This volume investigates the work of Francesco Borromini (1599-1667) from a unique viewpoint, focusing on the fundamental, shared characteristics of the architectural language rather than a mere chronological approach.
This volume investigates the work of Francesco Borromini (1599-1667) from a unique viewpoint, focusing on the fundamental, shared characteristics of the architectural language rather than a mere chronological approach. Paolo Portoghesi identifies “a grouping of systems that can be compared and summed up stylistically”, permitting a grasp of the characteristics of “a work as unified and coherent as that of Borromini, a production that covers a span of only thirty years, in a static, inert social and political context”. Borromini is one of the most important architects of all time, and his works, from the San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane to the Oratorio dei Filippini, from St. John Lateran to the Palazzo Spada and Palazzo Falconieri, to the Collegio di Propaganda Fide, reflect the disconcerting characteristics of the brilliance that produced them, the signs of an architectural language that dramatically lives out its destiny and tragically expresses it in its “modernity”.