Giovanni Mangone

Born around the end of the fifteenth century by Francesco, a native of Caravaggio in Lombardy, according to Giorgio Vasari he studied under sculptor and architect Andrea Ferrucci from Fiesole.

[1] In Rome, where he lived in a palace in via delle Coppelle, between Sant'Agostino and palazzo Baldassini, at the beginning of his career had several assignments; from 1527 to 1532 he was superintendent to the spring of S. Peter; until 1541, he was curator of the gold-leaf ceiling of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore; since 1528 and until his death, he was architect of the apostolic Chamber.

[1] In 1534 started his collaboration with Antonio da Sangallo the Younger: together they prepared apparati effimeri in wood to celebrate the crowning of Pope Paul III (r. 1534–49) and in 1536, the visit to Rome of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.[1] In 1537 Mangone modified the monastery of the Servites near the Church of San Marcello al Corso, which he completed.

[1][2] The building, which in 1537 had been completed until its piano nobile, was erroneously named after king Pyrrhus of Epirus because of a statue (actually of Mars) once on display on a yard's niche and now at the Musei Capitolini.

[1] In 1543, defining himself as a sculptor, he was among the founding members of the Congregation of "St. Joseph in the Holy Land at the Rotonda", later known as the Accademia dei Virtuosi al Pantheon, one of the main centers of discussions about antiquities and architecture in Rome.