Roma Barocca comprises a complete history of the building activity in Rome from about 1600 to 1750. But it acquires a far broader interest because of the critical method which it applies to one of the key periods and centers in the history of architecture and urbanism. The discussion includes a broad summary of the urban policies and building programs of the popes, as well as an analytic history of the artistic culture of Rome as documented by the theoretical writings and architectural publications of the period. Against this historical background the basic formal principles and compositional methods of the Baroque are verified through critical and technical analyses of the monuments themselves. In this way the author is able to define those great themes which held the attention of the artistic world in the complex period known as the Baroque: “the themes of infinity, of the relativity of the perceptions, of the popular and vernacular artistic expression and the communicative force of art, of history conceived as a continual development, of technology, as a factor of independence and autonomous authority for the arts, and the theme of nature interpreted as a dynamic process.”
The three great masters Bernini, Borromini, and Cortona are treated in individual chapters. The dynamic eruption of creative energy manifest in the work of these architects, whose contributions included the revolutionary use of light, the unification of all the arts, and above all the ability on both the architectonic and urban scales to operate on space, is analyzed here with penetrating perspective. But the lesser architects who worked contemporaneously with the masters are also fully discussed. Architects of the generation following that of the masters, such as Carlo Rainaldi and Carlo Fontana, are studied critically in light of the rich legacy to which they fell heir and which they seriously undermined through their essentially regressive and conservative positions.
The great achievements of the masters, which made Rome the generative center of Baroque art for all of Europe, were not permitted a full flowering in Rome in the later 17th and the 18th centuries. The ever-present conservative and classicistic wing of the Roman cultural milieu, through its influence on those in power, soon managed to render the seeds of this revolution sterile. One of the most illuminating of Portoghesi's contributions is his account of the Roman architectonic culture in the first half of the 18th century. The first 25 years witnessed a strong Borrominian revival, which however was soon eclipsed by the growing force of the classicistic factions. The discussion acquaints the reader with a wealth of delightful 18th century Roman architecture, hitherto unknown in English publications except for a few of the outstanding urban monuments such as the Spanish Steps or the Trevi Fountain. The short-lived revival of Roman Baroque architecture covers not only the works of such highly gifted and refined artists as Alessandro Specchi and Gabriele Valvassori, who courageously resuscitated the Borrominian method, but also a Borrominian current that had matured among the Roman artisans, giving rise to a truly vernacular architectonic-decorative language. Indeed, as Portoghesi makes clear, it was from this two-fold Borrominian revival that there emerged the figure of Giuseppe Sardi, the only Roman architect of the 18th century to attempt a real fusion of the Roman tradition with the new repertory of forms of the European Rococo.
In his detailed recounting of this history, the author poignantly reveals that the story of the great creative forces of the Roman Baroque is the story of a revolution that failed. Such personalities as Specchi and Valvassori were excluded from important commissions, and likewise the spirited creativity stemming from the artisan class was clipped short by a lack of response on the level of the official culture of the times. The return to a classicistic authority launched by the Accademia di San Luca and supported by official patronage had an adverse effect on even the most gifted of the architects who had come to first maturity in the 1720s and '30s; even the elegant production of a talented architect such as Ferdinando Fuga was essentially a compromise. But this history does not end with the mere recounting of the city's increasingly provincial position and the stultifying effect of its classicistic conservatives. It has another dimension, since this is an intense study of the entire architectonic tradition of a city, and although the progressive hypotheses of the three great masters did not find a worthy continuation in Rome itself, still the final form given to the city in the 18th century conformed to formal and aesthetic principles of the highest validity, attesting to the resilience of the Baroque tradition. Much of the building of 18th century Rome was of a utilitarian nature, quite different from the grandiose projects of the mid-Seicento, but even the anonymous builders of 18th century multiple dwellings had inherited a perfect metric sense as well as a sensibility for the relation of their structures to the urban fabric as a whole. The urbanistic principles of the great masters, who effectively transformed the medieval city through the organization of nodal points inserted within the urban fabric as spatially enriched “surprises,” remained a live tradition capable of producing some of the most characteristic and inviting landmarks of the city.
An integral part of the author's analyses are the many fascinating detailed photographs, in great part executed by the author himself. The illustrative-analytical material is still further enriched by drawings inserted in the text. Of great importance and utility are the lists of works given in a separate appendix covering over 100 architects.
