Borromini, Francesco

Borromini, Francesco (1599–1667). One of the greatest exponents of Baroque architecture in Rome, he was born Francesco Castello in Bissone, near Como, studied sculpture in Milan (where he probably met the masons working on late-Gothic forms at the Duomo), and was apprenticed to his relative, Carlo Maderno, from c.1620, before assisting Bernini (of whom he was critical and jealous) at San Pietro, Rome, 1629–33. Borromini was fascinated by the teachings of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), who held that mathematics was the key to Nature, and that geometrical figures were Nature's pictographs. As a result, Borromini developed his architecture through highly complex interlinked geometries, creating powerful, restless, dynamic forms totally different from the concatenated method of Renaissance design. His other sources were Antique buildings such as Hadrian's villa at Tivoli.

Borromini set up on his own in 1633, and was involved in a number of designs for palazzi and villas, although he is best known for his churches. In 1634 he was commissioned to design the Monastery of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1634–43) in Rome for the Order of Spanish Discalced Trinitarians. In spite of its smallness, the complex of cloister and church is ingenious in the extreme, illustrating Borromini's concerns with geometrical intricacies. The church has an elliptical, central space that merges with other ellipses, the Orders being placed on contraflexed curves on plan, so that wall-surfaces bow inwards and outwards. The whole front (from 1665) of the building seems to be in motion, with its concave-convex-concave plan for the lower Ionic storey and a concave-concave-concave plan for the upper Composite façade. The miniature Orders for the aedicules recall Borromini's hero, Michelangelo, and his work on the Capitol. Shortly after beginning work on San Carlo, Borromini was appointed to design the Casa e Oratorio dei Filippini (1637–50), the façade of which curves slightly, as though it had been bent, but the plan is ingenious and has a wonderful logic. The Monastery of the Oblate Agostiniane, including the Church of Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori (1642–9), remained unfinished, but has several interesting features: vestibule, church, and the space before the concave façade determine each other's shape, for a concave in one creates a convex in the other, giving an impression of almost elastic materials.

The plan of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza (1642–62) is based on six circles drawn on a six-pointed star evolved from two superimposed equilateral triangles. The resultant space is extraordinary and dynamic, carried up within the dome which is capped by a lantern (the shape of which resembles the late-Roman temple of Venus at Baalbek), topped by a spiral tower (which may refer to the Tower of Babel) above which is the flame of Truth. The plan resembles the shape of a bee, the heraldic device of Pope Urban VIII (1623–44), who appointed Borromini architect to the ancient University (the Sapienza). There are references to the Wisdom of Solomon (and therefore to the Temple) in the Cherubims, palms, pomegranates, and stars within the dome. This eclectic symbolism has no precedent in architecture. The Biblioteca Alessandrina alla Sapienza (1660–6) was the model for many later monastic and university libraries.

The fame that grew from these Baroque masterpieces led to other ecclesiastical commissions (largely through his Pamfili patron, Pope Innocent X (1644–55)), including the renovation and modernization of the ancient Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano. There, he clothed the structure of the nave and aisles in Baroque garb, with the overlapping triumphal-arch theme that Alberti had used at Sant'Andrea in Mantua in C15. The work involved rearranging and adapting the many funerary monuments within the new setting, and this Borromini did with skill, adding putti and Baroque decorations to give the scheme coherence. However, his intended vaulting over the nave was never built. He was commissioned to complete Rainaldi's unfinished Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone in the Piazza Navona (1653–7). The building was a Greek cross on plan, which Borromini kept in essence, but he raised the drum of the dome and articulated the concave front flanked by two inventive towers. The result is that the onlooker seems to be drawn within the great centralized space, which is the High Baroque version of the centralized plan of San Pietro. This building was influential, especially in Austria (see Fischer von Erlach).

From 1647 he worked on the Palazzo di Propaganda Fide, the main façade of which has a Giant Order of pilasters (with capitals reduced to five flutes) between which strange Doric aedicules burst from the plane of the wall. The cornice, part straight and part swaying, is carried on larger mutules, and the whole effect is surreal, oppressive, and sinister. Inside the complex is the Cappella dei Re Magi, roofed with rib-vaults connected to the Giant Order of pilasters, giving a Gothic flavour to what is essentially a Baroque ensemble.

Borromini's commissions dried up on the death of his patron, the Pope, in 1655, and, in spite of a moderately successful decade, he committed suicide in 1667. His style, which fused Gothic and late-Renaissance elements, was unconventional, but his experiments with swaying walls and interpenetrating ellipses were influential in Central Europe in C18. His successful mixing of flowing forms with vigorous sculpture also proved to be a powerful stimulus north of the Alps.

Bibliography

Bosel & and C. Frommel (2000);
Blunt (1979);
Connors (1980);
C. Frommel (ed.) (2000);
E. Hempel (1924);
Norberg-Schulz (1986, 1986a);
Portoghesi (1982, 1990);
Raspe (1994);
Sinisgalli et al . (2000);
Varriano (1986);
Wittkower (1982)