SCAMOZZI, Vincenzo. - Architect and theorist, born in Vicenza in 1552, died in Venice on 7 Aug. 1616.
He perfected the instruction he had received from his father, also an architect, within the Accademia Olimpica in Rome from 1578 to 1580. On his return, he won the competition for the continuation of the Libreria del Sansovino (1582), thus beginning a career that was both extensive and secure, making him one of the greatest architects in Europe and securing commissions in Italy and abroad. Scamozzi never disavowed his origins, firmly rooted in the Serlian manner, a product of his early academic training, which led him to the intention of collecting in a treatise everything that could and should serve the formation of the perfect builder. The idea of universal architecture is the final Renaissance synthesis on the subject and lays the foundations for neoclassical theory. Of particular interest is the new conception of eclecticism, broadened from the study of ancient and Renaissance classical architects to include all construction methods, including Gothic, which had hitherto been so abhorred. To study it, Scamozzi made a journey (1599-1600) across Europe, for which there exists (in the Museum of Vicenza) an autograph manuscript report, with drawings of French Gothic cathedrals, intended for the treatise: *Libri VI dei Templi*, which was never published.
Scamozzi’s thought also informed the practical activity of the artist, who certainly cannot be called a pupil of Palladio, even if chronological and environmental coincidences might suggest II. He exerted a profound influence on architecture, both as a builder, in Vicenza as in Venice, where he resisted innovations; and abroad, particularly on English architecture, and in Austria with the design for the cathedral of Salzburg (1606-1607).
Works (limited to the fundamental stages of his style): 1569, design for the Palazzo dei Godi (Vicenza), an exercise still rhetorical; 1574, Villa Verlato at Villa-verla and Palazzo Trissino at the Duomo (Vicenza) of 1577, the finest thing from his early period; 1582, design for the Procuratie Nuove in Piazza San Marco: more than the façade, the internal arrangement and the superimposed loggia courtyards are of interest; 1582, funerary monument for Doge da Ponte, at the Carità; design for the theatre of Sabbioneta (Mantua), a return to the Serlian conception (1590); Villa Contarini at Loregia; 1591, church of the Tolentini (Venice); 1592, Palazzo Trissino al Corso (Vicenza), a masterpiece of the artist in its perfect stylistic rigor; 1597, Villa Molino alla Mandria (Padua); 1606-1607, designs for the cathedral of Salzburg, executed by others with modifications; 1609, Palazzo Contarini dagli Scrigni on the Grand Canal, of great importance for Venetian architecture of the second half of the 17th century; 1611, design for Palazzo Ravaschieri (Genoa), a return to Serlian origins. He also completed, from 1580 to '91, the “Rotonda” of Palladio, perhaps lowering its dome; and executed from 1584 to '85 the scenes of the Olimpico, disrupting the spatial equilibrium of the Palladian theatre, which was meant to conclude at the proscenium. - See pl. 1.