FONTANA, DOMENICO ( 1543-1607 ) .
An Italian engineer and architect, born in 1543 at Mili. in the vicinity of Lake Como. At an early age he came to Rome, and soon attracted the notice of Cardinal Montalto, who appointed him his private architect. and intrusted to him the building of his villa, Negroni (c.1580), the Sistine chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore. and an adjoining palace. When the Cardinal's finances were crippled, through the jealousy of Gregory XII L., Fontana, out of his own fund'-, carried on the designs of his patron, on the same scale of magnificence in which they were commenced. For his disinterested devotion he received later ample reward, when the Cardinal, under the name of Sixtus V.. was called to the Papal chair. Fon tana, as a Papal architect (1585), was employed in a variety of important works, among which stands conspicuously the completion of the dome and lantern of Saint Peter's substantially upon Mi•helangelo's design. slightly modified by Della Porta. Ile increased his fame by the re moval and reirect ion of the Egyptian obelisk, now in the piazza of Saint Peter's. lie afterwards erected the obelisks in the Piazza del Popolo and the Lateran. and was intrusted by Sixtus with the construction of the Lateran palace. of a new façade for the transept of the basilica of Saint John Lateran. and of the famous Vat iean library. The restoration of the columns of Trajan and Antoninus, and the construction of the aqueduct known as the Acqua Felice, with the fountain of the Acqua l'aola. deserve mention among the many works of utility executed by Fontana. On
the death of Sixtus. Fontana. through the in triples of his enemies. was stripped of his post as Papal architect in 1592, hut was immediately proffered a similar appointment in the Kingdom of Naples. During his sojourn in Naples he executed many imposing designs, thy royal palace and a noble promenade along the bay heir:: mong the chief works. His conception of a grander harbor was carried into effect by others, his death in 107 at. Naples depriving the under taking of his personal sulierintendenee.
Vontana's son, G I:(;1,111 C•SAUE, heir to his father's great wealth, ;old some of his genius, was appointed royal architect on his decease. Dis brother, GuivANNI FoNTAINA, (c.1510-1614), assisted him as engineer, landscape architect, and contractor, from the beginning his career, and succeeded him as Papal architect when he left Rome in 1592. Another and later architect of the same name, CARLO Fox TA NA ( 1634-1714 , was a pupil of Bernini, and 'milt in Rome and elsewhere in the Ilaroque style. San Marcell° and the Bolognetti and 1lrimani palaces in Rome, the Liechtenstein Villa in Vienna, and the Vis conti Villa at Frascati are among his works. Consult: llilizia, Le vita (•i pier. eel( hri a••hi tett?. (Rome, 1768), translated by ('rosy; The Li•es of ('e/•brated reh t eels. .1 n vie), and Modern (London, 1826). Modern authorities, with full illustrations, are Ebe, .,'s'pat-Pcnaissanee (Berlin, 1886) ; and Straek,Baudenkmaler Horns des 15-19 Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1891).