Bertotti-Scamozzi, Ottavio

Bertotti-Scamozzi, Ottavio (1719–90). Doyen of the Palladian Revival in Italy, he edited Palladio's work, producing the important Le fabbriche e i disegni di Andrea Palladio raccolti e illustrati (The Buildings and Designs of Andrea Palladio collected and illustrated—1776–83) and Le terme dei Romani, disegnate da A. Palladio (The Baths of Rome, Drawn by A. Palladio—1785), publications which have tended to obscure his own architectural significance. He was well-connected, and knew such figures as Algarotti and Quarenghi, while he seems to have been sought-after as a cicerone by those cognoscenti on the Grand Tour, and produced a guide-book to the architectural sights of Vicenza in 1761. His own buildings in and around Vicenza, unsurprisingly, are strongly influenced by Palladianism: his Casa Muzzi, Riello (1770), is clearly based on the Villino Cerato di Montecchio Precalcino (1540s), while the Palazzo Franceschini a San Marco, Vicenza (1770), though essentially Palladian in composition, betrays certain tentative aspects of Neo-Classicism. In the last decade of his life his work became more severe and bare (e.g. Palazzo Braghetta sul Corso (1780) and Teatro Eretenio (1781–4)).

Bibliography

Bertotti-Scamozzi (1776–83, 1797);
Kamm-Kyburz (1983);
Olivato (1975)