Neoclassical architecture in Tuscany

In December 1807, the Kingdom of Etruria was suppressed and the grand duchy, still controlled by the French empire, was divided into three territorial departments called "of the Mediterranean," "of the Ombrone," and "of the Arno," with capitals Livorno, Siena and Florence, respectively.

Contrary to the tradition of the time, the arch was not an ephemeral work made of wood, canvas and plaster, but rather constituted a structure in permanent plan, taking up a theme from Roman art of particular symbolic significance, inaugurating the spread of this typology in the neoclassical era.

[10] The Regency also favored the development of cultural services, both in the capital and in the smaller centers of the grand duchy, with the opening and renovation of a series of libraries and theatrical spaces, from Pontremoli to Siena, from Prato to Pisa, passing through the reconstruction in masonry of the hall of the Pergola Theater in Florence.

[14] In this context, Ignazio Pellegrini's monumental designs for the royal chapel and theater in the Pitti Palace, or for the new entrance to the Uffizi Gallery, were deemed unrealistic and did not find implementation; other architects, such as the brothers Giuseppe and Ferdinando Ruggieri, were willing to moderate their ambitions and found greater fortune in commissioning, although they never adhered to a neoclassical language;[15] for example, the facade of San Filippo Neri and the ribs on the interior walls of Santa Felicita, designed by Ferdinando, appear far removed from the authentically neoclassical invention constituted by Carl Marcus Tuscher's proposal for the facade of San Lorenzo (1739).

Careful administration and the obvious goal of containing state expenditures, however, did not limit the realization of works of public utility, which perfectly embodied the period of ideological change desired by Peter Leopold, such as the reorganization of the grand duchy's hospitals, the new lazaret at Livorno, the refounding of the thermal baths of Montecatini, the building of the new cemeteries in Livorno and Florence, the reclamation of the Maremma, Val di Chiana, and Val di Nievole, the rewards distributed for the foundation of farmhouses in the Pisa and Siena provinces, and even the construction of new roads and the renovation of existing ones.

[1] Paoletti, who boasted an excellent preparation on both architectural and technical levels, transmitted this dual aptitude to his pupils, precisely in the years when the split between the Académie des beaux-arts and the École polytechnique was taking place in Paris.

[18] Between 1766 and 1783 Paoletti worked on the villa of Poggio Imperiale, in Florence, enlarging the previous Medici building with the formation of two side courtyards characterized by a measured neoclassical language; he built the rear facade, the ballroom on the main floor and constructed the stables.

Even the arrangement of the Cascine park designed by Giuseppe Manetti, with the construction of the pyramid-shaped ice-house and the round aedicule of the "Pavoniere," are to be considered more as the completion of works begun in the Leopoldine era, rather than the actual initiatives of Grand Duke Ferdinand.

In domestic politics, the new grand duke did not repudiate his father's reforms that had brought Tuscany to the forefront in Europe, preceding in some fields even the French Revolution then in progress, but he tried to limit some of their excesses, especially in the religious sphere, with the restoration of outward practices of worship.

[1] Whereas Giuseppe Del Rosso, appointed municipal architect in Florence, proved to be a modest planner and ranged from the restoration of ancient monuments to the design of the Pia Casa di Lavoro in Montedomini,[23] in the "Department of the Ombrone," the few notable neoclassical architectural works of the period can be traced to the figure of Agostino Fantastici: notably, in Siena, the project for the transformation of the convent of Sant'Agostino into a lyceum (of which only the grandiose external portico would later be built) and, in Montalcino, the cathedral of the Santissimo Salvatore, which was designed from 1813 and built only during the Conservative Order.

During the administration of the future Grand Duchess of Tuscany, the towns of Carrara, Viareggio and Bagni di Lucca were enlarged, while under the guidance of architect Giovanni Lazzarini, often assisted by Théodhore Bienaimé, a series of important construction sites were started: the construction of Piazza Napoleone, achieved by gutting a substantial portion of Lucca's historic center; the opening of a gate in the shape of a triumphal arch and a connecting road dedicated to Élisa; the renovation, in a neoclassical style, of the summer residence of Marlia; the enlargement of the cemetery outside the San Donato gate; the transformation of some religious complexes to other uses; and the design of the Teatro del Giglio, work on which began in 1817.

In 1812 Pasquale Poccianti, who in those same years was engaged in the completion of Livorno's aqueduct, was also called to Elisa Baciocchi's court, but his contribution was limited to a few projects of monumental urban structures in the neoclassical style, which, moreover, did not find implementation.

In Florence, in 1824 Gaetano Baccani prepared the plan for the enlargement of the Piazza del Duomo, with the creation of a vague portico of neoclassical style on the south side; statues of Arnolfo di Cambio and Filippo Brunelleschi were inserted in the central loggia of the new Palazzo dei Canonici on the cathedral's southern flank to celebrate the values and protagonists of local culture.

With the same criterion, in Pisa, the old monastery of San Lorenzo was demolished in order to create the Piazza Santa Caterina (completed in 1827 by Alessandro Gherardesca), the old Monumental Cemetery was rearranged into a museum, and a section of the Lungarno was laid out.

Still in Florence, the Goldoni theater was inaugurated in 1817, and a few years later Giuseppe Martelli was engaged in the transformation into a girls' boarding school of the former monastery of the Santissima Concezione, inside which it is worth mentioning the very refined spiral staircase in pietra serena surmounted by a lead caryatid, which the sculptor Luigi Pampaloni placed at the top of the central column to give stability to the structure.

[39]However, it was Livorno, a free port of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany animated by intense cultural exchanges with foreign countries, the city in which Restoration Neoclassicism achieved its best results;[40][41][42] an affirmation that coincided with Leopold II's ascension to government (1824-1859) and the founding of the local "School of Architecture, Ornament and Surveying" (1825).

[44] For the new quarter of Casone, south of the city, Cambray Digny hypothesized the opening of a gateway on the southern bastion of the Medici curtain wall, envisaging, on the outside, a regular street scheme; according to the indications contained in the plan, the church of Saints Peter and Paul (1829) was built on the edge of the new settlement, in which the neoclassical themes of the façade are diluted in the portico with round arches derived from 15th-century Tuscan architecture.

However, the motion of expansion of the city, exemplified by the vast Piazza dei Granduchi built by Luigi Bettarini to connect the historic center to the Lorraine suburbs, was countered by the limit set by the new customs wall designed by Alessandro Manetti (1835-1842); the original compositions of the customs gates are, however, due to Carlo Reishammer, who took up some of the stylistic features of Ledoux's architecture, juxtaposing canopies, staircases, pillars and other ornamental cast-iron elements.At the same time, Poccianti devoted himself to the works necessary to upgrade the aqueduct completed a few years earlier; the architect's attentions focused mainly on the design of several reservoirs intended for water storage and filtration: the Purgatorio di Pian di Rota (1841-1852), characterized by a strongly dilated layout marked by two semicircular exedras at either end and a stern Tuscan pronaos on the façade; his masterpiece, the Cisternone (1829-1842), with the portico surmounted a "revolutionary" semi-dome decorated with coffers, which translates into reality the daring inventions of Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux; the Cisternino di città (completed around 1848), with a basilica plan and a slender loggia raised above the massive basement.

Moreover, in the architect's intentions (later, in fact scaled down in the execution phase), the aqueduct work was supposed to be accessible from the city to the springs, in a sort of didactic route through tunnels, arches and inspection huts built in the forms of neoclassical temples.

[47] Also worth mentioning in this context are the vast plans, which remained on paper, prepared by Cambray Digny and Giuseppe Martelli for the new hospital (1832) and the covered market in Livorno (1849), respectively; outsized gigantism took shape instead in the Pia Casa di Lavoro begun on a design by Alessandro Gherardesca in 1845 and later completed by Angiolo della Valle.

[48] Beginning in the 1840s, there was a certain amount of activity in Florence as well: the start of work on the extension of Via dei Calzaiuoli, the approval of the plan for the new Barbano quarter (1842), the reorganization of the Lungarni, the opening of the Leopolda and Maria Antonia Stations, and the construction of the heavy Stock Exchange building, designed by Michelangelo Maiorfi and Emilio De Fabris along the course of the Arno River.