Galli da Bibiena Family. Important Italian quadratura painters, theatrical designers, and architects. Ferdinando (1657–1743) was architect of Sant'Antonio Abbate, Parma (1712–60), and author of L'Architettura civile … (Civil Architecture…—1711), a text that describes various means of creating spatial illusion. Francesco (1659–1739), Ferdinando's brother, designed several theatres (none has survived intact), but Giuseppe (1695–1747), Ferdinando's son, designed the enchanting Rococo interior of the Markgräfliches Opernhaus (Margrave's Opera House), Bayreuth, Bavaria (1745–8), one of the loveliest auditoria in Europe, completed under the direction of Giuseppe's son, Carlo Ignazio (1728–87). Another son of Ferdinando, Antonio (1697–c.1774), designed the Nuovo Teatro Pubblico (now Teatro Communale), Bologna (1755–63), the Teatro Scientifico, Mantua (1767–9—inspired by Palladio's Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza, but destroyed and the Church, Villa Pasquali, near Sabbioneta (1765–84), with its delicate trellis-like stucco-work under the dome. He also completed the presbytery, designed the high altar, and frescoed the vault of the choir of the Church of St Peter, Vienna (1730–2). A third son, Alessandro (1686–1748), became Court Architect to the Electors Palatinate at Mannheim, in which capacity he designed the Jesuitenkirche (Jesuit Church—1738–48), one of the most important Baroque churches in South-West Germany before it was badly damaged in the 1939–45 war.

Bibliography

Galli da Bibiena (1703–8, 1711);
Hadamowsky (1962);
Mayor (1945);
Muraro & and Povoledo (1970);
Wittkower (1982)

Bibiena. See Galli da Bibiena.