy (1827–9) Ziebland was commissioned to design an Early Christian-style basilica with an adjacent Benedictine monastery. The Bonifaziusbasilika (1835–40), Munich, is the best known of Ziebland’s works. A brick, five-aisled basilica with a sumptuous interior, St Boniface was hailed as one of Ludwig’s greatest building projects. Its monastery is attached to his exhibition building, the ...