VANVITELLI, Luigi. – Architect, born in Naples on 26 May 1700, died in Caserta on 19 March 1773. Son of the Dutch vedutist painter Gaspare Van Vittel, he was introduced by him to the study of drawing; he then Juvara (v.), first a fellow student, later a colleague, of Nicola Salvi.
Among Vanvitelli’s works, the following may usefully be recalled: Rome: extension of the façade of Palazzo Odescalchi, a work by Bernini; Ancona: the Lazzaretto (1734), the Arco Clementino, the church of the Gesù (1746), the chapel of the Religiose in S. Ciriaco; Siena: design for the arrangement and transformation of the church of S. Domenico; Perugia: design for the church and convent of the Olivetani; Macerata: design for the church of the Misericordia; Loreto: completion of the bell tower of the Basilica, etc. But the greatest measure of himself he gave to Rome and to Caserta. In Rome, indeed, he intelligently and with a remarkable sense of space transformed some of the great halls of the Baths of Diocletian into the grand basilica of S. Maria degli Angeli, a work already begun by Michelangelo, and he provided the designs and oversaw the construction of the convent of the Augustinians (1746); in Caserta he built the Reggia. This is one of the finest architectural enterprises in Italy in the 18th century; it was commissioned from Vanvitelli by Charles III of Bourbon in 1751 and consists of a complex of buildings and gardens which, in the monarch’s intentions, was to rival the famous Versailles. Yet from that French example Vanvitelli’s work clearly differed in its quite different sense of architectural values and of scenographic taste, in him so restrained that it has even been said—though improperly—that his forms foreshadow neoclassicism. Among his other Neapolitan works are the church of the Santissima Annunziata, the arrangement of the Foro Carolino, the Palazzo d’Angiò and the villa of the Prince of Campolieto at Resina.
Vanvitelli, proceeding along the path indicated by Juvara but with accents of his own, is one of the most significant exponents of that architectural taste typical of the mid-18th century which may be defined as neo- cinquecentist. A taste in which, reacting against the bombast and excesses of the Baroque and Rococo, some of the most up-to-date and modern architects of the time sought to return to the examples of Vignola and the more austere cinquecento masters, and this in harmony with ideas already being expressed, following the lead of Bellori, by theorists and philosophers.