MARUSCELLI, Paolo by Laura Traversi - Biographical Dictionary of Italians - Volume 71 (2008)

He was born in 1594 from "Girolamo romano", as we learn from a notarial deed of March 22, 1646 (Serego Alighieri, 1994, page 146). The place of birth of M remains doubtful: Baglione defines it as «Roman»; while it is called Florentine in several documents (Sacchetti Sassetti, page 45 n ° 139, Thesis, pp. 39, 132).

There is no information on his training; but it has been hypothesized (Connors, 1989, p. 162) that it took place in contact with GB Soria, to which the architectural and ornamental lexicon unites it. His activity is documented starting from 1622, when he turns out to be an expert for the Congregation of the Oratorians of Rome (ibid., Pp. 22, 177 s.). The first design assignment entrusted to Maruscelli dates back to about 1626, the year of the commission and foundation of the New Church of the Oratorians of Perugia, which came to the construction of the façade in 1646 and ended, after the death of Maruscelli, in 1649 (ibid. , pp. 162 s., Serego Alighieri, page 147).

The 27th ag. 1628 the Compagnia del Sacramento commissioned to Maruscelli the extension of the homonymous chapel in the dome of Rieti (Barroero, p.17), finished in the spring of 1629.

The architecture of the small chapel is made up of a parallelepipe of a «classical» plant with rounded corners, richly decorated in stucco (around 1638 by Gregorio Grimani da Stroncone), and highlights the substantial commonality of language of the young Maruscelli with that of Soria and F. Ponzio (ibid., P.186). The marble coverings and furnishings were made between 1631 and 1635, while Maruscelli was in Rome.

The first documentation concerning the M reactor dates back to 1626. It was in fact identified with him the "Sr Paolo Marovelli Florentine Architect in Rome made to be established in this city" (ibid., P 179).

In 1627 he began the collaboration of Maruscelli with the Oratorians of St. Philip Neri of Rome for the realization of their convent, whose plan developed around two axes of which the east-west one ended in the sacristy of S. Maria in Vallicella, first core of the building (1629-30).

Maruscelli worked for fifteen years for the house, in close consonance with Virgilio Spada, influential oratorian and amateur architect, with the contributions of "consultants" of external experts (G. De Vecchi, Soria, G. Rainaldi), carefully documented and integrated by Maruscelli in the final project. Even if the subsequent project by F. Borromini was superimposed on the previous one by incorporating it, the Marucellian events reconstructed by Connors (1989, pp. 23-31) have shed light on the genesis of the complex, among the major architectural and urban exempla of the seventeenth century. The actual Marucellian construction was built in the years 1629-34; Maruscelli was solely responsible for the projects until 1637, when he was associated with Borromini.

The sacristy (including the walnut credenzoni, dated 1634), with its service areas, the corridor and the complex of rooms surrounding the chapel of St. Philip Neri, translated from his old house, and four or five between portals and exhibitions (of wood and marble) made between 1634 and 1635 approximately. This central, but functionally secondary, Marucellian nucleus was incorporated into the vast Borromini complex without substantial modifications. The latter, however, owes much to the functional and structural solutions of Maruscelli, since the Congregation, which always applied the system of "consulte" extended to various architects, had already examined and approved its project, despite the inspiring themes of Maruscelli (taken from A. Palladio, P. Tibaldi and Soria) have been superseded by Borromini's innovations. The urban layout of the area facing the Vallicella (Strada Nuova) was built, between 1627 and 1630, on drawings by Maruscelli, approved by Pope Urban VIII Barberini (Connors, 1989, pp. 127 s.), But remained unfinished.

In 1629 Maruscelli had the first task to design the house or convent of the Theatines of S. Andrea della Valle, in Rome, of which he was recognized as a façade and a court with a fountain. The building site continued for a long time ( post 1698), substantially reflecting its project.

The attribution of the sacristy to Maruscelli, supported up to Connors (1989, pp. 163 s.), Was refuted by Coen and Petrucci, who reported it to Girolamo Rainaldi, based on a document dated 1616, according to which the aforementioned sacristy had to be already built on that date. Also in Connors (1989, p.166) we owe the recognition to Maruscelli of the doors of the sacristy; for the important furnishings (credenzoni and lavamani), compatible with its architectural and ornamental style, there are no documentary certainties.

Starting from 1628, Maruscelli is documented as a Medicean architect in Rome (Fumagalli, 1991, p 578 No. 55, 2005, p 59), with tasks related, among other things, to the findings and measures for factories of Palazzo Madama, of the Palazzo in Campo Marzio and in the garden of Trinità dei Monti.

The first known payments date back, however, to January 1636. On that date the Grand Duke Ferdinand II commissioned Maruscelli to design the enlargement of Palazzo Madama, as it was called the Medici palace (about 1478) in memory of Margherita d ' Austria, which had lived there around the middle of the sixteenth century. Of that shipyard, active between 1638 and 1645, already advanced between 1641 and 1643, but completed with further work on the side of Palazzo Carpegna by 1648, Maruscelli has left various drawings (ibid.), Starting from the beautiful relief of the state of departure (1638) and from the first project with a wooden model of the central window (1638). The final project deviated from the initial sobriety and came to a peculiar decorative complexity, whose paternity is still today the subject of studies and research. Maruscelli created a new façade, which incorporated the previous one, the courtyard and the apartment of the cardinals Carlo and Giovanni Carlo de 'Medici.

The works were ordered by Ferdinand II, respectively brother and father of the two cardinals, to give the Medici an adequate representation, equipped with houses for the sequel and outbuildings for horses and carriages. The initial project included a tripartite façade with giant pilasters, which was regularized according to the Florentine tradition (B. Buontalenti, B. Ammannati) with a score of windows and bricks to «face» (Borsi, pp. 26-29; Ruschi, p 613).

The general facies of the building reflects the need of the Grand Duke and cardinals to affirm a Tuscan identity, adapting it to the Roman environment and to the plasticism of the Baroque period. Despite the very high overall costs (more than 90,000 scudi), only the total expenditure of 750 scudi is currently documented for Maruscelli (ibid .; Fumagalli, 2005, pp. 63, 72). According to the recent archival researches, Maruscelli alternated the role of designer to the functions of director responsible for the construction site, coordinating artists and artisans active under his guidance also in other important Roman coeval yards, such as the sculptor Cosimo Fancelli, the stonemasons Francesco Ortolani, Simone Castelli, Andrea Appiani, Domenico Prestinari, Giovanni Maria Bongiardini (Ruschi, pp. 615, 624, Barroero, page 177). For the interiors (1638-39) he had as a collaborator M. Monanni, painter and influential chamber teacher of Cardinal Giovanni Carlo.

After the purchase by Bernardino Spada in 1632 of the Capodiferro palace, Maruscelli was first commissioned to restructure (1633-34) the large vestibule, and then when in July 1636, as a road sub-master, he signed the concession to Cardinal Spada of an area of the alley of the Arch, he worked on the enlargement of the sixteenth-century building. In particular, he took care of the restoration of the secret garden and of the construction of the gallery and of the cardinal's study on the main floor (current III and IV hall of the Galleria Spada). Between 1641 and 1642 he was also commissioned to renovate the three rooms on the ground floor, towards the secret garden, and to open the two arches of the courtyard, on the south-west side, where the Borrominian perspective was subsequently realized.

In those same years Maruscelli, commissioned by Virgilio Spada, collaborated in the arrangement of the Spada chapels of S. Andrea della Valle (1631-32) and S. Girolamo della Carità (1634), and subsequently, starting from 1641, it was in charge of the renovation of the Spada-Veralli building at the Corso (no longer existing).

In 1634 the work of Maruscelli was requested in the sacristy of S. Maria dell'Anima by the superintendents L. Holstein and J. Savenier, while the architect of the church was O. Torrioni (Knopp - Hansmann, pp. 67-69; 1989, page 164). Between 1636 and 1644, and beyond, an octagon with rounded corners was created with ornamentation and scores comparable to some of the oratory and of the Madama palace. The project for the sumptuous and refined Filonardi chapel in S. Carlo ai Catinari ( Short story ... ; Thesis, p.44, Ruschi, p. 623) is dated to 1635.

Between 1638 and 1642 waits for the functional project of the convent of S. Maria sopra Minerva (eastern wing), with shops on the ground floor (now walled), rooms with mezzanine on the main floor and wide corridor, now reading room of the Casanatense Library, north of the next main covered hall (1700-29) which on the short side continues Maruscelli façade.

In the sacristy of S. Maria sopra Minerva he was given the whimsical and ingenious Chamber of s. Caterina (Barroero, 178), previously given to Borromini and A. Sacchi (Connors, 1989, p.165), due to the lack of stylistic recognition. The attributional proposal is based on a manuscript by Fioravante Martinelli (about 1660), a friend of Borromini.

For various other works, including those for the Germanic College of S. Apollinare (1624 and 1632-37) and for S. Maria dell'Umiltà, at the Quirinale (1641-46), there is no exhaustive documentation (ibid., pp. 167 s.). The chapel in S. Giovanni in Laterano, with gilded stucco scores much appreciated by Mola, is probably to be identified with the chapel adjacent to the sacristy of the canons, with an altar dedicated to St. Anne (ibid., Pp. 168, 172 ; Barroero, pp. 178 s.).

During these years of intense activity, Maruscelli became a member of the Academy of St. Luca (from 1630) and of the Congregation of the Virtuosi (1640) and put together a conspicuous personal library, including the major classical texts of architecture, from Vitruvius to Serlio, to the hydraulic and military engineering treaties, which the Swords were also interested in. In it there were texts of perspective, geometry, optics, iconography, language and literature, or volumes relating to religious orders and their founders. The approximately 30 architectural drawings of Maruscelli still preserved have also made it clear that his drawing technique (pink and yellow ink and watercolor on pencil trace) was close to that of Rainaldi and his circle (Connors, 1989, pp. 169 s .; Borromini and the Baroque universe , page 147).

Starting from 1642, the year in which the project dates back, he was mainly active as a hydraulic engineer for the reclamation of the Pontine marshes, commissioned by Pope Innocent X (Connors, 1989, pp. 168, 172).

Maruscelli died in Rome on 23 October. 1649 (Rossi). On 5 December 1649 an inventory of goods was drawn up in the house in the alley of the Corallo, from which his wife Antonia Spicher and his sons Girolamo, Maria Felice, Gian Filippo, Carlo and Ludovico (Serego Alighieri, page 147) are his heirs.

Despite the orders received and the seventeenth-century historiography testify the successes of Maruscelli both as an architect and as an interior designer, in the Roman-Florentine environment of the first half century, his figure was interpreted in key subordinate to the great protagonists of the Roman Baroque Borromini and GL Bernini. The critical misfortune of Maruscelli began at least by Militia, who judged negatively the façade and courtyard of Palazzo Madama and lasted until the twentieth century, from Portoghesi to Ruschi (page 623, No. 51). A deeper understanding of his work must necessarily start from the studies of Connors and may lead him to see him as a seventeenth-century interpreter in balance between late-seventeenth-century classicism, with strong references to the work of Palladio, and baroque eclecticism.

Sources and Bibl .: G. Baglione, The Lives of Painters, Sculptors and Architects ... , Rome 1642, p. 181; F. Martinelli, Rome adorned with architecture, painting and sculpture (1660-63), in C. D'Onofrio, Rome in the seventeenth century , Florence 1969, p. 245; G. Mola, Brief story of the best works of architecture, sculpture and painting done in Rome ... (1663), edited by K. Noehles, Berlin 1966, p. 71; F. Milizia, Memoirs of Ancient and Modern Architects (1785), Sala Bolognese 1978, p. 128; J. Lohninger, St. Mary of the Soul, die deutsche Nationalkirche in Rom ... , Rome 1909, p. 119; E. Rossi, Notice , in Rome , XVI (1938), p. 121; P. Portoghesi, Baroque Rome, Rome 1966, pp. 267 s .; A. Sacchetti Sassetti, The Duomo of Rieti , Rieti 1968, pp. 42-51; C. D'Onofrio, Rome in the seventeenth century , cit., Ad ind. ; G. Knopp - W. Hansmann, St. Mary of the Soul, die deutsche Nationalkirche in Rom , Kühlen 1979, pp. 66-69; V. Del Gaizo et al. , The palaces of the Senate. Palazzo Madama , Rome 1984, pp. 19 s .; E. Fumagalli, Spadarino frescoes at Palazzo Madama , in Paragone , XXXVII (1986), 435, pp. 28-39; J. Connors, Borromini and the Roman Oratory (1980), Turin 1989, ad ind. ; E. Fumagalli, The villa Médicis au XVII and siècle , in A. Chastel, La villa Médicis , II, Rome 1991, pp. 568-586; C. Coen - P. Petrucci, The Convent and the Island of the Theatine Fathers of S. Andrea della Valle , in Regnum Dei , XLVIII (1992), pp. 105-194; F. Borsi, Introduction , in The Facade of Palazzo Madama , Rome 1994, pp. 11-36; V. Tesi, P. Marucelli and the facade of Palazzo Madama , ibid. , pp. 37-88; Id., The "factory" of Palazzo Madama , ibid. , pp. 129-135, 138; F. Serego Alighieri, The other works of P. Marucelli , ibid. , pp. 141-148; Palazzo Spada. The restored decorations , edited by R. Cannatà, Milan 1995, pp. 15, 17, 59; J. Connors, in The Dictiornary of art , XX, London-New York 1996, pp. 520 s .; L. Barroero, Notes for P. Maroscelli , in Writings of archeology and art history in honor of C. Pietrangeli , edited by V. Casale - F. Coarelli - B. Toscano, Rome 1996, pp. 177-179, 350-353; E. Fumagalli, commission and medical iconography in Rome in the seventeenth century. The cycle of frescoes of Palazzo Madama , in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz , XLI (1997-98), pp. 314-346; Id., The dream of an «island». The Medici places in Rome: projects and realizations , in Villa Medici: the dream of a cardinal. Collections and artists by Ferdinando de 'Medici (catalog), edited by M. Hochmann, Rome 1999, pp. 94-103; Borromini and the baroque universe (Catal., Rome), edited by R. Bösel - CL Frommel, Milan 1999, pp. XXXI s., 146 s .; P. Ruschi, Some notes on the seventeenth-century building site of the Palazzo Madama in Rome , in Works and Days: studies on a thousand years of European art dedicated to Max Seidel , edited by K. Bergdolt - G. Bonsanti, Venice 2001, pp. 613-624; E. Fumagalli, The Madama Palace , in Palazzo Madama , Rome 2005, pp. 41-140; U. Thieme - F. Becker, Künstlerlexikon , XXIV, p. 187; Diz. Encicl. of architecture and urban planning , III, pp. 502 s. L. Traversi

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