erected in 1613, the villa Pinciana (now the Villa Borghese) built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, and after his death finished by his assistant Giovanni Vasanzio

Giovanni Vasanzio or Jan van Santen (1550–21 August 1621) was a Dutch-born architect, garden designer and engraver who spent his mature career in Rome, where he arrived in the 1580s.

Vasanzio was born in Utrecht. He worked as assistant to Flaminio Ponzio and completed works in progress at Ponzio's death (1613); he became in some sense the "house architect' for the Borghese, responsible for ephemeral decorations to provide settings for dynastic events both gay and grave.[1] Vasanzio died in Rome. After his death, Giovanni Battista Soria assumed his role with the Borghese.

Main commissions

Notes

  1. ^ Flaminio Ponzio's cataflaque for the glamorous and stately funeral of Giovanni Borghese, Pope Paul V's brother, organized by Scipione Borghese in 1610, is discussed in Minou Schraven, "Giovanni Battista Borghese's Funeral 'Apparato' of 1610 in S. Maria Maggiore, Rome" The Burlington Magazine 143 No. 1174 (January 2001), pp. 23-28.
  2. ^ His role is most fully described in Howard Hibbard, The Architecture of the Palazzo Borghese (Rome: American Academy in Rome) 1962.
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