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).