FUGA, FERDINANDO. - Architect, b. in Florence in 1699, d. in Rome in 1781. In his homeland he was a pupil of Foggini; while still very young he came to Rome, then went to Sicily, where in Palermo he did work in the Cathedral; from there he returned in 1730 to Rome, where he succeeded Antonio Valeri, a pupil of Bernini, as superintendent of the buildings of the Quirinal. His return to Rome must be connected with the accession to the throne of the Tuscan Clement XII.
The first Roman work of F. seems to be the church of the Bambin Gesù, begun in 1731. In 1732 he set his hand to the church of the Morte, and in the same year he began to build the Palazzo della Consulta; in 1736 he began the works of the Palazzo Corsini; in 1741 those for the facade of S. Cecilia; between 1742 and 1743 he built the facade of S. Maria Maggiore. After 1750 he went to Naples, where he built the Albergo dei Poveri, the Royal Porcelain Manufactory the Granili and the facade of the church of S. Filippo Neri, or of the Gerolamini.
His most successful work is the facade of S. Maria Maggiore, consisting of a portico and a loggia, which allows a glimpse of the mosaics of the ancient medieval front. The church of the Morte, on the other hand, is more in tune with the colorful Roman art and in its facade strongly recalls the so-called "canneto" of S. Vincenzo e Anastasio, at Trevi. The interior has a clissoidal plan and is akin to those churches of this period that favor it when they must be raised on a restricted space. The facade of S. Filippo Neri in Naples is of a somewhat mannered elegance but is also interesting for the presence of two bell towers, an arrangement not very common among us, which calls to mind S. Agnese in Piazza Navona and other Roman churches, even earlier ones, such as the Trinità dei Monti, S. Atanasio dei Greci, S. Anastasia.
In civil architecture, F.'s masterpiece is the Palazzo della Consulta, harmonious in its elegant facade, divided by pilasters that enclose ample windows, with a predominance of void over solid, so as to remove all heaviness from the construction, without however making it lose solidity and majesty. The decoration, while remaining sober, has grace and plastic liveliness, especially in the festoons, the brackets, the shells and the baroquely broken pediments.
Somewhat cold, on the other hand, is the long facade of the Palazzo Corsini, in which one should note the majestic scenography of the atrium and the grand staircase.
Still in Rome, mention should also be made of the Palazzo Cenci Bolognetti and the church of S. Apollinare.