CANTO'N1, SIMONE, a recent Milanese architect of considerable note, was born at Maggio, a small village in the north of Italy, and received his first instruction in architecture from his father Pietro, who was of that profession, and did a good deal at Genoa. Ho after ward. went to Rome for further improvement, and on his return settled at Milan, where the first work of any note lie was employed upon was the Palazzo Mellerio. Two other noble mansions afterwards erected by him in the same city are the Casa Perticati and the Palazzo Serbelioni, the former of which has engaged oolumus of the Ionic order, with Caryatid figarea over them, against the attic; and the façade of the other (flniehed 1794) is remarkable for having granite columns and pilaster'. Among various other work., ho erected the Seminary and Lyceum at Como, the Villa Italmondi near the saute town, the Palazzo Vailetti at Bergamo, and the church at Gorgonzola, between Bergamo and Milan. Ou the destruction of the Great Council Hall in the Ducal Palace at Genoa by in November 1777.
Cantonl was employed to rebuild it, which ha did with ability and taste, and in such a manner as to secure it from any similar accident in future. Billie's, who notices this circumstance in his ' Lifo of Rocco Pennone,' the original architect of the edifice, says that there is a work containing all Cantonia designs for that purpose, but he does not either its title or date. Wiebeking attributes the Arena at Mantua to Cantoni, but it would seem erroneously, no mention being made of it in the memoir of him by Lazzari, in Tipaldo's ' Biografia,' &o., where he is said to have rejected flattering invitations from St. Petersburg and Warsaw. He died March 3, 1818. Nagler, who makes no mention of Simone, speaks of a Giuseppe Cantoni of Forli as the architect of the amphitheatre at Mantua (which was opened in 1821); therefore he is no doubt the person meant by Wiebeking.