Bernardoni Maria Biography

Who designed the largest temple of the Grand Duchy and why exactly? Until now, historians are arguing about who nevertheless designed this temple. The fact is that in written sources the name of the architect is not mentioned, and among the “candidates”, three Italians claim to be this role in historical literature: Santi Gucci, Anthony Dikrip and Giovanni Maria Bernardoni.

Santi Gucci: The favorite architect of the king, he was the court architect of King Stefan Batoria. For the first time, the information that Gucci elevated the new stone parish temple to Grodno in G. Based in his study exclusively on the laws of logic, the historian makes the assumption that the king, trying to build a majestic temple in Grodno, and in it, could entrust the construction of only his beloved architect.

This hypothesis, of course, deserves attention, but requires specific documentary evidence that is not at the moment. It should be said that Fishinger, in our opinion, made an erroneous statement that it was under the leadership of Santi Gucci that the Grodno old old castle in the Renaissance style was rebuilt, since the name of another architect - Scott from Parma appeared in the later written sources.

This information is not confirmed by written sources. Moreover, in the documents of that time, de Kgryp is called a “mason”, which indicates that he was the executor of the construction of the church. Giovanni Maria Bernardi: Jesuit, a student of Vignyula, experimenter, but the version that Farah Vitovt was erected according to the project of Giovanni Maria Bernardi in the Polish tradition - Jan Maria Bernardoni deserves the most attention.

But about everything - in order. A bust of the work of Sergei Gumilyovsky, Nesvizh at the Belarusian researcher George Galenchenko at the Institute of Manuscripts of the National Library of Ukraine named after V., some specialists of Galenchenko, Tamara Gabrus prove that most of the original drawings in it were performed by J. among the architectural plans of the Nonvizh Church of God's Body and the Jesuit Collegium, which was located nearby.

He, the Nesvizh Town Hall, Kletsk Temple, has a design drawing in this album with the signature of Latin letters in the Belarusian language “The Plan of the Church of Grodno”. During a detailed analysis of the images of the mentioned plans, the researcher Tamara Gabrus came to the conclusion that “the unity of the logic of creative thinking, structures and compositional techniques that were used, the commonality of architectural graphics give reason to assert that it is Bernardi that is the creator of not only the Jesuits church in Naviga, but also the Farny in Grodno.” In other words, most of the design images, with the exception of several later sheets that were filed in the album made by the hand of one person - Giovanni Bernardoni.

The design plans of the churches in Nesvizh, Grodno and Klesk from the album of J. Bernardi comparing this fact with the biography of the genius architect, we found many coincidences that only reinforced the hypothesis of Bernardoni's involvement before the design and construction of the Grodno headlight of Vitovt: 1. Giovanni Maria Bernardi GG. He was a monk of the Jesuits Order, took a direct part in the construction of the temple Il Jesz in Rome - the legendary Catholic shrine created in the spirit of Mannerism, which quite closely foreshadowed the aesthetics of Baroque later the church was taken by the canon for the Jesuit temples throughout Europe, especially in the Commonwealth.

In the city, the building was built in a mannerist style, had an unusually beautiful and innovative look. Later events show that the Italian immediately received a good reputation and glory. Just at that time, King Stefan Batoria caught fire to invite his favorite residence, the Jesuits and build an unprecedented beauty of the temple for them, where in the future the monarch wished to be buried after death.

It is clear that we have the right to build a temple for the Jesuits for the Jesuits, we notice this trend on the example of the election of the vast majority of Jesuit temples. As we know, the most titled representative of this monastic order in the cause of architecture in the Commonwealth at that time was Bernardoni. The time of the construction of the Vitovt headlights - gg. Researcher Alexei Shalland notes that Bernardi was most likely a fellow countryman Anthony de Kgryp, supposedly both were born in the Principality of Milan.

Mason Anthony de Kgryp arrived in Grodno on the invitation of the king and made a great contribution to the restructuring of the Royal Castle and the Farny Church. There is a high probability that two Italians knew each other. If so, could it happen that Anthony told the monarch to invite Jesuit Bernardi to Grodno? Many architectural details and techniques used in the construction of the headlights of Vitovt were at that time unique and innovative for the architecture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

In particular, the design of the temple had the structure of "pseudo -bazilic", t.Farah Vitovta was a kind of protobasilica for the ONL, preceding the emergence of a canonical for sacred architecture of the baroque of the cross-domed basilica. It is interesting that the temple Il Jesz - the main shrine of the Order of the Jesuits - had the form of basilica.

Moreover, many architectural details that were present in the decoration of the headlights of Vitovt Pilasters, the belt, were exactly repeated the scenery from Il Jesz, who, in turn, were borrowed by the architect of this temple of Jakomo and Vignali from ancient architecture and were the hallmark of this creator. This fact may indicate that the architect of the Grodno headlight was closely familiar with the architectural work of Vignyula.

As we already know, J. Bernardi was his student. Some researchers expressed the opinion that the architecture of the Fary Vitovt has nothing to do in nature with the theme of the work of J. But here it is important to realize that Bernardoni was an experimenter. Almost every sacred building designed by him was a unique exception - the church of God's body in Nesvizh and the Apostles of Peter and Paul in Krakow and had its own distinctive appearance.

In general, about a dozen temples represent the creative heritage of the Italian architect. Among them are the Cathedral Church in Lublin, the Jesuit Church in Kalisha, the Jesuit Church and the collegium in Nonvizh, the Jesuit Church of St. Peter and Paul in Krakow, the church and the monastery in the Calvaria Zebzhidovskaya. In addition, Giovanni Bernardi took part in the design of several more buildings along with other architects.

Undoubtedly, Bernardi left behind a much greater legacy. In particular, he is attributed to the construction of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Kletsk, the Town Hall and at least two churches in Nesvizh, but today we cannot prove this. With a more detailed analysis of the images of the Vitovt headlights and their comparison with the photographs of some architectural works of Bernardi, which have survived to our time in a slightly altered form, or retained their original features, we have seen some very important constructive details that finally convince us that it was this architect who designed the Grodno Catholic Church.

Firstly, all the temples of Bernardoni have a basilic structure in the case of the Grodno headlight and the Lublin Cathedral of the Cathedral is a “pseudo-bazilic” with a separate apse of the presbyterium in the case of Kalish and Grodno-faceted. Secondly, the first shrines built by Bernardoni in the territory of the Commonwealth, Lublin, Grodno, and Kalish were characterized by the character of mannerism.

XVII century. Thirdly, the main “chip” of all temples is the decoration of facades and walls with a large number of pilaster pilastrofors. A very important point is the fact that the pilasters at the entrance to the Cathedral Church in Lublin, which have been preserved unchanged to the post-war reconstruction, from the moment of construction of the temple, were connected on top of the arcs later, the building was rebuilt several times and lost its original form, identical Contractors from the Grodno Fary Vitovt.

It should be said that such an architectural technique is not found anywhere in the architecture of the late XVI century.

Fourth, almost all temples erected by Bernardoni, at the end of the main tier, was a decorative profiled cornice of an ancient sample. As we have already noted above, this element was borrowed directly from the Church Il Jesz in Rome. As you can see, Farah Vitovt is no exception in the artistic heritage of the architect, but rather a sequential period, a step in his work. The eloquent confirmation of this is the fact that shortly before the completion of the construction of the temple, which was planned to transfer this idea to the Jesuits, since the Jesuits nevertheless changed their minds to settle in Grodno, the work of Bernardi was appreciated by Nikolai Radziwill Orphanage, who invited the architect to Nesizi for the construction of the Jesuit church.

It was necessary to take into account local tastes the main advantage of the Grodno Farny Church is an artistic combination, on the one hand, fashionable architectural trends from Rome, and, on the other, traditional urban planning tastes formed under the influence of the centuries -old influence of the Gothic German architectural school. Analyzing the design plan of the Vitovt headlight with the measured plan of the year, it can be noted that the building was built with certain adjustments.

So, the project shows a large staircase unit with a two -small staircase on the right side of the main portal and round in plan, a marching staircase on the north side of the temple. Both stairs led to the empors above the side naps. But it is obvious that in the project, Bernardi did not take into account the local Gothic tradition of the construction of towers with twisted stairs round in plan.In reality, the stairs were located in the same places, but they were made differently, which could indicate a compromise achieved between the architect and contractors, in the majority, in the majority, German masters: the twisted stairs are round in the plan, they were equipped with four, and looked outside the way the author was conceived.

But the presence of obvious elements from another style - Gothic lancet windows, Gothic hexagonal in terms of faceted columns inside the temple - a conscious choice of the king’s customer, dictated by the taste of local administrators. And although, due to the lack of any written sources, it is not yet possible to prove this, we are simply convinced that Vitovta was erected by the Italian Bernardi.