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Torreggiani, Alfonso
(b Budrio, 17 Nov 1682; d Bologna, 29 April 1764). Italian architect. He was one of the most important architects in Bologna in the first half of the 18th century. He was a pupil of Giuseppe Antonio Torri (1655–1713) and a contemporary and rival of Carlo Francesco Dotti. His two sons Giuseppe Torreggiani (1718–38) and Antonio Torreggiani (d 1738) collaborated with him. Torreggiani’s work was characterized by a restrained architectural composition combined with elaborate and stylized decoration, which represents the closest to a Rococo phase in Bolognese architecture. He became Principe of the Accademia Clementina in 1749. His first work was the church of S Lorenzo (1704; completed by Giuseppe Tubertini (1759–1831)) in Budrio. He was also architect to the Curia and to the Jesuit Order, which offered him opportunities for ecclesiastical work in and around Bologna. Such projects included the sacristy (1724) of S Maria del Carmine, Medicina, followed by the Jesuit church of S Ignazio (1726), and the oratory of S Filippo Neri (1731; partly destr. 1944), both in Bologna. He started work in 1743 on the completion of S Pietro, Bologna, which Giovanni Ambrogio Mazenta had started to rebuild in 1605. Torreggiani’s design for the façade, with ornate portal and window mouldings, and a curvilinear pediment, was only partly incorporated in the final work, carried out by Francesco Tadolini (1723–1805). The interior portal and coretti (small private rooms giving on to the church; 1755) were, however, executed to his design. Of his proposals for the renovation of the church of S Domenico, he was commissioned to execute only the high altar (1745). In the church of the Crocifisso (1748), Medicina, Torreggiani followed the 16th-century Bolognese style of Mazenta, with monochrome interiors lit by thermal windows at the sides, but the wall surfaces are more forcefully articulated with engaged columns and rocaille decoration. The façade of the modest church of S Agostino, Reggio Emilia, was of two storeys, curved in plan, and articulated with engaged columns. Although Torreggiani designed the Jesuit church of S Rocco (1737–54) in Parma, it was executed by Adalberto della Nave (1681–1742).
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