MAGGI, Baldassare

Italian architect, active in south Bohemia and Moravia. He reconstructed the castles of the Rozmberk dynasty at Cesky Krumlov, where in 1580 he introduced an arcaded galleryGLOSSARYan upper story, similar to a tribune, running along the side of a building and open on one side to the interior; in a church (basilica) above the side aisles, over the ambulatory (central-plan building) and also over the west end. The gallery was used to keep certain groups of worshippers apart (women, noblemen). into the great 13th-century tower, and Bechyne, to which he added a hall and new wings around a courtyard (1580-84). He was probably responsible for the Renaissance dwellings and a terrace (1581) added to the medieval fortress of Helfstejn in eastern Moravia. At Cesky Krumlov he built the dormitoryGLOSSARYthe room where monks slept in monasteries, and later, when individual cells were introduced, the term was applied to the building or floor which contained the cells. of the Jesuit College (1586-88) to a design by P. Alexander, and he built and decorated the villaGLOSSARYa residence in the country (in Italy); villas acquired palace-like characteristics from the Renaissance onwards. of Kurzweil (now Kratochvíle; 1580-89; with Antonio Melana) for Vilém Rozmberk (d 1592) in a symmetrical ensembleGLOSSARYA combining of several media grouped together to form a composite art work. Chapels were among the most notable Renaissance ensembles, sometimes combining panel painting, fresco, sculpture, and architecture. with a chapelGLOSSARYa small separate place for worship, either part of a large church or a separate building. and a garden unusual at that time in central Europe, possibly influenced by the Neugebäude in Vienna.

For a related noble family, the Lords of Hradec, Maggi transformed the medieval castle of Frauenburg (now Hluboká) into a Renaissance mansion (re-Gothicized heavily in the 1840s). In the courtyard of the castle at Jindrichuv Hradec he extended the line of Antonio Ericero's new block of the 1560s with a further addition in three storeys, joined to the main block by an arcaded wing attributed to Melana. Another arcaded wing was built by Antonio Cometta (c. 1555-1602) to Maggi's designs (1591). Cometta also built Maggi's rotunda (1591-93), with a tent-like roof, in the palace garden, one of the most interesting Renaissance architectural works in central Europe. At the Hradec castle in Telc, southern Moravia, Maggi built and decorated a new south wing, joined to the existing blocks with arcaded wings on two sides to form a five-sided courtyard. One of these sides opens on to an Italianate walled garden, similarly bordered with arcades, into which a Renaissance chapel penetrates, surmounted by a hall (1575-80).

Maggi's works for the Bohemian and Moravian nobility were usually richly decorated with wall paintings and stuccowork or terracottas. They are of a north Italian Mannerist character; local influence is perceptible in articulated and graded contourGLOSSARYa line around a shape in a work of art, its nature depending on the artist's concept and intention. In medieval painting, contours were initially regular, flat outlines; in the course of the 14th century they acquired more sense of spatial effect, and appear to be alternately more and less emphatic. Later, the effect of contour in painting and graphic art became particularly important to artistic movements in which line and draughtsmanship was a prominent factor. of the upper parts of the rotunda, the chapel and hall at Telc, and the tower at Cesky Krumlov.