The Most Famous

ARCHITECTS from Italy

This page contains a list of the greatest Italian Architects. The pantheon dataset contains 518 Architects, 62 of which were born in Italy. This makes Italy the birth place of the most number of Architects.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Italian Architects of all time. This list of famous Italian Architects is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Italian Architects.

1. Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598 - 1680)

With an HPI of 79.25, Gian Lorenzo Bernini is the most famous Italian Architect. His biography has been translated into 75 different languages on wikipedia.

Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (UK: , US: ; Italian: [ˈdʒan loˈrɛntso berˈniːni]; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 1598 – 28 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture. As one scholar has commented, "What Shakespeare is to drama, Bernini may be to sculpture: the first pan-European sculptor whose name is instantaneously identifiable with a particular manner and vision, and whose influence was inordinately powerful ..." In addition, he was a painter (mostly small canvases in oil) and a man of the theatre: he wrote, directed and acted in plays (mostly Carnival satires), for which he designed stage sets and theatrical machinery. He produced designs as well for a wide variety of decorative art objects including lamps, tables, mirrors, and even coaches. As an architect and city planner, he designed secular buildings, churches, chapels, and public squares, as well as massive works combining both architecture and sculpture, especially elaborate public fountains and funerary monuments and a whole series of temporary structures (in stucco and wood) for funerals and festivals. His broad technical versatility, boundless compositional inventiveness and sheer skill in manipulating marble ensured that he would be considered a worthy successor of Michelangelo, far outshining other sculptors of his generation. His talent extended beyond the confines of sculpture to a consideration of the setting in which it would be situated; his ability to synthesize sculpture, painting, and architecture into a coherent conceptual and visual whole has been termed by the late art historian Irving Lavin the "unity of the visual arts".

2. Vitruvius (-75 - -15)

With an HPI of 78.23, Vitruvius is the 2nd most famous Italian Architect. His biography has been translated into 77 different languages.

Vitruvius ( vi-TROO-vee-əs, Latin: [wɪˈtruːwi.ʊs]; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled De architectura. As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissance as the first book on architectural theory, as well as a major source on the canon of classical architecture. It is not clear to what extent his contemporaries regarded his book as original or important. He states that all buildings should have three attributes: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas ("strength", "utility", and "beauty"), principles reflected in much Ancient Roman architecture. His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body led to the famous Renaissance drawing of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci. Little is known about Vitruvius' life, but by his own description he served as an artilleryman, the third class of arms in the Roman military offices. He probably served as a senior officer of artillery in charge of doctores ballistarum (artillery experts) and libratores who actually operated the machines. As an army engineer he specialized in the construction of ballista and scorpio artillery war machines for sieges. It is possible that Vitruvius served with Julius Caesar's chief engineer Lucius Cornelius Balbus. Vitruvius' De architectura was well-known and widely copied in the Middle Ages and survives in many dozens of manuscripts, though in 1414 it was "rediscovered" by the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini in the library of Saint Gall Abbey. Leon Battista Alberti published it in his seminal treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria (c. 1450). The first known Latin printed edition was by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in Rome in 1486. Translations followed in Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, and several other languages. Though any original illustrations have been lost, the first illustrated edition was published in Venice in 1511 by Fra Giovanni Giocondo, with woodcut illustrations based on descriptions in the text. Bramante, Michelangelo, Palladio, Vignola and earlier architects are known to have studied the work of Vitruvius, and consequently it has had a significant impact on the architecture of many European countries.

3. Donato Bramante (1443 - 1514)

With an HPI of 75.81, Donato Bramante is the 3rd most famous Italian Architect. His biography has been translated into 68 different languages.

Donato Bramante (1444 – 11 April 1514), born as Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio and also known as Bramante Lazzari, was an Italian architect and painter. He introduced Renaissance architecture to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his plan for St. Peter's Basilica formed the basis of the design executed by Michelangelo. His Tempietto (San Pietro in Montorio) marked the beginning of the High Renaissance in Rome (1502) when Pope Julius II appointed him to build a sanctuary over the spot where Peter was martyred.

4. Andrea Palladio (1508 - 1580)

With an HPI of 75.78, Andrea Palladio is the 4th most famous Italian Architect. His biography has been translated into 74 different languages.

Andrea Palladio ( pə-LAH-dee-oh; Italian: [anˈdrɛːa palˈlaːdjo]; Venetian: Andrea Paładio; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of the most influential individuals in the history of architecture. While he designed churches and palaces, he was best known for country houses and villas. His teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise, The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition. The city of Vicenza, with its 23 buildings designed by Palladio, and 24 Palladian villas of the Veneto are listed by UNESCO as part of a World Heritage Site named City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto. The churches of Palladio are to be found within the "Venice and its Lagoon" UNESCO World Heritage Site.

5. Leon Battista Alberti (1404 - 1472)

With an HPI of 75.29, Leon Battista Alberti is the 5th most famous Italian Architect. His biography has been translated into 62 different languages.

Leon Battista Alberti (Italian: [leˈom batˈtista alˈbɛrti]; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. He is considered the founder of Western cryptography, a claim he shares with Johannes Trithemius. He is often considered primarily an architect. However, according to James Beck, "to single out one of Leon Battista's 'fields' over others as somehow functionally independent and self-sufficient is of no help at all to any effort to characterize Alberti's extensive explorations in the fine arts". Although Alberti is known mostly as an artist, he was also a mathematician and made significant contributions to that field. Among the most famous buildings he designed are the churches of San Sebastiano (1460) and Sant’Andrea (1472), both in Mantua. Alberti's life was told in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.

6. Renzo Piano (b. 1937)

With an HPI of 69.68, Renzo Piano is the 6th most famous Italian Architect. His biography has been translated into 65 different languages.

Renzo Piano (Italian: [ˈrɛntso ˈpjaːno]; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2015), İstanbul Modern in Istanbul (2022) and Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens (2016). He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998. Piano has been a Senator for Life in the Italian Senate since 2013.

7. Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (1507 - 1573)

With an HPI of 66.68, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola is the 7th most famous Italian Architect. His biography has been translated into 40 different languages.

Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (UK: vin-YOH-lə, US: veen-, Italian: [ˈdʒaːkomo baˈrɔttsi da (v)viɲˈɲɔːla]; 1 October 1507 – 7 July 1573), often simply called Vignola, was one of the great Italian architects of 16th century Mannerism. His two great masterpieces are the Villa Farnese at Caprarola and the Jesuits' Church of the Gesù in Rome. The three architects who spread the Italian Renaissance style throughout Western Europe are Vignola, Serlio and Palladio. He is often considered the most important architect in Rome in the Mannerist era.

8. Michelozzo (1396 - 1472)

With an HPI of 66.47, Michelozzo is the 8th most famous Italian Architect. His biography has been translated into 40 different languages.

Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi (Italian pronunciation: [mikeˈlɔttso di bartoloˈmɛːo mikeˈlɔttsi]; c. 1396 – 7 October 1472), known mononymously as Michelozzo, was an Italian architect and sculptor. Considered one of the great pioneers of architecture during the Renaissance, Michelozzo was a favored Medici architect who was extensively employed by Cosimo de' Medici. He was a pupil of Lorenzo Ghiberti in his early years, and later collaborated with Donatello. Known primarily for designing Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, he is often overshadowed by his contemporaries Donatello in sculpture and Brunelleschi in architecture.

9. Arnolfo di Cambio (1240 - 1302)

With an HPI of 65.92, Arnolfo di Cambio is the 9th most famous Italian Architect. His biography has been translated into 40 different languages.

Arnolfo di Cambio (c. 1240 – 1300/1310) was an Italian architect and sculptor of the Duecento, who began as a lead assistant to Nicola Pisano. He is documented as being capomaestro or Head of Works for Florence Cathedral in 1300, and designed the sixth city wall around Florence (1284–1333). By the end of his career he evidently had one or more workshops of some size, producing work with considerable stylistic variation, and distinguishing his personal hand can be difficult.

10. Giacomo della Porta (1533 - 1602)

With an HPI of 65.73, Giacomo della Porta is the 10th most famous Italian Architect. His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Giacomo della Porta (1533–1602) was an Italian architect and sculptor. Most likely born in Genoa or Porlezza, Italy, his work was inspired by famous Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo and Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola. He started in his career as a sculptor in his late 20s, and later transitioned into a more architectural focus. Della Porta's work on the Oratory of Santissimo Crocifisso marked the beginning of his architectural career in Rome. In 1564, he was elected as Architetto del Popolo Romano (Architect of the Roman People) and under this title he completed some of his most notable commissions, both public and private. Throughout his career, Della Porta had a tendency to carry out projects begun by other architects, or make particular additions to a project of another architect, as opposed to completing a project of his own from start to finish.

People

Pantheon has 65 people classified as Italian architects born between 75 BC and 1956. Of these 65, 4 (6.15%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Italian architects include Renzo Piano, Mario Bellini, and Massimiliano Fuksas. The most famous deceased Italian architects include Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Vitruvius, and Donato Bramante. As of April 2024, 4 new Italian architects have been added to Pantheon including Camillo Boito, Mario Bellini, and Francesco Laparelli.