MASSA, GIORGIO. — Architect, born in Venice c. 1686, died there in 1766. He trained in the Venetian milieu of the early 18th century, when, after the death of Longhena, the Tiralì began a decisive return to Palladio, albeit through the equivocal academism of Scamozzi.
A pupil of Scamozzi, who had been the first master of Longhena, Massari reveals this influence in the Palazzo Grassi-Stucky on the Grand Canal; at other times, more happily, he approaches Palladio not so much to derive an inert abstract rule as to achieve a measure of sure equilibrium, with which to temper the deplored excesses of the Seicento. A certain refined clarity, a lively fluidity of plans still “rococo,” yet within an evident rationalistic clarity, determine only a lively and restrained elegance, far removed alike from the bombast of the Longhenians and from the coldness of Neoclassicism.
Works: c. 1720: Palazzo Pola at Barcon; 1727: works at the Ospizio dei Catecumeni (Venice); c. 1730: renovated hall in the Scuola di S. Giovanni Evangelista (Venice); c. 1735: S. Antonio (Udine); c. 1736: I Gesuiti (Venice); 1728–36: S. Marcuola (Venice); 1745: La Pietà (Venice); 1720–46: Chiesa della Pace (Brescia); 1750: Altare del Sacramento (Padua, Duomo), begun by G. Gloria; 1750–53: Cappella maggiore of the church of the Fa-va (Venice); 1754: completed Palazzo Rezzonico; 1763: Cappella del Crocefisso (Badia of Curzola); 1730–64: Cappella maggiore of the church of the Filippini (Vicenza). Attributed works: Venice: arrangement of the fabric of the Orologio-Palazzo Gradenigo (Rio Marin), Palazzo Tiepolo (Campo S. Polo), Palazzo Civran (Canal Grande), S. Giovanni in Oleo (c. 1762), Le Penitenti (1763).