Domenico Fontana (1543 – 1607) was an Italian architect of the late Renaissance. // Events February 21 - Battle of Wayna Daga - A combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeat the armies of Adal led by Ahmed Gragn. ... Events January 20 - Tidal wave swept along the Bristol Channel, killing 2000 people. ...

He was born at Melide on the Lake of Lugano and died at Naples. He went to Rome before the death of Michelangelo and made a deep study of the works of ancient and modern masters. He won in particular the confidence of Cardinal Montalto, later Pope Sixtus V, who in 1584 charged him with the erection of the Cappella del Presepio (Chapel of the Manger) in Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, a powerful domical building over a Greek cross. It is a marvellously well-balanced structure, notwithstanding the profusion of detail and overloading of rich ornamentation, which in no way interferes with the main architecural scheme. It is crowned by a dome in the early style of S. Mario at Montepulciano. Lago di Lugano Lake Lugano (Italian Lago di Lugano or Ceresio) is a lake in the south-east of Switzerland, at the border between Switzerland and Italy. ... Naples (Italian Napoli, Neapolitan Napule, from Greek Νέα Πόλις - Néa Pólis - meaning New City; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is the largest city in southern Italy and capital of Campania Region and the Province of Naples. ... City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC mythical, 1st millennium BC Region Latium Mayor Walter Veltroni (Left-Wing Democrats) Area  - City Proper  1290 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2,546,807 almost 4,000,000 1... Michelangelo (full name Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni) (March 6, 1475 - February 18, 1564) was a Renaissance sculptor, architect, painter, and poet. ... Sixtus V, born Felice Peretti (December 13, 1521 -– August 27, 1590) was pope from 1585 to 1590. ... The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is the largest church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and used for Christian liturgy. ...

For the same patron, he constructed the Palazzo Montalto near S. Maria Maggiore, with its skilful distribution of masses and tied decorative scheme of reliefs and festoons, impressive because of the dexterity with which the artist adapted the plan to the site at his disposal. After his accession as Sixtus V, he appointed Fontana architect of St. Peter's, bestowing upon him, among other distinctions, the title of Knight of the Golden Spur. He added the lantern to the dome of St. Peter's and proposed the prolongation of the interior in a well-defined nave. Interior view, with the nave of the Basilica in the back St. ...

San Giovanni in Laterano

San Giovanni: north facade

Of more importance were the alterations he made in Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano (c.1586), where he introduced into the loggia of the north facade an imposing double arcade of wide span and ample sweep, and probably added the two-story portico the Scala Santa. This predilection for arcades as essential features of an architectural scheme was brought out in the fountains designed by Domenico and his brother Giovanni, e.g. the Fontana dell'Acqua Paola, or the Fontana di Termini planned along the same lines. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1280x960, 233 KB) photo by Radomil 28. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1280x960, 233 KB) photo by Radomil 28. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (827x1064, 184 KB) (photo by Radomil 28. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (827x1064, 184 KB) (photo by Radomil 28. ... The late Baroque façade of the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano was completed by Alessandro Galilei in 1735 after winning a competition for the design. ...

Among profane buildings his strong restrained style, with its suggestion of the School of Vignola, is best exemplified in the Lateran Palace (begun in 1586), in which the vigorous application of sound structural principles and a power of co-ordination are undeniable, but also the utter lack of imagination and barren monotony of style. It was characteristic of him to remain satisfied with a single solution to an architectural problem, as shown in the fact that he reapplied the motif of the Lateran Palace in the later part of the Vatican containing the present papal residence, and in the additions to the Quirinal Palace. From the beginning of the 4th Century, when it was given to the Pope by Constantine, the Palace of the Lateran on Piazza San Giovanni in south-east Rome was the principal residence of the Popes, and continued so for about a thousand years. ... The Quirinal Palace (known in Italian as the Quirinale) is the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic. ...

Fontana also designed the transverse arms separating the courts of the Vatican. In 1586 he set up the obelisk in the Square of St. Peter's, of which he gives an account in "Della transportatione dell'obelisco Vaticano e delle fabriche di Sisto V" (Rome, 1590). He also used his knowledge of statics, which aroused universal astonishment at the time, in the erection of three other ancient obelisks on the Piazza del Popolo, Piazza di S. Maria Maggiore, and Piazza di S. Giovanni in Laterano.

After his patron's death, he continued for some time in the service of his successor, Pope Clement VIII. Soon, however, dissatisfaction with his style, envy, and the charge that he had misappropriated public moneys, drove him to Naples where, in addition to designing canals, he erected the Palazzo Reale. Clement VIII, born Ippolito Aldobrandini (March 1536, Fano, Italy– March 5, 1605, Rome) was pope from 1592 to 1605. ...

Domenico's brother Giovanni (b. 1546; d at Rome, 1614) is of less importance. His chief creations are gigantic fountains, at Frascati and Rome, where the Palazzo Giustiniani as also ascribed to him.