CANINA, LUIGI. - Archaeologist and architect, b. at Casalmonferrato on 28 Oct. 1795, d. on 17 Oct. 1856 at Florence, buried in S. Croce. Having moved to Rome in 1818, he lived in the circle of Visconti (v.), Fea (v.) and Nibby (v.). On the commission of Prince Camillo Borghese he laid out the villa of the same name, building the entrance propylaea on the piazzale Flaminio in the Ionic style.

He published numerous works and devised many reconstructions of ancient buildings. While it is true that for the latter he did not neglect the ancient written sources and the archaeological documents (paintings, reliefs, coins, etc.), he often nevertheless let himself be carried away by fantasy, so that his reconstructions are not always entirely reliable. For this reason Sarti and Fr. Marchi
gave a rather severe judgment of his work. Nevertheless, many merits cannot be denied him, first that of having conceived and drafted with historical method a vast work in six volumes on architecture: *L'architettura antica
descritta e dimostrata con i monumenti. Opera divina
in tre sezioni riguardanti la storia, la tecnica e le pratiche
dell'architettura egiziana, greca e romana* (Rome 1830-
1844). He also contributed to the clarification of the ancient topography of Rome and its surroundings and extended his studies also to the topography of certain Etruscan cities and to Jewish architecture, as the work entitled: *Ricerche sul
style of the architecture of the ancient Jews and of their temple
di Gerusalemme (ibid. 1845) demonstrates; as for Christian archaeology, the following are remembered: L'architettura più propria dei tempi cristiani*
(ibid. 1845); *Ricerche sull'architettura dei tempi cristiani basate
sulle primitive istituzioni ecclesiastiche* (ibid. 1846).

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: C. Folchi, *Discorso archeologico artistico in encomio del defunto commendatore L. C., Rome 1857; O. Raggi, Della vita e delle opere di L. C. architetto ed archeologo*, Casalmonferrato 1857; A. Gennarelli, L. C., in Rivista europea, 4 (1873, III), pp. 54-70; F. Noack, s. v. in Thieme-Becker, V, p. 504; G. Cultrera, s. v. in Enc. Ital., VIII (1930), pp. 730-31 (with the list of his most notable publications); S. Ludovici, *Storici, teorici e critici delle arti figurative (1800-1901)*, Rome 1942, pp. 82-83; G. Ferretto, Note storico-bibliografiche di archeologia cristiana, Vatican City 1942, pp. 309-10.

Giuseppe Bovini

@incollection{ec3_canina_luigi, author = {Bovini, Giuseppe}, title = {Canina, luigi}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {526--527}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/canina-luigi} }

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Canina, Luigi

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