BIBLE, FAMILY. - Architects and theatrical decorators of the surname Galli, originally from Bibbiena. The family’s progenitor was GIOVANNI MARIA; apprenticed to Albani around 1642, he worked until 1665. His sons FRANCESCO and FERDINANDO were the most significant artists of the family. The first (1659–1739) built the Alibert Theatre in Rome (1720) and the Filarmonico in Verona, and worked at foreign courts where his stage designs were much sought after. The second (1657–1743) spent 28 years in the Duchy of Parma, where he built and decorated civil and sacred buildings (the church of St Anthony the Abbot) and designed numerous stage sets. In 1708 he was summoned to Barcelona by King Charles III, whom he later followed to Vienna when the latter was elected Emperor of Germany. F. B.’s codification of perspective is found in his treatises on perspective theory; fundamental for 18th-century scenographic architecture is *Architettura civile preparata sulla geometria e ridotta alla prospettiva* (1711), in which he extensively demonstrates the method he devised of the “corner view.”
The sons of Ferdinando continued the family tradition: ANTONIO (1700–74) worked in Vienna, St Petersburg and Belgrade (his funeral apparatuses in Vienna and Pressburg for the obsequies of Charles VI [1740] were famous). He was also active in Italy: in Siena he worked in the church of Sant’Agostino (after 1753); he executed the pictorial decorations of the church of the Greeks in Livorno (c. 1763), those of the dome of Santa Maria della Vita in Bologna, and in the same city worked in the Fontana Muratori chapel in Santa Maria dei Foscheroni. He painted stage sets and theatrical buildings in Siena, Pistoia, Pavia, etc. The other son of Ferdinando, GIUSEPPE (1690–1757), worked for a long time in Vienna, where he arranged nuptial festivities, triumphs, stage sets and sacred representations (notably those of the Passion), and funeral machines. His son CARLO (1728–80), the last of the family, worked for a long time in Munich and was in demand in Holland, France and England.
The B.s, gifted with lively decorative talent and rich in imagination, were the most skilful creators of perspectival illusions; with their work, of which only numerous drawings scattered in European cities remain, they expressed the most spontaneous manifestation of stage design and Baroque taste.