FANSAGA (FANSAGO, FANZAGO, FONSAGA), Cosimo. — Architect, sculptor, and decorator, b. at Clusone (Bergamo) in 1592, d. at Naples on 13 Feb. 1678. He probably received his first artistic instruction from his family: his ancestors were bronze founders, and one of them, Pietro, was renowned in architecture. In 1608 he moved to Naples, where he would spend the rest of his career. It has been claimed that he studied there with the Spanish Jesuit Pietro da Provedo, who designed the church of SS. Filippo e Giacomo (1564) in Naples (later called Gesù Vecchio), but there is no evidence for this assertion. False is the report of De Dominici, according to which F. was in Rome at the school of Pietro Bernini and rebuilt the façade of S. Spirito dei Napoletani in that city.
F.’s artistic activity began as a draftsman and sculptor in Naples with the execution of the coats-of-arms for the façade of the Palazzo degli Studi (1615) and the marble decoration of the choir of the cathedral (1618), and continued at Barletta, where he clad the Gentili chapel in S. Maria Maggiore in marble. Turning then to architecture, he left numerous works, the most important of which are as follows. In Naples in 1628 he designed the church of S. Francesco Saverio (later S. Ferdinando); in 1631 he completed the cloister of the Certosa di S. Martino; in the same church he executed the marble pavement of the choir (1630), six marble arcades (1631), and the marble revetment of the chapels of Bruno and of S. Giovanni Battista (1637-43); he raised the guglia of S. Gennaro (1631), a column surmounted by a lantern with corbels, one of the most interesting examples of these characteristic monuments that adorn Neapolitan squares; he built the church of the Ascensione a Chiaia; the façade of S. Maria della Sapienza (1638-44), simple and elegant; the chapel of the Royal Palace (1640-46); he enlarged the church of S. Teresa a Chiaia (1650-62) with a very dynamic façade and a double circular staircase; he transformed that of S. Maria Maggiore (1653-67), following the manner of Dosio in the church of the cortina of S. Martino and of Fr. G. Valeriani in Gesù Nuovo; he built that of S. Maria Egiziaca a Pizzofalcone (c. 1665). Outside Naples he rebuilt from 1641 the church of Montecassino, later continued by G. B. Contini and A. Guglielmelli. Among his attributions are the church of S. Salvatore (1654) at Piedimonte d’Alife and, at Andria, that of S. Maria dei Miracoli. Around 1668 he modeled the sumptuous bronze grille of the chapel of S. Gennaro in the cathedral of Naples.
As a civil architect he left, besides minor works, the Palazzo di Donna Anna (1642-44) and the Villa at Posillipo, which remains unfinished but has recently been restored.
F. the architect is distinguished by his characteristic style, in which the clarity of Tuscan Renaissance fuses with the love of splendor and spectacle characteristic of the people among whom he lived and worked. His art dominated Naples and Campania throughout the 17th century.