MILIZIA, FRANCESCO. - Architectural theorist, b. at Oria in 1725, d. at Roma in 1798. He was a typical rationalist, though not without neoclassical overtones.
His principal works are Principii di architettura civile; Dell'arte di vedere nelle belle arti del disegno secondo i principi di Sulzer e di Mengs; Saggio di architettura civile. Concerned with spatial bidimensionality and with the problem of horizontal and vertical linearity, he polemicizes against depth, dangerous because of feared scenographic solutions; he opposes the plastic-dynamic dialectic adopted by Michelangiolo in his buildings: « churches with two-storey façades and interiors encumbered by piers »; « altars with useless columns above a pile of pedestals and with extravagant pediments » (Roma nelle belle arti del disegno, Bologna 1826, p. 456 ff.). His polemic is harsher against the « Borrominesque follies » (« churches with façades in the shape of a turban »). For M., bound to the formulae of static and plastic architectural determinism, beauty arises from structural necessity itself (ideas also expressed by fra' Carlo Lodoli [1690-1761] and collected by A. Memmo in the Elementi d'architettura lodoliana, Roma 1786); some pre-Romantic motif nevertheless appears in the urban-planning problem: « the exact uniformity of a large city is a great evil » (Saggio di architettura civile, ibid. 1827, p. 88).