HILDEBRANDT, JOHANN LUCAS von. - Architect, b. in Genoa on 14 Nov. 1668, d. in Vienna on 16 Nov. 1745. His father, a German, was a soldier in the service of the Genoese, his mother an Italian; H. remained in Genoa during his youth and there, having learned the art, carried out an initial activity documented by the design for a convent near the church of S. Maria di Carignano.
In 1696 the architect was in Vienna, where he obtained the title of court engineer, and in Austria and the Catholic German lands he carried out all the rest of his activity. In 1730, on the death of J. B. Fischer von Erlach, he also held the post of superintendent of the imperial buildings. Among his principal works are remembered the Viennese palaces Schwarzenberg, Schönburg, Schönborn, that of Prince Eugene later the Ministry of Finance, the Mirabell castle in Salzburg, as well as the palaces Hetzendorf, Daun-Kinsky and the two Belvedere castles which, together with that of Pommersfelden, not far from Bamberg, in Germany, and the castle of Würzburg may be considered among his most beautiful works.
Educated in art in his father's military environment, he had solid technical foundations that served as the basis for his free fantasy as a Baroque architect, sensitive to the charm exercised by Juvara and by the Piedmontese and Lombard masters who variously interpreted forms derived, however distantly, from Borromini. This education, nourished by a notable taste for the architectural picturesque, maintained its reflections throughout the architect's entire career; he must be considered, with Fischer von Erlach, among the greatest who worked during the Baroque age not only in Austria but, in general, in German lands.