(b Rome, 10 Feb 1702; d Rome, 28 July 1786). Italian architect, sculptor, draughtsman and designer. He owed his career to the patronage of cardinals Alessandro Albani (see ALBANI, (2)) and Annibale Albani. Like the Marchionni family, the Albani family came from the Marches. Marchionni first trained as a sculptor, then studied architecture at the Accademia di S Luca in Rome under Filippo Barigioni, winning the first prize in 1728, his final year. Marchionni’s prizewinning drawings demonstrated his exceptional talent as a draughtsman, always far greater than his inspiration as an architect. Cardinal Alessandro Albani engaged him to build his villa in Anzio as early as 1728 and in 1734 commissioned Marchionni to design the façade of the collegiate church at Nettuno. Both are conventional works carrying the imprint of the Accademia, revealing a clear commitment to the past in their use of 17th-century architectural motifs. Marchionni worked as a sculptor between 1730 and 1748. His most interesting sculptural work is the tomb of Benedict XIII (completed 1739) in S Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Albani. As well as the overall design, Marchionni also executed the relief depicting the 1725 Lateran Council on the sarcophagus. His work as a sculptor revealed his dependence on traditional, late Baroque Roman style, drawing inspiration from Camillo Rusconi. Other projects included statuary (1741) for the façade of S Maria Maggiore; a statue of Benedict XIV (1743) for Santa Croce in Gerusalemme; a statue of St Ignatius (1748) for S Apollinare; and busts of founders (c. 1745) for the Collegio di Propaganda Fide, all in Rome. He created reliefs depicting scenes from the Life of the Virgin (1747) for the chapel of St John the Baptist in S Roch in Lisbon, and he also executed reliefs for the chapel of the Madonna del Voto (1748) in Siena Cathedral and the tomb (1747) of Cardinal Giacomo Milli in the church of S Crisogono, Rome.

• Marchionni, Carlo
  • Antolini, Giovanni Antonio
  • collaboration
    • Bianchi, Pietro (i)
  • groups and movements
    • Neo-classicism, §1: Archaeology and the rise of historicism
  • patrons and collectors
    • Albani: (2) Alessandro Albani
    • Display of art, §III, 3(i)(a): Sculpture, after c 1700
    • Italy, §XIV, 3: Museums: The age of Neo-classicism
    • Orsini: (3) Pope Benedict XIII
    • Pius VI, Pope
    • Rome, §V, 27: Villa Albani
  • works
    • Ancona
    • Italy, §II, 5(i): Neo-classical to early Modernist arch., c 1750–c 1900: Rome & South Italy
    • Italy, §V, 5: Interior decoration, c 1750–c 1800
    • Museum, §II, 1: Architecture, before 1850
    • Pavilion, §3: Western
    • Rome, §V, 14(ii)(a): St Peter’s: Architecture
    • Ruin
    • Stucco and plasterwork, §III, 10(i)(a): Western world, 1400–1850: Italy
    • Villa, §III: c 1700–c 1800