Guarini, Giovanni Guarino (1624–1683)

Italian architect, mathematician, monk, and professor of philosophy and literature. He designed many baroque buildings in a late and complicated style, including the Accademia delle Scienze, the Palazzo Carignano (1679) and S Lorenzo (1668–87), all in Turin.

He was first and foremost a mathematician, and thus created designs of immense spatial complexity. He was a great admirer of Francesco Borromini. His influence was greatly increased by his Architettura civile/Civic architecture (published posthumously in 1737).

Guarini was born at Modena, Italy. He was a secular priest of the Theatine Order, and many of his buildings are religious, for example, the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, Turin (1667–90). His greatest secular work is the undulating Palazzo Carignano. Both S Lorenzo and the Chapel of the Holy Shroud are crowned by superlative and unprecedented cone-shaped domes. The S Lorenzo dome is composed of interlocking semicircular arches forming an octagon on a circular drum. His intricate carved designs were produced without formal architectural training.

None of Guarini's important buildings outside Turin have survived – for example the facade of S Gregorio and Theatrine Palace (1660) in Messina, St Mary of Altötting, Prague (1679); and the Theatine Church of Ste-Anne-La-Royale, Paris (1662).