GIOVANNI BATTISTA ALLEOTTI, known as L’ARGENTA (from his birthplace). — Born in 1546, died in Ferrara in 1636. Architect and treatise-writer (he wrote on hydraulics), he carried out his activity in the service of Alfonso II d’Este and of Clement VIII, in Ferrara and Parma, leaving there his major work in the Palladian Farnese Theatre. The church of S. Carlo in Ferrara is a typical document of his style, contested for its Venetian-Palladian elements resolved, however, in a heaviness of plastic masses that nullify every original meaning. Together with G. B. Magnani he designed the church of S. Maria del Quartiere in Parma; he is attributed with the churches of S. Margherita and S. Barbara in Ferrara.
BIBL.: Anon., s. V. in Thieme-Becker, I, pp. 252-53; L. N. Cittadella, Memorie intorno alla vita e alle opere dell'arch. G. B. A., Ferrara 1847; A. Ricci, Storia dell'architettura, III, Modena 1860, pp. 617-18; A. Venturi, Storia dell'arte, XI, III, Milano 1940, pp. 930, 935, 963-65. Maria Vittoria Brugnoli