Ottaviano Mascarino in Tivoli: the Church of San Nicola

Abstract

The essay aims to include the church of St. Nicholas in Tivoli, built between 1588 and 1596 for the Roman hospital of S. Spirito in Sassia, between Ottaviano Mascarino’s works: in that period he was official architect of that religious hospital order. The allocation relies mainly on documents kept in the State Archive of Rome, but is also supported by a detailed analysis of the type and elements of the architectural language. The chapel is compared with some drawings of Mascarino: one of them reproduces the plan of the church of S. Maria del Piano in Capranica, designed by Vignola, from which our building unquestionably derives. The comparison with the drawings quoted in the text emphasizes a real research conducted by Mascarino, who used to repeat some shapes and stylistic elements in his projects of sacred and civil architecture.

The essay finally enters the chapel in the context of the Roman architectural production of the end of the sixteenth century, but also notes how some aspects seem to anticipate compositional schemes that will emerge permanently in the early decades of the next century.

Keywords: Aedicule-shaped facade, banded architectural order,  biaxial plan, two-apsed hall, Ottaviano Mascarino.