Filippo Raguzzini

Filippo Raguzzini (Naples, c. 1680 – Rome, 21 February 1771) was an Italian architect best known for a range of buildings constructed during the reign of Benedict XIII.

Raguzzini was born in Naples into a family of stonemasons. Little is known of his early history, but he was called to Benevento in the wake of the massive earthquake of 1702 that caused widespread destruction. In Benevento, he came to the attention of Pietro Francesco Orsini who, before his election to the papacy as Benedict XIII in 1724, was archbishop of Benevento for 38 years from 1686. This encounter with Orsini would be of crucial significance for Raguzzini’s later career. There is considerable scholarly debate about which works in Benevento should be attributed to Raguzzini’s early period, but the chapel of S. Gennaro in the church of the Annunziata (1710) is though to be his work. Two later churches, S. Filippo (1724 – 27) and S. Bartolomeo (consecrated in 1729) in Benevento, are from the period after the election of Benedict XIII.

Raguzzini arrived in Rome some time soon after the election of Benedict XIII and commenced a meteoric rise through the ranks of the Roman architectural establishment. Official honours were lavished on him from as early as 1725, when he was made a Knight of the Golden Spur; in February 1727, he was elected an accademico di merito of the Accademia di S. Luca. Benedict XIII’s patronage saw Raguzzini ultimately serve in almost every major public architectural office in the city. The most significant posts he held were those in which he supplanted the much older and highly respected Roman architect, Alessandro Specchi, whose most important work, the Porto di Ripetta, had been executed in the reign of Clement XI: these roles were those of the architect of the popolo romano (essentially the city architect), the architect of the Tribunale delle acque e strade and the architect of the Sacri Palazzi Apostolici. Raguzzini held these offices from 1728, although they were nominally to be held by the incumbent (Specchi) for life – Specchi died in November 1729.

Benedict XIII’s reign was marked by ongoing problems of financial management. Benedict himself practically vacated the temporal government of Rome and the Papal States, turning this over to Nicolò Cardinal Coscia whose mismanagement of finances (which ultimately led to his temporary excommunication and imprisonment in the reign of Clement XII) almost bankrupted the Papal States. As a result, major architectural projects in Benedict’s reign were few. The most significant projects executed in Rome by Raguzzini during Benedict’s reign were the construction of the Ospedale di S. Gallicano in Trastevere (1724 – 26), the erection of the church of S. Maria della Quercia near the Palazzo Spada (1727 – 31) and the systematisation of Piazza S. Ignazio (1727 – 35). The construction of S. Maria della Quercia, the church of the butchers’ guild (Università dei macellai) of Rome, appears to have been sponsored by Benedict XIII. The church is named for a miraculous image housed at Viterbo in the care of the Dominicans and, as Dominican himself, Benedict seems to have taken a key interest in the church. Although renovated, this church is a masterpiece of the style of the 1720s – 1730s in Rome and is one of the few early eighteenth century churches in Rome to have been built from the ground up, essentially to the design of a single person. Piazza S. Ignazio, an ensemble of five residential buildings for the growing administration class of the city, is characterised by its complex interplay of ovoid shapes and the ingenious theatre-wing like construction. People walking from the nearby Piazza di Pietra find themselves suddenly emerging in Piazza S. Ignazio into a confrontation with the church, as if they had stumbled in from offstage. Although the decorative effect of the buildings is an important component of their overall effect, the ensemble signifies a significant departure from the typical operative logic of the piazza before the church. Raguzzini subtly undermines the supremacy of the church in the church/piazza relationship typical of Counter-Reformation urban planning, and invests the space of the piazza itself with considerable energy and intrigue: in this way, the church has become a pendant to the piazza, rather than the reason for the piazza’s existence.

Raguzzini’s other projects during Benedict’s reign were nearly all small commissions and included the renovation of the chapels of the Presepio in the baptistery, S. Domenico and il Crocifisso in the Domincian church of S. Maria sopra Minevra (1724 – 6); the restoration of the church and convent of S. Sisto Vecchio near the Baths of Caracalla (completed 1727); minor works in the Sistine Chapel of S. Maria Maggiore (1725), in S. Giovanni in Laterano (1726) and in S. Pietro in Vaticano (1726); the restoration of the high altar in S. Simeone Profeta (1724); the enlargement of the convent annexed to S. Maria in Campitelli (1724) and many others.

Raguzzini’s fortunes took a turn for the worse in February 1730 when, upon the death of Benedict XIII, a general purge of the small army of Beneventans brought to Rome by Benedict XIII occurred. According to the testimony of Pier Leone Ghezzi, Raguzzini was arrested in the piazza di Trevi on 4 September 1731 and held under house arrest as part of this purge. Although subsequently stripped of many of his official positions, Raguzzini gained many of them back through legal action. He was named a virtuoso of the Congregazione al Pantheon in September 1749, which appears to indicate a measure of official rehabilitation. His output from the mid-1730s onward is very small, although his name is frequently encountered in official processes of the Tribunale delle strade.

References

• Wittkower, Rudolf (1993). Pelican History of Art, Art and Architecture Italy, 1600-1750. 1980. Penguin Books Ltd. pp. pp370, 380. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)