The immense convent of Mafra, in Portugal, which exceeds the Esco in circuit, was built 1717-1732. The church, with its two towers and a cupola, forms the centre of the facade.
The majestic Spanish Stairs at Rome were begun in 1721 by Specchi and De Santis. Fernando Galli of Bibbiena was chiefly a theatre-arehi tect, and constructed the theatres of Parma, Vienna, Prague, and Milan. His brother, Francesco, built the imperial manage at Mantua and the atres at Rome and Verona, and afterward was summoned to Vienna and Nancy.
Even this late period had its theorists who promulgated its forms as a school. Master Nikolaus Goldmann of Breslau, who lived at Leyden, in Holland, advocated a simpler direction. His chief work, a complete Hand book of Civil Arch/lea/we, first published in 17oS, with notes by Bernhard Christoph Sturm, does credit to both the editor and the older author, although it shows a spirit of Dutch soberness similar to that displayed in the Stadhuis at Amsterdam. The fantastic direction, as particularly devel oped by the Italians in church-arch itectu re, is advocated by the Jesuit Father Andrea Pozzo, who as painter and architect erected many churches of his order and decorated them with stucco-ornamentation. Among the many architectonic improprieties found in his two volumes which appeared at Rome in 1693 may be mentioned sitting columns—that is, columns which are so bent that they seem to be sitting. His work A. Putei fiietorum et arehitedorum appeared in 1706 in a German edition.
The Castle Christianiensborg, at Copenhagen, built 1732-174o, has a tower in the centre and shows the commonly-accepted style of the period in stately development. Filippo Juvara of Messina built the Superga at Turin. Sachetti, Juvara's pupil, commenced at Madrid in 1737 the royal palace, which his master had designed.
Alessandro Galilei of Florence built at Rome the Corsini Chapel, in the Lateran, the facade of the Lateran Basilica—which has a pediment like an antique temple, with a portico below and a loggia above, embraced between two great pilasters—and S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini.
Ferdinando Riga erected at Rome the Palazzo della Constilta on Monte Cavallo, and the Palazzo Corsini; also, at Naples, the facade of Sta. Maria
Maggiore, the great hospital, and several palaces.
The eighteenth century brought again a series of churches in Ger many. Most of them have naves which open into an immense cupola, and have a facade with two towers. There is little of architectonic detail, but in the interior of most of them a confusing wealth of the wildest forms is developed. On the other hand, the general design is almost without exception excellent in proportions, especially the facade, which is in most cases lofty and produces an imposing effect. We may here men tion churches at Vienna; also the collegiate Church of MOlk, which, together with a palatial convent, rises high upon a cliff above the river, dominating the entire Danubian region. We may also mention the churches of Waldsassen, near Eger, Maria-Kuhn, Vierzehnheiligen, Banz, Ottobeuren, Einsiedeln, St. Gallen, St. Blasien, and Weingarten.
Among the cupola churches of this period the Church of Our Lady at Dresden, which George Biihr built (1726-1738), takes the foremost place (pl. 47, fig. 3), since the cupola, of comparatively small diameter, appears to exist more for the exterior than for the interior. If it had a tambour, the entire building would become a well-proportioned tower.
The Catholic church at Dresden (fig. 2), begun in 1736 by Gaetano Chiaveri, is an Italian structure of the late period, pompous and preten tious, but pleasing from its noble proportions. The open-work tower rises aloft with decorative playfulness.
One of the most beautiful church-facades of the eighteenth century is that of St. Sulpice at Paris. It consists of an Ionic colonnade superim posed upon a Doric one, with towers of Corinthian colonnades at the ends. It is a work of the Italian Giovanni Niccolo Servandoni. It was com menced in 173o, but was altered by Chalgrin in 1777.
Luigi Vanvitelli built the magnificent Castle Caserta (begun in 1752), near Naples, part of the facade of the royal palace and the Annunziata in Naples itself, and at Ancona the hospital, a massive pentagonal structure, and a triumphal arch which stands on one of the two moles that protect the harbor.