Giovanni Pieroni

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Pieronis Sala terrena in Palais Waldstein

Giovanni Pieroni (born March 5, 1586 in Florence , † 1654 in Prague ) was an Italian architect, mathematician and astronomer who worked primarily for Wallenstein and the Habsburg monarchy . In addition to the construction of individual civil buildings, the main focus of his work was the construction of fortresses. He also became famous as an astrologer and author of horoscopes .

Life

Sketch of Ljubljana 1639 after Pieroni
Sichelberg in 1639 after a drawing by Giovanni Pieroni

He was born in Florence as the son of Alessandro Pieroni , who worked as an architect at the Medici court . Giovanni was a pupil of Bernardo Buontalenti and was in friendly contact with Galileo Galilei for many years . In 1608 he obtained a doctorate in law from the University of Pisa .

In 1620 Emperor Ferdinand II asked his sister, the Tuscan Grand Duchess Maria Magdalena , for a fortress building expert and was recommended to Pieroni. Pieroni then went to Vienna with his assistant Baccio del Bianco . In the years and decades to come, he inspected numerous fortresses for the Habsburgs and drew up plans for their improvement and expansion. His assistant Bianco later described him as an "astrological architect".

From autumn 1622 he stayed in Prague, where he soon met Albrecht von Wallenstein. Pieroni designed the garden and sala terrena of Palais Waldstein , possibly also the riding school of the property. The decoration of the palace with astrological and astronomical representations is also attributed to Pieroni and his inner circle of employees. In Wallenstein's residence city of Jičín , Pieroni expanded the church of St. Jacob and, together with Andrea Spezza, the existing castle.

In 1627 he met Johannes Kepler in Prague and took part in his astronomical observations. Shortly afterwards, Kepler also entered Wallenstein's service. Pieroni mediated between Kepler and Galileo, to whom he sent several of Kepler's works, and tried to get Galileo's works published. Pieroni also stayed in contact with the Medici court, who he regularly informed about political, cultural and military events in Prague.

From 1628 to 1632, Pieroni was responsible for the fortress-like extension of Wallenstein's castle in Weißwasser in the next project . For Rambaldo Collalto , Pieroni rebuilt the castle and crypt church of Pirnitz Castle in Moravia in 1629 . For the castle, he also made a plan to convert it into an ideal palazzo in fortezza , which was not implemented. In 1631, instead, only the representative rooms in the older parts of the castle were expanded and decorated.

In 1635 Pieroni was awarded the Bohemian fiefdom Dubenec , which was confiscated after Wallenstein's death , initially as an administrator, and from 1650 as the permanent owner. In the course of the 1630s he returned to Vienna. From 1639 he documented the condition of fortifications in Croatia and along the military border on behalf of the Court War Council . On the basis of his work, he wrote the Trattato delle fortificazioni moderne, a theoretical treatise on fortress construction.

After the end of the Thirty Years War , Pieroni was responsible for the repair and the beginning of the expansion of the Prague city fortifications as an engineer on behalf of the city commanders Innocentio Conti and Jan van der Croon , while Carlo Lurago and Santino Bossi worked as builders under him . During this time Pieroni designed the defenses of the Náchod Castle for the lord of the castle Octavio Piccolomini together with the military Croon .

After Pieroni's death in 1654, the engineer Filippo Talducci took over the management of the Prague fortress construction.

literature

  • Guido Carrai: Giovanni Pieroni: uno scenografo fiorentino per l'incoronazione praghese del 1627. In: Umberto Artioli; Cristina Grazioli (ed.): I Gonzaga e l'Impero: itinerari dello spettacolo: con una selezione di materiali dell'Archivio informatico Herla (1560-1630). Le lettere, Florence 2005, ISBN 88-7166-866-9 . Digitized

Web links

Commons : Giovanni Pieroni  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Guido Carrai: Giovanni Pieroni: uno scenografo fiorentino per l'incoronazione praghese del 1627. p. 1.
  2. ↑ Bundesdenkmalamt (Ed.): Austrian magazine for art and monument preservation . Volume 60, 2006. p. 384.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Alena Hadravová, Petr Hadrava: Science in Contact with Art: Astronomical Symbolics of the Wallenstein Palace in Prague . In: Jitka Zamrzlová: Science in contact at the beginning of scientific revolution . Acta historiae rerum naturalium necnon technicarum, New series, Vol. 8. 2004. pp. 173-210.
  4. ↑ Joachim Bahlcke , Winfried Eberhard and Miloslav Polívka (eds.): Handbook of the historical sites of Germany: Bd. Bohemia and Moravia. Alfred Kröner Verlag , Stuttgart 1998. p. 61.
  5. ^ Jiří Kroupa: Art, Patronage and Society in Moravia 1620-1650. In: Research Center "Westphalian Peace". Retrieved June 19, 2021 .
  6. ^ Christian d'Elvert : Contributions to the history of the Bohemian countries. Volume 23 . Brno 1878. S. XCII.
  7. ↑ Robert Born: Fortress and Frontier . In: Reinhard Johler, Josef Wolf (ed.): Describing and measuring. Spatial knowledge in the eastern Habsburg monarchy in the 18th and 19th centuries . Frank & Timme , Berlin 2011. p. 286.
  8. ^ A b Max Dvořák: The walls of Prague . In: Communications from the Association of Architects and Engineers in the Kingdom of Bohemia . Prague, 1877. Volume 12. II. And III. Notebook. Pp. 10-14.
  9. ↑ Anton Podlaha, Zdenek Wirth: Topography of the historical and art monuments in the Kingdom of Bohemia from prehistoric times to the beginning of the XIX. Centuries. Volumes 35-36. Prague, 1912. p. 60.
personal data
SURNAME Pieroni, Giovanni
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pieroni da Galliano, Giovanni Battista
SHORT DESCRIPTION Italian architect, mathematician and astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1586
PLACE OF BIRTH Florence
DATE OF DEATH 1654
PLACE OF DEATH Prague