GALILEI, ALESSANDRO. — Architect, b. in Florence on 25 July 1691, d. in Rome on 21 Dec. 1736. He spent seven years of his youth in England, where he gained considerable renown; upon his return to Florence in 1719, he was appointed by Cosimo III de’ Medici, through Gian Gastone, as first architect and superintendent of royal buildings. However, no works from this period are known.
In 1730, following the election of Clement XII of the Corsini family, a Florentine pope, G. was summoned to Rome, where in 1732 he began the new façade of S. Giovanni in Laterano. A competition had been announced for this project, in which Fuga and Vanvitelli also participated. The grand work, completed in 1735, recalls the Palladian use of a single order in the manner of the English architects Jones and Wren. In the same church, in 1734, G. completed the Corsini Chapel, commissioned by the Pope, a clear construction in the form of a Greek cross. His final work is the façade of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, where the use of two superimposed orders reveals adherence to the schemes of the Counter-Reformation, interpreted in a manner that foreshadows Neoclassicism.