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(b Paderborn, 1502; d Soest, Westphalia, 1555–61).

German engraver, painter and designer. He was the most important graphic artist in Westphalia in the 16th century. His reputation rests largely on his ornamental designs, which make up about one third of his c. 300 engravings. They were principally intended as models for metalworkers but were also adapted by other craftsmen for such decorative arts as enamel, intarsia and book illustration. Aldegrever followed Dürer and the Nuremberg Little Masters, deriving models for his paintings and subject prints as well as a full repertory of Renaissance ornamental motifs: fig and Acanthus foliage, vases and cornucopia, combined with putti and satyrs, tritons, mermaids and dolphins, sphinxes, masks and medallions. From the beginning of his career Aldegrever was aware of the artistic trends of the time: the Dürer influence was strongest at its outset yielding somewhat in work of the 1530s to Mannerist tendencies under Netherlandish influence, though never waning entirely.

Aldegrever was the son of Hermann Trippenmeker (...

(b Göttweich, Austria, c. 1430; d Ascoli Piceno, the Marches, between Sept 18, 1497 and Nov 22, 1498).

Italian painter of Austrian birth. He is first documented in 1477 in his adopted home of Ascoli Piceno. A badly preserved fresco of the Virgin and Child with Saints in the church of the Madonna delle Rose in Torre San Patrizio, near Ascoli, has been attributed to him; it is dated 1466, providing possible evidence of his presence in the area two years before his master, Carlo Crivelli, was first documented there. Alemanno’s style was based on Crivelli’s work of the 1470s and hardly evolved at all throughout his career. His expressionistic, anatomical distortion may be derived from Giorgio Schiavone. The Virgin and Child Enthroned and the St Lucy (both Montefortino, Pin. Com.), which formed part of a dismembered polyptych dating from c. 1470, are typical of his work, with their dark outlines and strong hatching in both shadows and highlights.

Alemanno produced mostly polyptychs with the Virgin and Child enthroned, framed by standing saints on separate panels, or small-scale, half-length Virgin and Child pictures, ultimately deriving in form from similar compositions by Donatello. An exception is the ...

[l’Argenta]

(b Argenta, nr Ferrara, 1546; d Ferrara, Dec 9, 1636).

Italian architect, engineer and designer. He was the son of Vincenzo Aleotti (not Francesco Aleotti, as is sometimes erroneously stated), from whom Giovanni Battista claimed he ‘learnt the art … as much as from all the other teachers I had’ (letter, 1583; see Coffin, p. 121). In 1575 he succeeded Galasso Alghisi as architect to Alfonso II d’Este (ii), Duke of Ferrara and Modena, who nicknamed him l’Argenta after the town of his birth. When, on the death of the Duke, the Este duchy devolved to the Papal States (1598), Aleotti was confirmed as official architect, with a stipend of 20 scudi per month. His activity extended to various parts of the Po plain, embracing different architectural genres and including some important urban projects.

Among Aleotti’s religious buildings were several churches in Ferrara, including S Barbara (1586–8), S Maria della Rotonda at Castel Tedaldo (1597...

[Aleši, Andrija; Alexii, Andreas; Andrea di Niccolò da Durazzo]

(b Dürres, c. 1425; d Split, 1504).

Dalmatian sculptor and architect of Albanian birth. Although he is recorded in 1435 at Zadar as a pupil of Marco di Pietro da Troia, his most important artistic influence was the Late Gothic style of Giorgio da Sebenico, with whom he worked in 1445 on Šibenik Cathedral and in 1452 at Ancona on the Loggia dei Mercanti. Between 1448 and 1460 Alessi also controlled his own workshop at Split and Rab. In 1466 he began work on his masterpiece, the baptistery at Trogir, which was finished in 1467. The chapel is rectangular in plan, covered with a barrel vault with acute angled coffers; its richly decorated interior is an eclectic blend of Late Gothic and Renaissance elements. The sculpture shares these characteristics: the Baptism of Christ over the entrance, with its elongated figures and complex drapery patterns, derives from Giorgio da Sebenico’s mannered style, while St Jerome in the Desert...

(b Perugia, 1512; d Perugia, Dec 30, 1572).

Italian architect and writer. He was the leading High Renaissance architect in both Genoa and Milan, his villas and town palazzi establishing a definitive pattern for the genre. His greatest sacred building was S Maria Assunta in Carignano, the central planning of which shows the influence of Donato Bramante and Michelangelo.

The Perugia of Alessi’s youth was an important centre of the Papal States, with a lively humanist and philosophical cultural life. Alessi received his early training in the school of the architect and painter Giovan Battista Caporali, whose edition of Vitruvius is notable for its tendency to rationalize the Antique and for its reference to music as a means of further perfecting the study of harmonic proportion in the visual arts. Alessi was also friendly with the architect Giulio Danti (1500–75), who was equally well versed in rhetoric and philosophy.

Alessi’s diverse cultural experience recommended him to the papal court in Rome, where he moved in ...

(di Paride)

(b Perugia, 1479–80; d 1549–57).

Italian painter. The son of a goldsmith, he was a pupil of Perugino and a friend of Raphael, whose style influenced him strongly. An undated letter (Lille, Mus. B.-A.) from Raphael to Alfani, which includes a drawing of the Holy Family, asks Alfani to intervene with Atlanta Baglioni, for whom Raphael had painted the Entombment (1507; Rome, Gal. Borghese), to ask her to settle a fee. In 1510 Alfani became a member of the Perugian painters’ guild. Alfani’s earliest surviving work, painted in 1518 for S Gregorio della Sapienza, Perugia, depicts the Virgin and Child Enthroned with SS Gregory and Nicholas (Perugia, G.N. Umbria) and is based on Raphael’s Virgin and Child (the Orléans Madonna, c. 1506–7; Chantilly, Mus. Condé). Alfani based the design of an altarpiece executed with Pompeo d’Anselmo in 1520 for S Simone del Carmine, Perugia (Perugia, G.N. Umbria), on the drawing sent to him by Raphael. In the mid-1520s Alfani came under the influence of the Florentine Mannerists, particularly Rosso Fiorentino, to whom he gave shelter in ...

(b Córdoba, 1643; d Madrid, 1680).

Spanish painter. He served his apprenticeship in Córdoba, where he was a pupil of Antonio del Castillo, and completed his training in Madrid in the workshop of Velázquez. He wrote a biography of Velázquez, now lost, which was used by Palomino de Castro y Velasco. Apart from brief visits to Córdoba, Alfaro spent his life in Madrid, and he was associated with the court. He painted religious scenes, but his principal activity was portraiture (both large-scale and miniature), in which he was particularly successful, developing a style influenced by Velázquez. Although he was a prolific artist, few of his paintings have survived. While young he painted a series of works depicting the life of St Francis for the cloister of the convent of S Francisco in Córdoba and also an Assumption of the Virgin for the convent of the Discalced Carmelites. For the episcopal palace at Córdoba he painted a portrait of ...

(b ?Montalcino, 1421; d Siena, after 1491).

Italian painter. In 1453 he was living in Siena in the district called the Chompagnia di Realto et Chartagine, where he had a painter’s studio (‘buttiba de l’arte de dipentori’; Siena, Pal. Piccolomini, Archv Stato, Lira, MS. 139.c.50). He was chiefly employed by the Sienese Republic but also worked for Pope Pius II in 1460 (see Müntz), for the diplomat Leonardo Benvoglienti, for the Ottieri della Ciaia family and for Sinolfo di Castellottieri. In 1455 Alfei was paid by the magistrates of Siena for his painting of Monte Argentario near Orbetello (Siena, Pal. Piccolomini, Archv Stato, Balia, MS. 1.c.215), work that Alessi suggests may be recognized in the Town by the Sea and the Castle by the Sea (both Siena, Pin. N.), previously attributed to Ambrogio Lorenzetti and to Sassetta. In 1473 the Sienese Republic recommended Alfei to the papal legate, Cardinal Roverella, on the occasion of the artist’s visit to the Marches; the Cardinal’s reply confirms that Alfei executed works there. Alessi and Scapecchi have proposed that the anonymous ...

(b Rome, 1699; d Turin, Dec 9, 1767).

Italian architect. Descended from an impoverished ducal family of Asti, Piedmont, Alfieri spent his first 16 years in Rome. A papal stipend enabled him to study law at the Collegio dei Nobili in Turin, after which he settled as a lawyer in Asti. Even as a successful architect in public office, he continued to make use of his legal knowledge, and in Asti and later Turin he served as mayor intermittently. Alfieri was extraordinarily versatile, with no single personal style. He worked simultaneously in three separate styles: Roman high and late Baroque; French Rococo (for decoration); and early classicism. His attitude to these styles was functional rather than historical, and his choice of which one to use usually depended on the nature of the project and the wishes of his client. Thus Alfieri built Catholic churches in Roman Baroque and Protestant churches in a puristic classicism. Piedmontese State commissions were executed in the severe manner of the Turin State style as practised by Amadeo di Castellamonte and Filippo Juvarra before him. For the royal court and the aristocracy French Rococo was appropriate. Façades of palaces were decorated in the idiom of a restrained Baroque classicism, like that which Gianlorenzo Bernini and Carlo Fontana had developed in Rome. Whatever the style, Alfieri worked with facility and elegance, blending disparate elements into ingenious, harmonious creations. He was not a great innovator, but his work anticipates in certain respects the purpose-built functional architecture of the 20th century. With his flexible use of existing architectural vocabulary, he was a first-class architect of the second rank....

(b Ferrara, July 21, 1476; reg 1505–34; d Ferrara, Oct 31, 1534).

Italian ruler, patron and collector, son of Ercole I d’Este. In 1502 he married Lucrezia Borgia and became a ruler of notable military and diplomatic ability. His chief claim to fame as patron was his employment of the poet Lodovico Ariosto, but he also patronized some of the outstanding artists of his day. His most important artistic commissions involved the decoration of his rooms in the so-called Via Coperta, the block linking the Palazzo del Corte (now Palazzo Comunale) with the Castello Estense in Ferrara, which he enlarged. No trace of the original decoration survives in situ, and the precise disposition and content of the rooms, which were later known as the Camerini Dorati and the Camerini d’Alabastro, remain matters of controversy. The two Camerini d’Alabastro contained marble reliefs (c. 1507–15) by Antonio Lombardo, of which the largest surviving group is in St Petersburg (Hermitage). These reliefs include panels with grotesque decoration as well as large figurative compositions featuring pagan deities....

(b Ferrara, Nov 28, 1533; reg 1559–97; d Ferrara, Oct 27, 1597).

Italian ruler, patron and collector, son of Ercole II d’Este. Having spent the years from 1552 to 1559 at the French court, once he succeeded to the Este territories his desire to outshine the Medici made him a generous patron of the arts. His court was maintained in great splendour, renowned for virtuosic theatrical productions and for the Duke’s patronage of poets (Torquato Tasso and Giovanni Battista Guarini among them), musicians and makers of musical instruments. A richly decorated harp (Modena, Gal. & Mus. Estense) was made for him in Rome in 1581 by Giovan Battista Giacomelli and subsequently inlaid in Ferrara (1587) by the Ferrarese Giulio Marescotti.

As a collector, Alfonso II took a particular interest in antiquities, often buying up entire studios formed by earlier collectors in Brescia, Bologna and Parma. In 1563 Enea Vico was appointed curator of these collections, and after his death (1567) Pirro Ligorio...

[Padre Giovanni Battista d’Este]

(b Ferrara, Oct 22, 1591; reg 1628–9; d Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, nr Lucca, May 24, 1644).

Italian ruler, patron and collector, son of Cesare d’Este. He succeeded to the dukedom in December 1628, but abdicated in July 1629. The abdication, apparently prompted by the death of his wife Isabella of Savoy (1591–1626), whom he had married in 1608, was surprising, given Alfonso’s previous determination to be an exemplary ruler. On joining the Capuchin Order in 1629 he renounced his former interests in poetry, jousts, hunting and art (he was himself a draughtsman). Though as a ruler he had intended to rebuild the Castello di S Pietro (destr. 1634) of Modena, he advised his son Francesco I d’Este, who succeeded him, against spending on palaces; and he gave to his second son, Obizzo (1611–44), his collection of drawings that included works by, or attributed to, Raphael, Giulio Romano and Titian. Among those attributed to Titian was a Vision of St Gregory (Paris, Louvre), now attributed to Nicolò dell’Abate....

(b Modena, Jan 1634; reg 1658–62; d Modena, July 16, 1662).

Italian ruler, patron and collector, son of Francesco I d’Este. Alfonso’s reign was overshadowed by that of his father. From the age of 16 he had his own residence, the Casino Pentetorri, near Modena (destr. 1944), designed for him by the ducal Superintendent of Works, Gaspare Vigarani, and decorated by the court painters Jean Boulanger, Giovanni Giacomo Monti and Baldassare Bianchi. As Duke of Modena, Alfonso continued Francesco’s policies, as an ally of France (having married in 1656 Laura Martinozzi, a niece of the French statesman Cardinal Jules Mazarin), and as patron and collector. He retained Monti and Bianchi as his court painters, but also employed the Modenese Francesco Stringa. Through the agency of his uncle, Cardinal Rinaldo d’Este (1617–72) in Rome, he was a patron of Gianlorenzo Bernini, who designed the Bicchierone fountain (1661) at the Villa d’Este, Tivoli. Alfonso collected altarpieces two of which, the Assumption of the Virgin...

(b Bologna, July 31, 1598; d Rome, June 10, 1654).

Italian sculptor, architect and draughtsman. He was, with Gianlorenzo Bernini, the most important sculptor active in Rome in the middle years of the 17th century. After the early death of François Duquesnoy in 1643, Algardi’s work came to represent the classicizing stylistic antithesis to the High Baroque sculpture of Bernini, and the two artists were perceived by their contemporaries as equals and rivals. During Algardi’s first years in Rome, Bernini was the principal sculptor in demand at the court of Urban VIII, and Algardi had to be content with relatively modest commissions given to him by patrons with connections to his native Bologna. It was only during the papacy of Innocent X (1644–55) that he came to true artistic prominence, revealing himself to be one of his century’s greatest relief and portrait sculptors. At a time when few sculptors drew with any skill, Algardi was an accomplished draughtsman, making drawings for his sculptural projects and also original works for engravers. In addition he worked as an architect, though the exact extent of his involvement with the design of many of the buildings with which his name has been associated is unclear....

Southern-most region of mainland Portugal. Its name is derived from ‘the West’ in Arabic. This region has relatively few medieval buildings: devastating earthquakes in 1722 and 1755 contributed to these losses, though many buildings were deliberately destroyed during the Middle Ages. For example, in the 12th century the Almoravids likely razed a pilgrimage church, described in Arabic sources, at the tip of the cape of S Vicente. Mosques at Faro, Silves and Tavira, among others, appear to have been levelled to make room for church construction after the Reconquest of the region, completed in 1249. Further excavations could shed much light on this history.

Highlights in the Algarve include remains at Milreu of a villa with elaborate mosaics that rank among the most substantial Roman sites in the region. The site further preserves foundations of a basilica, likely constructed in the 5th century, and traces of what may be a baptistery, perhaps added during the period of Byzantine occupation in the 6th and 7th centuries. The period of Islamic rule, from the 8th century through to the 13th, witnessed the construction of many fortifications, including examples at Aljezur, Loulé and Salir, which were mostly levelled by earthquakes. Silves, a city with origins in the Bronze Age, preserves a substantial concentration of relatively well-preserved Islamic monuments. These include a bridge, carved inscriptions, a castle, cistern and fortified walls, along which numerous ceramics have been excavated. Most extant medieval churches in Algarve date to the period after the Reconquest. These tend to be modest in design and small in scale, such as the 13th-century Vera Cruz de Marmelar, built over Visigothic or Mozarabic foundations. The relatively large cathedrals at Silves and at Faro preserve substantial portions dating to the 13th century, as well as fabric from subsequent medieval campaigns. Renaissance and Baroque churches and ecclesiastical furnishings can be found throughout Algarve....

(b Carpi, nr Modena, c. 1523; d Ferrara, 1573).

Italian architect and writer. He worked intermittently in Rome from 1549 to 1558, probably on the Palazzo Farnese under Michelangelo and on the city fortifications decreed by Pope Paul III. He was in Loreto in 1549, working on the basilica of S Maria, and in 1550, outside Macerata, began the church of S Maria delle Vergini, on which work continued for the rest of his life. The plan is a Greek cross, with a tall, octagonal drum over the crossing, in which are set large rectangular windows that transmit a bright but diffused light to the centre of the church. The interior is impressive in its refined simplicity, with almost all architectural elements reduced to their most essential forms. The great square nave piers, for example, are devoid of decoration other than their simple plinths and cornice-like capitals. The church is built throughout in brick, which is left exposed, with decorative inlaid panels, in the cross-vaulting to the right-hand eastern chapel. The façade (...

(b ?Cantiano, 1615–20; d ?Gubbio, after 1679).

Italian painter. A pupil of Cavaliere d’Arpino, he was attracted early on by the art of Pietro da Cortona, although the full Baroque remained alien to him. He has often been confused with his father, Flaminio Allegrini (?1587–?1663), who was also a painter. The early sources state that Francesco worked in Savona Cathedral and in the Durazzi and Gavotti palaces in Genoa, yet it remains unclear whether these commissions should be attributed to him or to his father. Francesco worked mostly in Rome, where many of his canvases and frescoes are preserved in churches and palaces. Around 1650 he executed the St Catherine altarpiece in the church of SS Domenico e Sisto, Rome (in situ). Between 1652 and 1654 he was working on frescoes in the Speralli Chapel in the cathedral at Gubbio. In 1653 he took part in an important project to decorate the church of S Marco, Rome, under the supervision of ...

[Donat FelixDonatus Felix]

(b Scaria, Oct 24, 1677; d Vienna, May 6, 1761).

Italian architect, builder and engineer, brother of Paolo Allio I. He arrived in Vienna before 1698 and, after taking his craftsman’s qualifying examination in May 1704, worked there as a master mason on civic projects. From 1711 to 1747 he held an appointment with the Army Works Department, where his main function was to submit reports, give specialist advice and modify plans. Donato Felice Allio’s two principal creations were the convent and church (1717–28) of the Salesian nuns in Vienna and Klosterneuburg Abbey (1730–55) near Vienna. The designs of both were based on the concept of two symmetrical courtyards, arranged one behind the other and divided by the main axis, which was determined by the central location of the church. Links with monastery building in Lombardy and in neighbouring Switzerland are evident in these schemes, as is a connection with the layouts of hospitals and homes for old soldiers. In Allio’s first plans for the abbey buildings at Klosterneuburg, which involved the construction of five courtyards, the east section featured a hall and an axial staircase placed opposite the existing church. At the end of ...

(b Scaria, Intelvi, 1655; d Scaria, Feb 6, 1729).

Italian stuccoist. Paolo trained with his uncle Giovanni Battista Carlone II, who had been running a stucco business in Passau since 1675, working on the Jesuit church (now St Michaelkirche) and Passau Cathedral. Paolo Allio is named from July 1681 as mandatary (‘Gevollmächtiger’) and ‘consort’ of Carlone in the Passau Cathedral papers and he remained the impresario of his uncle until 1704. He then worked in the same capacity for Carlone’s son, Diego Francesco Carlone, until 1715. The stucco decoration in the Kuenburg Theological College in Passau is Paolo’s first authenticated independent work. Although he worked in Austria and Germany, he spent the winters in Scaria. From 1705 Paolo Allio and Diego Francesco Carlone were employed as stuccoists at the Collegiate Church in Salzburg, where the works were supervised by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. They also worked at Schloss Klessheim. In 1715 Paolo set up his own workshop, in which his two sons, ...

(b ?Laino d’Intelvi, c. 1665; d Litomyšl, Bohemia, ?March 13, 1720).

Italian architect, active in Bohemia. The son of Lorenzo Alliprandi (d c. 1712), a stucco artist who worked in Vienna, he served his apprenticeship with the master builder Francesco Martinelli (1651–1708) in Vienna from 1685 to 1688 and is recorded as working in Bohemia in 1690 as a foreman. From 1696 to 1702 Alliprandi was in the service of Count Heřman Jakub Černín (1659–1710) as an architect. At the same time, and also later, he worked for the Counts Pachta, Přehořovský, Kaiserstein, Špork and others. In 1706 he was appointed military engineer in Prague, where he acquired citizenship of the Malá Strana quarter in 1709, from which year he was in the service of Count František Václav Trautmansdorf (1676–1753). In 1712 he also served as a military engineer in Cheb.

Alliprandi brought to Bohemia an interesting personal reinterpretation of the achievements and inspirations of such Viennese masters as Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Domenico Martinelli and Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt. His designs for such buildings as the country house at Liblice (...