Edoardo Arborio Mella

Edoardo Arborio Mella (18 November 1808 – 8 January 1884) was an Italian architect, restorer and scholar.

Well known at the time for his ‘stylish’ restorations of medieval buildings in Piedmont,[2] he has been described as ‘one of the most representative protagonists of the Gothic revival in northern Italy’.

From 1820 to 1827 he attended the Collegio-Convitto del Carmine in Turin, a Jesuit-run boarding school then popular among the Piedmontese aristocracy, where he displayed a particular talent for mathematical subjects.

Mella's interest in Gothic architecture took him to Switzerland, France and Germany; there were further trips to Monaco, Constantinople, Venice, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Athens and Vienna.

His obituary in the Salesian Bulletin of February 1884 points to two works of particular interest: Elementi di architettura archi-acuta o gotica (‘Elements of Ogival or Gothic Architecture’; 1857) and Elementi di architettura romano-bizantina, detta lombarda (‘Elements of the Romano-Byzantine Architecture called Lombard’, 1885).