Giacomo Leoni

Giacomo Leoni ( * 1686 in Venice; ? † June 8, 1746 in London), known in English-speaking countries also known as James Leoni, was an Italian architect of the Georgian style ( one English, the classicism style related ). 1714 Leoni worked mainly in England.

When his most important works Clandon House are in the same Park and Lyme Park. His buildings and especially his translations of architectural theory works by Andrea Palladio and Leon Battista Alberti into English helped the Renaissance and thus the roman antiquity to prominence under English architect and prepared by the architectural style of the ( neo- ) Palladianismus the way.

Curriculum vitae

Giacomo Leoni grew up in northern Italy. His artistic role model was the humanist and Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), who had already been the main inspiration of Andrea Palladio ( 1508-1580 ). After he had designed buildings for the Electoral Palatinate, Leoni in 1714 came at the age of 28 years, to England. Again, Leoni was the Palladian loyal, adapted his style but at the same time the English conditions at. Together with Alessandro Galilei he was at that time the most important Italian architects in London. He is best known however for his designs of manor houses, for which the Palladian style particularly suitable. Despite his Italian roots Leonis style is therefore considered to be "English".

Leoni was married to Mary Leoni and had two children, John Philip and Joseph. His last two years of life, in 1744, Giacomo Leoni lived in London 52 Poland Street ( later demolished ), where he probably died. Leoni was buried in the cemetery of Old St. Pancras. He left no will, and seems to have died in poverty.

Works

Around 1720 built Leoni Moorpark, a 1678-79 built in brick country house in Hertfordshire to. He disguised the facade with Portland limestone and added a large pillars atrium ( portico ) and colonnade of Tuscan columns order ( later demolished ) was added. The wings with a chapel were demolished 1789-1799.

1721 designed Leoni later Queensberry House in the London Old Burlington Street for John Bligh, later the Earl of Darnley. The building received a dome and a large double staircase. The name of Queensberry House was the only building under its next owner, Charles Douglas, third Duke of Queensberry, who made it to a salon for famous writers. 1775 commissioned the first Earl of Uxbridge John Vardy, around the building to extend three bays; it also received a panel of white Portland limestone. 1855 Queensberry House by the Bank of England purchased and equipped with a high bank hall and oculus window. After a sale to another building and vacancy in the 1990s, the building eventually attracted the interest of Jil Sander in coming. The company had the architects and interior designers Michael Gabellini perform a restoration and redesign of Leonis construction, Gabellini earned the Decade of Design Award 2002 by the International Interior Design Association ( IIDA ).

1723-32 Leoni designed for Peter Legh Lyme Park, a country house in the Tudor style (that is, from the Elizabethan era ), into a magnificent building in Italian style. While he had some interiors almost unchanged and, for example, received the sculpture of Grinling Gibbons is Leoni built the façade neopalladianischen style around, with a large forecourt Ionic columns and symmetrical wings on a rustic acting basis. His program for dome above the pediment in the center of the façade, however, was rejected by the owner; Instead, the architect Lewis Wyatt established there about 1817 a box- shaped attachment. Lyme Park was among other things a model for Aston Webb's transformation of the eastern façade of Buckingham Palace in 1913; Webb took mainly the gable with three columns and adjacent double pilasters on a triple arcade and Wyatt's box- shaped cap on.

1724-34 Leoni built for Sir Thomas Booth Lathom House, a mansion in Lathom in Lancashire. The proportions of the building are closely aligned to the Greek ideal of the Golden SCHITTS. 1859 the building was expanded, because the owner needed more space, and ( a little projecting central projection ) placed on the middle part of the building with the gable another floor.

Leoni 1730-33 by the Earl of Onslow with either new construction or a fundamental transformation of Clandon Park was commissioned a country residence outside Guildford in Surrey. Leoni association for the construction of baroque and Neopalladianismus. The outer walls he designed in red brick, he used for the Western Front Steinpilaster and decorative medallions. The completed until after 1740 interior form a contrast with the exterior of the building: The large, two-story -reaching marble hall is decorated in muted stone color; He and provided with plasterwork ceilings are regarded as outstanding examples of English architecture of the 18th century. The interiors have been up to now hardly changed; minor changes were made somewhat after completion in the 18th century Robert Adam. Therefore, the spaces form the most complete work of Italian architects.

Not realized and controversial works

Leoni probably emtwarf a new church for Thorndon Hall in Essex. The previous building was demolished to make room for the new mansion, Leoni planned there.

In addition, it has been suggested Leoni had been involved in the construction of Bramham Park, a country estate at Wetherby in West Yorkshire. Since the Bramham Park was built in Baroque style, especially in the year 1710 - before Leonis arrival in England - was completed, Leonis Contribute is rather unlikely.

Leonis translations

Of great influence on architecture in the English-speaking world also were his translations of classical architectural theory works by Alberti and Palladio: 1715 appeared The Architecture of A. Palladio ( also Palladio 's Four Books of Architecture ), the first English edition of Palladio's I Quattro Libri dell ' Architettura. Within the next few years the book has been reprinted several times (1721, 1725, 1742) and translated into French (1726).

1726 was followed by a ten -volume work of Leon Battista Alberti on architecture, De Re Aedificatoria; translated into English by Cosima Bartoli into Italian and Leoni, the work was published in a bilingual edition ( the Italian left, the right, the English translation) under the title of The Architecture of Leon Battista Alberti (also The Ten Books of Architecture). The translation of Alberti learned several new editions ( 1739, 1751, 1755, and the latter only in English ); 1741 translated books on painting and sculpture were also once published separately.

Both translations Leonis were Colen Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus jointly with and William Kent's The Designs of Inigo Jones ... with Some Additional Designs, the main basis for the rediscovery of ancient forms in England. They introduced by the transition of the English Baroque to Neopalladianismus.