CASTELLI, DOMENICO, called IL FONTANINO. – Architect; his date of birth is unknown, and he died in Rome in 1657. He was in Faenza from 1619 to 1621 (fountain in Piazza Grande) and from 1624 onward in Rome, where he was highly active as architect to the Apostolic Camera.
His restoration work on the Lateran Baptistery (1629–1635) and his participation in the work on the Barberini palace are noteworthy. He perhaps also designed the façade of S. Anastasia (which some attribute to Arrigucci), and certainly the church of S. Girolamo della Carità (1654), the high altar and the two side chapels in SS. Cosma e Damiano. He also built the church of Monterotondo.
BIBL.: O. Pollak, Die Kunsttätigkeit unter Urban VIII, Vienna 1928, passim; A. Santangelo, s. V. in Eur. Ital., IX (1930), p. 354; R. Battaglia, Un progetto ignorato del pontificato d'Urbano VIII. La mostra architettonica dell'Acqua Vergine in Piazza di Spagna, in Roma, 20 (1942), pp. 329–34. Gilberto Ronci