ANTOLINI, GIANANTONIO

ANTOLINI, GIANANTONIO. - Architect, b. at Castel Bolognese in 1754. Having begun his artistic education in Bologna, he went on to Rome, where he devoted himself to the study of ancient monuments. He was a member of the Roman Accademia della Pace, to whose canons he remained faithful in his style, expressed either in simple and austere forms of Greek inspiration or in grandiose forms of Roman inspiration. His tendencies emerge more clearly than from his few works—the 1804 design for the Foro Bonaparte in Milan, and for the Procuratie nuovissime in Venice—from his theoretical writings: from the Ordine dorico ossia il Tempio di Ercole nella città di Cori of 1785, to the Osservazioni e aggiunte ai principi di architettura civile di F. Milizia of 1817 and Le rovine di Velleja of 1819–1822. From 1815 until his death (1842) he was professor at the Accademia di Brera, helping to disseminate, even in sacred buildings, the paganizing forms characteristic of Neoclassical academicism.