Giovanni Magenta
Giovanni Magenta was an Italian Catholic priest and architect. He designed the cathedral of San Pietro at Bologna, later modified by Alfonso Torreggiani. He designed the church of Santissimo Salvatore in Bologna and San Paolo.
Life and works
Giovanni Magenta came from a distinguished Milanese family, an was educated as a humanist scholar; he entered the Barnabite Order in 1591, becoming General in 1612, a post he held for five years. The Order’s extensive building programme took Magenta to various parts of Italy, but his most important works were in Bologna in the first quarter of the 17th century; his role in later projects, however, seems to have been only advisory. Magenta designed three churches in Bologna: Santissimo Salvatore, San Pietro and San Paolo.Santissimo Salvatore was completed to Magenta’s design of 1605 by Tommaso Martelli in 1623. The plan appears to be based on that of the Church of the Gesù, Rome, by Jacopo Vignola, although Magenta cited the Baths of Diocletian, restored by Michelangelo in 1561 as Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, as the source of the free-standing interior columns. The nave bays, with their side chapels, are of unequal length; the longer, central bay is groin-vaulted. This, together with the tall arches to the side chapels, creates a transeptal effect in the nave, so that the impression conveyed is of a compact Greek-cross unit, with the crossing and sanctuary, both without columns, as an addition; early drawings show this clearly. The interior remains monochromatic as originally designed, spared the addition of decoration common to early Baroque churches. The façade was also based on the Church of the Gesù, but the unadorned brick wall surface, with the entrance portal unconstrained within the architectonic frame, shows north Italian tendencies. Santissimo Salvatore was influential for later Baroque churches.
Magenta’s other two Bolognese churches were less robustly articulated. In his design of 1605 for the rebuilding of the cathedral of San Pietro, Magenta retained the choir by Domenico Tibaldi, and he added a separate nave with alternating high and low nave-arcade arches. He later added bays to each end to integrate it with the choir. Work was started in 1608 by Floriano Ambrosini and was continued by Nicolò Donati, who altered Magenta’s design, from 1612. The church of San Paolo conformed more faithfully to the Gesù type but with distinctive lateral illumination in the vault.
From 1612 to 1620 Mazenta lived in Milan; he made designs for the churches of San Carlo ai Catinari, Rome, with a Greek-cross nave supported by free-standing columns, later executed by Rosato Rosati with piers; and for San Giovanni delle Vigne, in Lodi, Lombardy, also with a row of free-standing columns. While serving the Order in Rome between 1620 and 1626, he designed San Paolo, Macerata, which was a modest version of Santissimo Salvatore. From 1626 Magenta travelled extensively as a Visitor; he made designs for the churches of San Giovanni in Acqui Terme, Piedmont; San Carlo, Arpino, Latium, with an octagonal plan similar to Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome; and, his last work, San Carlo alle Mortelle in Naples.