Giovanni Battista Montano

Giovanni Battista Montano (1534–1621) was an Italian architect, designer and engraver of primary importance as a recorder of Antique Roman architectural remains.

While not famous during his lifetime, Montano’s drawings of ancient architecture became widely circulated when they were made into engraving by his pupil G. B. Soria and published in 1624 as Scielta di varii tempietti antichi (Selection of Various Antique Temples).

[4] Bernini in particular, was attracted by exquisitely carved bases and capitals of the Augustan and Flavian periods from the Codex Coner, imperial buildings at Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, and others which have not survived.

Baalbek, Petra, Sabratha and Leptis Magna are the finest examples of the late Imperial architecture in the Eastern Empire admired by Borromini.

It seems that Borromini relied on drawings of Montano, whose reconstructions of ancient monuments appeared in engraved form between 1624 and 1664 in a series of volumes called Li cinque libri di architettura.

Giovanni Battista Montano, from the Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari
Façade of the San Giuseppe dei Falegnami
Engraving taken from Montano's drawings depicting the reconstruction of the ancient Roman Temple of Vesta in Tivoli.
Engraving taken from Montano's drawings depicting the reconstruction of the ancient Roman Temple of Vesta in Tivoli.