Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni: his early education among Florence, Rome and London

Abstract

This research work – part of a phd thesis in co-supervision between the " Sapienza " University of Rome and the University of Paris 1 “Panthéon- Sorbonne” - has the objective of investigating the lesser-known aspects of the life of architect Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni, especially the period of his training in Florence and Rome, and the years when he lived in England before his arrival in Paris in 1724. At the same time he was painter, architect and decorator and his name was famous thanks to a large number of sets made for the Opéra and to the design of the façade of the church of Saint- Sulpice in Paris. During his life, Servandoni had the opportunity to travel throughout Europe, where he worked for the major courts of that time, from Paris to London, from Lisbon to Brussels, Vienna, Dresden and Stuttgart. The archival research allowed to make the major breakthroughs, such as the discovery of  the Servandoni stay in Rome between 1719 and 1720, in the Prince Vaini's palace, a man “entiérement attaché à la France” and related to the environment of the Capranica and d'Alibert theaters. This find let us to make some assumptions about his life and his contacts in the papal city. And yet, the study highlighted the strong relationship that he had with the english cultural environment during  his early stay in Rome, that convinced him to take the trip to London. Thanks to this research, Servandoni's complete work - so vaguely interpreted as an anticipation of the “goût à la grecque” and the revival of classicism of the late eighteenth century - is reinterpreted as the result of his training in Italy and England. It is indebted, in fact, that as well the classicism that characterized the Florentine architecture of that period as his close contact with the English Palladian circle and with the Wren, Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor works, exercised a great influence on him.