II. Borromini and the Academic and Professional Corporations

Abstract

II.1 Borromini’s Relationship with the Academy of St. Luke

The widely held critical view of Francesco Borromini as an architect alienated from the Academy of St. Luke is tied to the presumed ideological aversion shown him by Giovanni Pietro Bellori, supposedly reflected in Bellori’s discourse on the “Idea del Bello”, presented at the Academy in 1764.  Reconsidering the nature of Bellori’s 1764 discourse, and the circumstances in which it was delivered, this contribution offers a less subjective interpretation of the critical components of the discourse, in regard to contemporary architecture and architects. Moreover, this contribution seeks to reconstruct the context of Borromini’s disengagement from Academy affiliations not as an exclusion based on cultural or corporative nature, but rather as the considered rejection of an artistic and professionally autonomous personality, operating entirely outside official models of accreditation.

II.2 Presences and Absences in the Censuses of «Architects in Rome»

A study of the censuses of all categories of artists active in Rome liable for taxation to the Academy of St. Luke, a tax imposed by Pope Urban VIII by papal brief of 11 July 1633, reveals that the name of Francesco Borromini appears for the first time in an unpublished census datable between the end of 1641 and the middle of 1643, of which another version is known, which is however erroneously dated to 1635.

Significantly, Borromini’s name does not appear on another unpublished, also undated census, which can now be tied to the first census undertaken in 1634 upon activation of Urban VIII’s brief.

The lesser number of architects elencated in the 1634 Academy of St. Luke census, probably points to a more restrictive selective criteria by the Academy at that date in respect to the census of 1641-1643, which includes many more names, evidently based on a more progressive selection of criteria of inclusion and exclusion in respect to papal law.

A careful comparison of these Academy censuses, and of two others, dating from the early 1650’s, together with the discovery of a first, and up until now, unique documentation of the relationship between Borromini and the Academy, contributes to a re-appraisal of the public image of the architect in respect to the Roman professional architectual context defined on the basis of public and private employement, as well as academic affiliation.