Giovanni Battista Trevano (born in

Lugano Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, died 1644 in Krakow,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

) was an Italian-speaking architect who worked in

as royal architect for King

Sigismund III Vasa Sigismund III Vasa ( pl, Zygmunt III Waza, lt, Žygimantas Vaza; 20 June 1566 – 30 April 1632 N.S.) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1587 to 1632 and, as Sigismund, King of Sweden and Grand Duke of Finland from 1592 to ...

, of the Vasa dynasty, which ruled Poland at the time. Krakow 16

Early career

Trevano started working in Poland around 1600. He was one of the team of architects and craftsmen who rebuilt the

Royal Castle in Warsaw The Royal Castle in Warsaw ( pl, Zamek Królewski w Warszawie) is a state museum and a national historical monument, which formerly served as the official royal residence of several Polish monarchs. The personal offices of the king and the adm ...

, on the basis of the old Gothic castle of the Masovian princes, which had already been completely remodeled by Italian architects in the second half of the sixteenth century. New work was undertaken in the years 1598-1619. He was not alone in this project: Giacomo Rodondo, Paolo del Corte and Mateo Castelli were all involved in remaking the castle into a new

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

structure, on its imposing site along the bank of the river

Vistula The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...

. The castle, much altered over the years, was bombed and dynamited by the Nazis as a symbol of Polish culture and was rebuilt in the years 1971–1988 as a national monument.

Career

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

, on the

Wawel The Wawel Royal Castle (; ''Zamek Królewski na Wawelu'') and the Wawel Hill on which it sits constitute the most historically and culturally significant site in Poland. A fortified residency on the Vistula River in Kraków, it was established on ...

hill, following a fire in 1595, Trevano rebuilt the state apartments of the Royal Castle for Sigismund III Vasa. Also on the Wawel hill, in the Cathedral Church of St Wenceslas, which has been repeatedly reconstructed around the 11th-century shrine of St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów, Trevano built the shrine-mausoleum with the crossing dome, supported on four piers (1626–29). The first Baroque church built in Poland was the Church of St. Peter and Paul on Ulica Grodzka, erected by order of Sigismund III Vasa for the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

in the years 1597—1619. It was designed by Giovanni de Rossi as a cruciform basilica with a domed crossing and completed by Trevano. As with Jesuit churches throughout Catholic Europe, its façade is a close variant of that provided by

Giacomo Della Porta Giacomo della Porta (1532–1602) was an Italian architect and sculptor, who worked on many important buildings in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica. He was born at Porlezza, Lombardy and died in Rome. Biography Giacomo Della Porta was b ...

for the

Church of the Gesù , image = Church of the Gesù, Rome.jpg , imagesize = , caption = Giacomo della Porta's façade, precursor of Baroque , mapframe = yes , mapframe-caption = Click on the map for a fulls ...

, the Jesuit Mother Church in Rome. Also in Kraków, St Martin's Church (''Kosciol sw. Marcina''), was built by Trevano, 1638–44. It has been used for Lutheran worship since 1816. In Ulica sw. Jana, no.12, the Krauze House (''Kamienica Krauzowska'', now housing the Kraków History Museum) was originally a Gothic building but was remodeled by Giovanni Petrini and Trevano in 1611. The house has a doorway with a segmental pediment. In

Kielce Kielce (, yi, קעלץ, Keltz) is a city in southern Poland, and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the bank ...

the bishop's palace, built 1637–41 for

Jakub Zadzik Jakub Zadzik (1582 – 17 March 1642) was a Polish Great Crown Secretary from 1613 to 1627, bishop of Chełmno from 1624, Crown Deputy Chancellor from 1627, Great Crown Chancellor from 1628 to 1635, bishop of Kraków from 1635, diplomat, szlach ...

as a personal monument, is undocumented but is attributed to Trevano, though Tomasso Poncino, another Italian working in Poland but mainly as a building contractor, is credited with carrying out the construction and working out some of the architectural detail. The palace stands out in Poland in retaining its original features virtually unchanged.

Early career

Career

References

Further reading