Guarini, Guarino
Guarini, Guarino
(gwärē`nō gwärē`nē), 1624–83, Italian architect, mathematician, and writer. He was one of the first to analyze with perceptivity the structure of medieval architecture, in his Architettura civile, posthumously edited by Vittone in 1737. After studying in Rome, he returned to his birthplace, Modena, where he was ordained in the Theatine order. In 1660 he moved to Messina and designed several important church buildings there. Soon after, he traveled to Paris, where he built the Theatine church of Sainte-Anne-la-Royale (destroyed 1823) and wrote a mathematical-philosophical treatise, Placita philosophica (1665). Settling in Turin, he designed two palaces and three centralized churches; the Sindone Chapel and the Church of San Lorenzo are considered two of the finest examples of baroque architecture. Guarini reached the pinnacle of his achievement in his planning of domes that suggest the loftiness and openwork of the spires of Gothic churches.Bibliography
See study by H. A. Meek (1988).
Guarini, Guarino
(1624–1683)Guarini, Guarino
Born Jan. 17, 1624, in Modena; died Mar. 6, 1683, in Milan. Italian architect.
Guarini worked in Rome, Modena, Messina, and Paris; in 1666 he began working in Turin. Guarini’s work (the Church of San Lorenzo, 1668-87; the Carignano Palace begun in 1679 in Turin) is the apogee of the restless dynamism of Italian baroque architecture. The most complicated mathematical calculations are combined in his work with a mystical irrationality of architectural images, the whimsicality and extreme tension of forms, and the refinement of curvilinear planes.