CAPRIANI, FRANCESCO. — Architect and sculptor, born in Volterra before 1540 and died in Rome around 1601.
He worked in Rome; he is responsible for the façade of the church of S. Chiara (now lost) and that of S. Maria di Monserrato, and for the rebuilding of the church of S. Maria in Aquiro. In these works, while adhering to the Roman tradition of the late sixteenth century, he gives the volumes a clear definition and the structures a logical solidity and compositional clarity of Tuscan taste. His masterpiece is the church of S. Giacomo in Augusta, with an elliptical plan and the major axis perpendicular to the façade, so as to diminish the central emphasis and allow the perspectival axis to triumph. The church of S. Atanasio ai Greci has also been attributed to him.