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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
There is nothing surprising in finding in Austria (at the monastery of St Florian) a staircase similar to the one (at the Palazzo Sanfelice) in Naples during the period when Naples was ruled by the Austrian Viceroys, but a puzzling problem of dating arises. From the existence of so many staircases of this type in Naples and only a single example in Austria, one would conclude that the type originated in the South and was borrowed by the northern architect on this occasion; but in fact the staircase at St Florian dates from 1709, earlier than the first certainly datable example in Naples. The argument is not, however, conclusive, because Sanfelice may have experimented with the form at an earlier date; but till further documents are discovered the question must — theoretically at least — be left open.
A. Blunt, Neapolitan Baroque and Rococo Architecture (London, 1975), pp. 142–43Whereas Sanfelice’s first works in architecture, the decoration of the church of the Cappuccini di Pozzuoli and the construction of the church of the Periclitanti on the Salita di Pontecorvo, date from 1701–02, and his earliest dated stair of the doubled open sloping arcaded type, that added to the Seminario at Nardò for his brother the Bishop from 1723–24, it has recently been established that the first plans for the monastery at St Florian and its new staircase, along with plans for the monastery church, were submitted by Carlo Antonio Carlone during the winter of 1700–01. The staircase was itself begun (to a design different from that which was eventually followed by Prandtauer, Carlone’s successor, after 1707, but keeping the sloping arcade motif), between 1 January and 18 May 1701, dates recorded in the monastery building accounts for the delivery of granite steps. Thus the use of the doubled sloping arcade motif at St Florian (Pl. 41a) would seem to antedate Sanfelice’s activities as an architect in Naples, and certainly antedates his use of this motif in staircase design — Plate 41b shows the Palazzo Fernandes (probably) not actually by Sanfelice but a typical example. That is, however, a long way from saying that South-North influence can be replaced by North-South influence.
1 Blunt, A., Neapolitan Baroque and Rococo Architecture (London, 1975), p. 130 Google Scholar. I am indebted to Mr Alastair Ward for information regarding Sanfelice and the Seminario at Nardo and also for pointing me towards the Neapolitan tradition in the designing of church façades.
2 Korth, Thomas, ‘Die Entstehungsgeschichte der Barocken Klosteranlage Stift St Florian’, Erlanger Beiträge zur Sprach-undKunstwissenschafi, XXXXIX (1975)Google Scholar.
3 Hitchcock, H.-R., German Renaissance Architecture (Princeton, 1981), pls 53 and 141Google Scholar.
4 Bialostocki, J., The Art of the Renaissance in Eastern Europe (Oxford, 1976), fig. 337 Google Scholar.
5 T. Korth, op. cit., pp. 155-56, pl. 41.
6 The place of publication is unknown; Stift Gleink is illustrated in plate 55.
7 Mielke, F., Die Geschichte der Deutschen Treppen (Berlin — Munich, 1966), pp. 121-22, figs 152-53Google Scholar.
8 Topographie der Historischen und Kunst-Denkmale im Böhmen, Königreiche, XXVII, Der Politische Raudnitz, 2, Ruadnitzer Schloss (Prague, 1910), figs 6, 8, 10–11 Google Scholar.
9 F. Mielke, op. cit. (1966), p. 266.
10 Kunsttopographie, Österreichische, XVIII, Die Denkmale des politischen Bezirks Baden (Vienna, 1924), p. 98 Google Scholar, fig. 150.
11 Poche, E., Umelecke Pamatky Cech, 2 (Prague, 1978), pp. 453-54Google Scholar, fig. P. 454.
12 T. Korth, op. cit.
13 The staircase of Stift Garsten-bei- Steyr, also by Prandtauer, (after 1715), was a simplified version of the St Florian stair. Without the open arcaded exterior of St Florian the interior of this stair was separated from the corridor behind on the lower flights, but above became a more unified space. T. Korth, op. cit., pp. 141 and 205, figs 11a-c.
14 Wittkower, R., Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750 (Harmondsworth, 1975), p. 123 Google Scholar, fig. 60.
15 See n. 1.
16 A. Blunt, op. cit., pp. 139, 142, 150-53; Pls 233-36, 255-56, 260.
17 A. Blunt, op. cit., p. 138.
18 Ibid., fig. 10.
19 Ibid., fig. 11 and pl. 77.
20 Perrault’s drawing of the Louvre staircase has since been lost, but a copy survives, by the Swedish architect, Nicodemus Tessin the Younger (Stockholm, National Mus., Tessin-Hårleman Coll., 2204), illustrated in Pommer, R., Eighteenth Century Architecture in Piedmont (New York—London, 1967), fig. 5 Google Scholar. See also Blondel, J.-F., Architecture Francoise, IV (Paris, 1756), pls 1 and 2 Google Scholar. Schloss Pommersfelden has been extensively researched in many publications, the most recent of which is Hofmann, W.J., Schloss Pommersfelden, Die Geschichte seiner Entstehung, Erlanger Beiträge zur Sprach- und Kunstwissenschaft, XXXII (Nuremberg, 1968)Google Scholar.
21 Before Leonhard Christoph Sturm and Jacques-Francois Blondel theoretical works tended to mention staircase design only negatively trying to make the architect aware of all the pitfalls that were involved when planning and designing staircases. Even Scamozzi, who was rather more positive, only allowed two pages and two plates in the whole of his voluminous work to the problems presented by the staircase (L’Idea dell’ Architettura Universale, 1, 312-17, pls pp. 313 and 317). Palladio condemned the staircase as an insoluble problem breaking up the harmony of the ground-plan ( The Four Books of Andrea Palladio’s Architecture, trans. Ware, Isaac, 1738, 1, 34 Google Scholar).