Neoclassical architect Giovanni Antinori died on 24 June 1792. Antinori was born in Camerino on 28 January 1734. He came from a family of mathematicians and architects. His initial education had also been in math, but he began studying architecture at the at the University “La Sapienza” and at the Accademia di San Luca, under Girolamo Theodoli (1677 –1766) a famous architect of his time. He worked in Camerino, Siena, Rome, and Lisbon, the latter where he worked on the restoration of Casa dos Bicos (today the headquarters of the José Saramago Foundation) after the earthquake of 1755. With the election of Pope Pius VI, in 1775, Antinori accepted an archaeological excavation in the church of San Rocco, near the Mausoleum of Augustus, which brought to light a large red granite obelisk. He also worked in the Piazza del Quirinale, changing the position the statues of Castor and Pollux, which were originally parallel to each other, and placing between them the obelisk found in S. Rocco. In 1787-1789, he supervised the erection of the Sallustiano Obelisk in the square of Trinità dei Monti and in 1790-1792 Obelisk of Montecitorio, also known as Solare, in Piazza Montecitorio. The was to be his last work.
Further reading: Jeffrey Collins (1997) ““Non tenuis Gloria”: The Quirinal obelisk from theory to practice” Memoirs of the American academy in Rome. Vol. 42, pp. 187-245.
Obelisco Quirinale
Obelisco Sallustiano
Obelisco Solare
Casa dos Bicos