FRANCESCO MILIZIA. — Architectural theorist, born at Oria in 1725, died in Rome in 1798. He is a typical rationalist, though not without traces of Neoclassical taste.
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 two-dimensionality and the problem of horizontal and vertical linearity, he polemicizes against depth perceived as dangerous on account of feared scenographic solutions; he opposes the plastic-dynamic dialectic adopted by Michelangelo in his buildings: “churches with two-storey façades and internally cluttered by piers”; “altars with useless columns above a pile of pedestals and with extravagant pediments” (*Roma nelle belle arti del disegno*, Bologna 1826, pp. 456 ff.). His polemic is even harsher against the “Borromini follies” (“churches with façades like turbans”). For Milizia, bound to the formulas 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 *Elementi d’architettura lodoliana*, Rome 1786); yet some pre-Romantic motifs appear in his urbanistic concerns: “it is a great evil of a large city that uniformity should be exact” (*Saggio di architettura civile*, ibid. 1827, p. 88).