Italian architect and theorist. He was the son of Antonio Bertotti, a local barber, and Vittoria Scabora; through the patronage of Marchese Mario Capra, an amateur poet and architect, he was able to study architecture in the private school opened in Vicenza in 1748 by Domenico Cerato (1720-1792), and he became curator of the Accademia Olimpica in 1753. This gave him a small annual income and the use of the house attached to the Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza, for which he was responsible for the maintenance. For the rest of his life Bertotti Scamozzi superintended the restoration works on the theatre, to which he published an excellent guide in 1790.
In his will the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi had left a legacy for the support of a promising young student of architecture in Vicenza. As executor the Marchese Capra awarded this to Bertotti, who added Scamozzi to his name in accord with the provisions of the will.
Doyen of the Palladian Revival in Italy, he edited Palladio's work, producing the important Le fabbriche e i disegni di Andrea Palladio raccolti e illustrati (The Buildings and Designs of Andrea Palladio collected and illustrated, 1776-83) and Le terme dei Romani, disegnate da A. Palladio (The Baths of Rome, Drawn by A. Palladio, 1785), publications which have tended to obscure his own architectural significance. He was well-connected, and knew such figures as Algarotti and Quarenghi, while he seems to have been sought-after as a cicerone by those cognoscentiGLOSSARYConnoisseurs of art, literature or music; those with refined tastes. on the Grand TourGLOSSARYAn extensive journey to the Continent, chiefly to France, the Netherlands, and above all Italy, sometimes in the company of a tutor, that became a conventional feature in the education of the English gentleman in the 18th century. Such tours often took a year or more. It had a noticeable effect in bringing a more cosmopolitan spirit to the taste of connoisseurs and laid the basis for many collections among the landed gentry. It also helped the spread of the fashion for Neoclassicism and an enthusiasm for Italian painting. Among the native artists who catered for this demand were Batoni, Canaletto, Pannini, and Piranesi, and British artists (such as Nollekens) were sometimes able to support themselves while in Italy by working for the dealers and restorers who supplied the tourist clientele. There was also a flourishing market in guide books., and produced a guide-book to the architectural sights of Vicenza in 1761.
More than 30 architectural works, both executed and unexecuted, are attributed to Bertotti Scamozzi. Most of these are restorations and reconstructions of older buildings in Vicenza and the surrounding area, largely commissioned by the bourgeois and neo-aristocratic classes. Bertotti Scamozzi's architecture was distinguished by his ability to use the architectural language of Palladio in a simple and sober manner, but with grace and elegance, and to adapt it when necessary to small spaces and limited economic resources. Later he designed a series of country residences near Vicenza.
His buildings in and around Vicenza, unsurprisingly, are strongly influenced by PalladianismGLOSSARYDominant style of English architecture post-1700, based on the work of Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), that was also influential in other European countries.: his Casa Muzzi, Riello (1770), is clearly based on the Villino Cerato di Montecchio Precalcino (1540s), while the Palazzo Franceschini, Vicenza (1770), though essentially Palladian in composition, betrays certain tentative aspects of Neo-Classicism. In the last decade of his life his work became more severe and bare (e.g. PalazzoGLOSSARYPalaces: large urban dwellings, 'palazzo' in Italian carries no regal connotations. Alberti described the palace as a city in little, and, like cities, Italian Renaissance palaces vary in type according to differences of climate, tradition and social structure. On to these regional stocks were grafted new architectural strains, reflecting theoretical reinterpretations of antiquity and individually influential examples. The atrium and peristyle house described by Vitruvius and now known from Pompeii did not survive antiquity, and much of the interest of Renaissance designs lies in creative misunderstandings of Vitruvius's text. Medieval palace architecture probably inherited the insula type of ancient apartment house, related to the modest strip dwellings which never disappeared from Italian cities. In Florence a merchant palace developed from fortified beginnings, with vaulted shop openings on the ground floor, and the main apartments above, reached by internal stone staircases opening from an inner court. Renaissance developments regularized without changing the essential type, although large cloister-like courtyards were introduced, while shops came to be thought undignified. At Michelozzo's Medici Palace (1444) a square arcaded courtyard with axial entrance lies behind a façade of graduated rustication, with biforate windows, a classical cornice replacing the traditional wooden overhang. The apartments on the 'piano nobile' formed interconnecting suites of rooms of diminishing size and increasing privacy. The classical orders which Alberti introduced to the façade of the Palazzo Rucellai (c.1453) were not taken up by the conservative Florentines, who continued to build variations on the Medici Palace (Palazzo Pitti; Palazzo Strozzi). In the 16th century rustication was reduced to quoins and voussoirs, and large windows appeared on the ground floor, 'kneeling' on elongated volutes. At Urbino the Ducal Palace (1465) reflected Alberti's recommendations for the princely palace, and was in turn influential on late 15th century palaces in Rome (e.g. the Cancelleria). A harmonious Florentine courtyard and ample staircase replace the embattled spaces of medieval seigneurial castles, of which vestiges remain only in the towers flanking the balconies of the duke's private apartments, designed as a scholarly retreat. In the absence of a merchant class or a cultured nobility in 15th century Rome, the architectural pace was set by the papal court. Papal incentives to build, and large households, meant less compact plans for cardinals' palaces, often built next to their titular churches. Renaissance forms appear in the unfinished courtyard of the Palazzo Venezia (1460s), with its arcade system derived from the nearby Theatre of Marcellus, and in the delicately ordered stonework of the Cancelleria (1485). In the 16th century vestigial corner towers and shops disappear from cardinals' palaces, and Antonio da Sangallo's Palazzo Farnese (1516) introduces symmetrical planning and Vitrivuan elements, like the colonnaded vestibule, behind a sober Florentine façade, enlivened by Michelangelo's cornice. A smaller palace type supplied the needs of an enlarged papal bureaucracy, more ambitious for display than for domestic accommodation. Bramante's 'House of Raphael' sets the façade style not only for this new type, but also for Renaissance houses all over Europe. Raphael and Peruzzi made ingenious use of difficult sites (Palazzo da Brescia; Palazzo Massimi), and their sophisticated façades flattered the architectural pretensions of patron and pope (e.g. Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila). Movement of patrons and architects, especially after the Sack of Rome, meant a diffusion of Roman forms to central and northern Italy, where Sanmicheli's palaces in Verona, and Palladio's in Vicenza, adapted Roman types to suit local conditions. Palladio's 4-columned atrium is a Vitruvian solution to the traditionally wide Veneto entrance hall, and his plan for the Palazzo da Porto-Festa contains explicit references to Vitruvius's House of the Greeks. In Venice, defended by its lagoon and a stable political system, the hereditary aristocracy built palaces open to trade and festivity on the Grand Canal. The traditional Venetian palace has a tripartite structure: long central halls above entrance vestibules used for unloading merchandise are lit on the canal façade by clusters of glazed windows (rare elsewhere), and at the back from small courts with external staircases (as in the Ca' d'Oro). Codussi's palaces introduced biforate windows and a grid of classical orders into the system, while Sansovino's Palazzo Cornaro retains vestiges of the Venetian type (small courtyard; tripartite façade) despite its Bramantesque coupled orders and licentious window surrounds. Other cities, like Genoa, evolved influential types. Through engravings and the illustrated treatises, Italian Renaissance ideas of palace planning, originally evolved in response to specific conditions, came to be applied all over Europe. Braghetta sul Corso (1780) and Teatro Eretenio (1781-84).
