The book that Paolo Portoghesi dedicates to Borromini is voluminous, dense and seductive, full of pictures and reflections of great importance that contribute to tell the life and works of one of the greatest protagonists of the seventeenth century. In this book, the genius of Borromini is recreated by famous critic Paolo Portoghesi, who is the author of many original studies ranging from the Renaissance period to this day, a very skilled architect and one of the protagonists of one of the happiest and most controversial seasons of the second half of the twentieth century in Italy. Portoghesi retraces the life of the artist through a journey that reconstructs his soul and creative inspiration. While reading this book, we get to know a “different” genius, who has a strong personality and is dominated by a proud independence. We are thus faced with an analysis of a precocious talent, of his willingness to constantly improve himself, to stand out from the crowd, to win at all costs. To the point of becoming ill from the frantic search for beauty and its ideal.
The different genius: Paolo Portoghesi’s book on Borromini
Portoghesi dedicated over six hundred pages to the life of one of the greatest Italian architects working in the Baroque style, between architecture and symbolism, darkness and splendour, in a revised and expanded edition of the famous 1967 text.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
Courtesy of Skira editore.
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- Valentina Petrucci
- 10 March 2020
Described in literature as a Platonic visionary, an extravagant, bizarre architect, Borromini grew up in an artistic context - to which he later contributed perhaps more than any other, thus demonstrating the extraordinary impact that he has had over the centuries, tracing the luminous path of a contradictory man with an ardent faith and a vein of secrecy, that would later lead to his unexpected suicide. Portoghesi’s book tells the story of Borromini’s continuous attempt to show the world in its semantic and iconographic complexity, while at the same time respecting the laws of architecture, in an effort to approach the divine through ascetic and spiritual-looking works that fit into the urban space, supporting and at the same time spectacularizing it.
Unconsciously or not, Portoghesi seems to hint at Ernst Gombrich, who at the beginning of his “the Story of Art”, wrote: “There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists”. And in fact, this is how Borromini is described - as a “necessary” artist, a great personality that could not have been absent, but which still remains to be discovered, suspended between the past and the present, always interpreted in a visionary sense.
Other studies and monographic chapters have been dedicated to Borromini’s talent, narrating his life and works as if it were some intellectual diaries: originally, they dealt with the period of production of artists such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Simon Vouet, Pietro da Cortona and Francesco Borromini himself, described by Giuliano Briganti as “the generation of 1630”. Here, however, things change, and follow the Baroque canon: in addition to reason, Portoghesi makes sentiment speak. And in fact, the real focus of the book is on the chapters that analyze Borromini’s sentimental world, his language and his aesthetics made of shapes and symbols, the artistic journey of someone who became the co-star, especially in Rome, of a historical period that contributed to creating the definition of what will become the most distinctive aspects of modernity. It is increasingly clear that, if Bernini pursues contiguity, Borromini goes beyond it, creating effects of wonder, and spaces coexisting in autonomy thanks to the use of his architectural grammar.
In the context of the most complex events of seventeenth-century art, and at the same time suspended in a sort of splendid isolation, Portoghesi’s volume outlines the peculiarities and character of the artist, from his rise on the Roman scene to the diffusion and proliferation of his works, also through the symbolism of the facades, in the planimetric devices or in the sculptural scanning of spaces. A unique and direct, sentimental and personal experience that not even the pages of a 20th century master of criticism can replace.
- Borromini, la vita e le opere
- Paolo Portoghesi
- Skira
- 632
Anonymous 18th century engraving from a portrait of Borromini, reworked as an illustration of the two volumes on Borromini's work printed by the publisher Giannini in 1720 and 1725.
The interior of the church of Sant’Agnese in Piazza Navona. The Borromini’s body of the church, completed and decorated by Carlo Rainaldi, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Giovanni Maria Baratta, but still recognizable under the rich colour scheme, pays homage to Bramante’s tradition of the dome set on the octagon, reinterpreted in terms of accentuated plasticity.
Borromini at St. Peter’s. A glimpse of the twisted columns and detail of the canopy crowning in St. Peter’s Basilica in which one can feel, in the design of the four membranes and the quadriconcave crowning, Borromini’s creative participation in the enterprise, for which he is compensated as a drawer.
Borromini collaborated with Carlo Maderno. In the construction of the dome of Sant’Andrea della Valle the collaboration is expressed above all in the design of the lantern.
Barberini Palace. The tangent portals of Michelangelo’s ancestry in the hall of Pietro da Cortona and the wealth of plastic processing testify to Borromini’s creative intervention.
The cloister of San Carlino. View of the cloister of the convent, the first spatial structure completed by the architect with a simplicity of means that made it one of his most admired works, even by his detractors.
The church of San Carlino. Observing from the centre the organism reveals itself in its planimetric layout and in its unitary development. Circles and ovals of the apses are chained through the trabeation and find in the ovals of the dome and the lantern their summary form.
The oratory hall in the house of the Philippines. The vault of the oratory with the fresco by Francesco Romanelli. The ribs connecting diagonally the corner pilasters prefigure the solution of the chapel of the Three Kings.
The Vallicelliana Library. The order of slender balustrades that make the transparency of the shelves possible.
Assonometry of the chapel of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza.
The Palace of Wisdom. Borromini's intervention for the completion of the Palazzo della Sapienza, seat of the Roman university - with the construction of the church of Sant’Ivo and the wing towards Sant'Eustachio - took place during three pontificates from 1632 to 1662. The large courtyard designed by Pirro Ligorio and the concave facade designed by Giacomo Della Porta are interpreted by Borromini as a stable base for its unpredictable “a solo”, which Eberhard Hempel compared to a “sea trumpet”.
The interior of Sant'Ivo. The basic outline of the church derives from the intersection of six circumferences with an equilateral triangle and produces a dynamic and radiant spatiality that guides the eye upwards. An image of the dome taken with a fisheye lens.
The interior of Sant'Ivo. View from the centre of the church along the longitudinal axis.
Palace of Propaganda Fide. In 1646 Borromini was appointed architect of the college and in the following decade he built the south wing of the palace towards via Capo le Case. The majestic façade of Via di Propaganda was begun during the pontificate of Innocent X and completed at the time of Alexander VII. In 1660 the Bernini chapel was demolished right in front of the house where the sculptor lived and replaced with the chapel of the Three Kings. The central window simulates a three-dimensional organism, a sort of small temple facing the street.
Palace of Propaganda Fide. The elevation realized by Borromini later concludes the façade with a soothing vibrating effect.
Sant'Andrea delle Fratte. From 1653 Borromini worked in Sant'Andrea delle Fratte on behalf of Marquis Paolo del Bufalo until his death in 1665. He was bound to carry out the project of interiors previous to the War, but instead he acted freely in shaping the external volumes. Only the two final orders of the bell tower are completed. The plastic crowning of the bell tower with the coat of arms of the Del Bufalo family is perhaps the most eloquent of the Borrominian signs inscribed in the panorama of the city. Here too, the model of the tree that increases its volume upwards suggests an open shape made with the technique of masonry reinforced with iron.
The Sword Chapel in San Girolamo della Carità. The balustrade transformed into a cloth supported by angels.
San Carlino, the facade. Travertine is the stone most used by Borromini, but rarely as the only material. In his last work travertine is animated by a silvery chiaroscuro produced by the cavities of the columns, by the vibration of the ornaments, by the density of the stands. In the second order the nephew Bernardo, although inspired by the wax models made by the architect, introduced in the crowning an incongruous medallion of Bernini ancestry.