Giacomo Da Vignola

(Giacomo Barozzi). Born Oct. 1, 1507, in Vignola, Emilia-Romagna; died July 7, 1573, in Rome. Italian architect. A representative of the late Renaissance .

Vignola began studying in Rome in 1534 with B. Peruzzi and A. da Sangallo the Younger, and worked in Rome, France (1541-43), and Bologna (1543-46). He was an out-standing theoretician and the author of a classical treatise, The Five Orders of Architecture (1562; Russian translation, 1939). In his work Vignola aspired to a solemn monumental structural quality, seeking to develop spatial composition in depth and to enrich the traditional plan schemes of palaces, villas, and churches. Vignola built the first oval-domed church, S. Andrea, on Via Flaminia in Rome (1555), and completed the huge Villa Farnese, designed as a pentahedron with a majestic circular court in the center, in Caprarola, near Viterbo (1558-73), The Gesù Church, headquarters of the Jesuit order in Rome (1568-84), has been the model for many baroque cathedrals. It stresses the importance of the main nave and the brilliantly lighted central cross, while the facade tiers (carried out with alterations in 1575 by G. della Porta) are linked compositionally with volutes and pediments.Integrity of spatial organization also distinguishes the Villa Giulia III, built by Vignola in Rome (1550-55), with its axial composition, effective semicircles of the court facade and stairs of the sunken central court, which serves as the center of the ensemble.