VALERIANI, GIUSEPPE. – Jesuit, painter, and architect, born in L’Aquila in 1542, died in Naples on 15 July 1596.
A pupil of Pompeo Cesura, known as l’Aquilano, he entered the Order as a coadjutor brother in 1572, in Spain, where he had gone in search of his fortune and had already carried out architectural and painting works, including at the Escurial. Called to Rome ca. 1581, he was entrusted with supervising the construction projects that the Jesuits were undertaking in Rome and elsewhere. As an architect, he is credited with the highly elegant chapel of the Madonna della Strada in the Gesù in Rome (erroneously attributed to Giacomo della Porta); the Gesù in Genoa (SS. Andrea e Ambrogio); the Gesù Nuovo in Naples; the building of the Collegio Romano (formerly attributed to B. Ammannati: V. reproduction in vol. I, plate 91 with the former attribution); and the completion of the Jesuit church in Munich, Bavaria, S. Michele. As a painter, his paintings in the chapel of the Transfiguration at S. Spirito in Sassia and the paintings in the chapel of the Madonna della Strada in Rome should be mentioned. He also occupied himself with composing a comprehensive directive concerning construction, for use in the churches, houses, and colleges of the Order; but the work remained unfinished and has so far been lost. It would have been highly useful for deriving from it the principles and influences exerted on the development of contemporary art, promoted in those times also by the Society of Jesus.
As a reward for his virtues, in the final years of his life (between 1584 and 1587) he was promoted to the priesthood.