Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia (Palermo, 1729 – Palermo, 1814) City nickname: Location Location of Palermo within the island of Sicily. ... Events July 30 - Baltimore, Maryland is founded. ... 1814 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

He received received his first architectural training in his native Palermo. This was followed by a period in Rome from 1747 to 1759. By the end of his stay a handful of progressive young architects and designers in the circuit of the French Academy in Rome were moving away from the ornate Baroque towards a more simple, more classical form of architecture under the influence of the architect Winckelmann who was a protege of Cardinal Alessandro Albani. 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... Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens: dynamic figures spiral down around a void: draperies blow: a whirl of movement lit in a shaft of light, rendered in a free bravura handling of paint In arts, the Baroque (or baroque) is both a period and the style that dominated it. ... Portrait by Raphael Mengs, after 1755 He was born in Pacifica, the son of a model. ...

Marvuglia won the second prize in a contest organised by the Accademia San Luca, for a town square. His entry had at its centre a circular domed building reminiscent of the Pantheon in Rome, but with Baroque features in its columns and statuary. Accademia di San Luca, the painting academy of Rome, named for the Evangelist Saint Luke, reputed to have made a portrait of the Virgin Mary, who was patron of many painters guilds in the Low Countries and in Italy, was founded in 1593. ... The Pantheon, Rome The Pantheon is a building in Rome which was originally built as a temple to the seven deities of the seven planets in the Roman state religion, but which has been a Christian church since the 7th century. ...

Following his return to Sicily, he worked on the rebuilding of the monastery of "S. Martino dell Scale", in the mountains near Palermo; while he designed this in Baroque style, evidence that the tide of fashion was flowing towards Neoclassicism is evident through the straight clean lines as opposed to the curved facades and broken rooflines of typical Sicilian Baroque. Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture. ... Picture 1: Sicilian Baroque. ...

Though much of Marvuglia's work was in municipal architecture two churchs are credited to him. One, at the very start of his independent career, is 'S. Filippo Neri' (1769): rather than in high Baroque it is built with a facade divided into three square divisions decorated with panels of bas-relief. The pilasters are flat and plain. The pediments are unbroken. The interior of the church has a gilded barrel vaulted ceiling, supported by great marble columns. What is unusual and a break in the Sicilian Baroque tradition here is that the columns do not support an arcade, but a flat entablature. This church, much preferred by English visitors in the 18th century to the ornate Sicilian Baroque, shows clearly the beginning of tastes moving from the Baroque towards a less decorated order. The word facade (or façade) can mean one of several things. ... In architecture, pilasters comprise slightly-projecting pseudo-columns built into or onto a wall, with capitals and bases. ... Barrel vault In architecture, a barrel vault is an extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. ... Marble This page is about the metamorphic rock. ... Arcade can mean several things: Arcade (architecture) - A passage or walkway, often including retailers. ... An entablature is a classical architectural element, the superstructure which lies horizontally above the columns, resting on their capitals. ...

Later, in the church of San Francesco di Sales, in Corso Calatafimi, Palermo (1772 – 1776, consecrated May 8, 1818) Marvuglia interpreted a classicizing Palladian program of paired pilasters in the piers of an abbreviated arcade giving onto two pairs of side chapels, supporting a cornice carried without an interruption entirely round the space, integrating the sober pedimented tablernacle of the high altar, all in a restrained tonality of white and cream that to an early viewer was "semplice e senza ornamenti" ("simple and without ornaments") as indeed it was in the context of Late Baroque Palermo.

As an architect Marvuglia showed great understanding of proportion and mass. His Palazzo Constantino, a project he took over in 1787 shows a fusion of both the Neoclassical and Palladian. His Palazzo Riso-Belmonte completed in 1784 clearly shows better than any other in Sicily the final days of Sicilian Baroque as it was transformed into Neoclassicism; the unbroken skyline and the plain almost severe pillars and unbroken window pediments, far outweigh the Baroque sentiments in internal arcaded courtyard. A villa with a superimposed portico, from Book IV of Palladios I Quattro Libri dellArchitettura, in a modestly priced English translation published in London, 1736. ...

Marvuglia designed two villas at the newly fashionable aristocratic enclave of Bagheria. The Villa Villarosa, while neoclassical in spirit is clearly influenced by the hôtels by Gabriel on the Place Louis XV in Paris. For Ferdinand I of Naples, forced into temporary residence in Sicily by the republican revoilution and the Napoleonic occupation, he designed a whimsical Casina Cinese in the royal park of La Favorita outside Palermo and at Ficuzza a long unbroken block of a severely classical villa with very little relief and an unbroken cornice. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Roman villa. ... Bagheria is a town of approximately 40,000 inhabitants in the neighbourhood of Palermo in Sicily, Italy. ... The Place de la Concorde seen from the Pont de la Concorde; in front, the Obelisk, behind, the Rue Royale and the Church of the Madeleine; on the left, the Hôtel de Crillon. ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Ferdinand I (1423 - January 25, 1494), also called Don Ferrante, was the King of Naples from 1458 to 1494. ...

As a teacher of architecture Marvuglia strongly supported the study of Sicily's Greek temples, however, in spite of his later reputation as a Neoclassical architect he never applied to his own work the strict rules and proportions he found in his studies of ancient Greek architecture.

External links

• Carlo Trabia, "Ficuzza Hunting lodge"
• Cappella del Marvuglia" (the Church of San Francesco di Sales): brief biography (in Italian)