In the field of decorative art, the artistic direction had prevailed for quite some time over the luxuriant, more vividly descriptive Baroque style. It was closely associated with the desire for spaciousness, to which late-Renaissance architecture paid homage. Thus perspective architectural painting came to the forefront. It broke through ceilings and walls and seemed to deepen all rooms, with the aid of boldly cast, richly enlivened decorations, high vaulting and wide views of the outside world.
The decoration of the choir in the Roman church of San Ignazio by the Jesuit Andrea Pozzo is one of the most brilliant examples of the combination of real and artistic architecture. Pozzo also published a widely appreciated book – Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum. His fame had long since come to the attention of Emperor Leopold I in Vienna (1640-1705), for whom he painted a wonderful false cupola in the Baroque Jesuit Church. But also the Princes of Liechtenstein engaged his services and commissioned him to decorate their garden palace.
This fantastic opulence of the Rococo world of forms was shown above all in the architecture and the decorative art in theatres. In this sphere the leaders were the brothers Giuseppe (1696-1757) and Alessandro Galli Bibiena (1686-1748), who not only left their clear mark on the Italian residence theatres. In addition, in the period 1745-1748, Giuseppe was responsible for the furnishing of the Opera House in Bayreuth.
The Theatine monk Guarino Guarini (1624-1683) was one of the successors of Borromini, and in Turin planned and built the Palazzo Carignano (1679-1684) in his style. Based on his studies of architecture, mathematics, philosophy and theology he wrote the treatises Placita Philosophica (1665), Euclides Adauctus (1671) and Architettur Civile (1686). Clearly inspired by this he devoted an unusually long period of time to the building of the Cappella della Sacra Sindone, in which the mysterious Turin Shroud was preserved, and in the meantime, also in Turin, the Consolata (1679). At the beginning of the 1660s he also worked on the church of Sainte Anne-La-Royale in Paris and later in Prague and Lisbon.
The Florentine Alessandro Galilei (1691-1737) worked for his sovereigns Duke Cosimo III (1642-1723) and his successor Gian Gastone de Medici (1671-1737), after whose death the Duchy of Tuscany fell into the hands of the Austrian Hapsburgs. Alessandro Galilei, at the age of about twenty-four, went to England but returned to his homeland a few years later, where he was appointed Architect of Fortresses. At the beginning of the 1730s Pope Clemens XII summoned him to Rome, where he built the Capella San Giovanni in Laterano (1732) for the Corsini family, after winning a competition organised by Pope Clemens XII, beating twenty-one other competitors. Between 1733 and 1735, he also designed the main façade of the San Giovanni in Laterano.
Ferdinando Fuga (1699-1780) was one of the artists who did not consider himself a successor to Palladio, but in his works strove for greater simplicity and conformity. In the Kingdom of Naples the ruler at the time was Charles III of Spain, who also ruled Naples as Charles VII (1716-1788) and sought to provide half-decent accommodation for the 8000 or so poor people in his realm, most of whom lived on the street. The plan for this accommodation was approximately 600 x 135 metres; he commissioned Ferdinando Fuga for the project, who arranged the buildings around five inner courtyards. This massive project was not completed until 1819, therefore long after the death of the initiator and his architect. The complex, the Real Albergo dei Poveri is still standing today, despite serious damage from an earthquake in 1980, and houses a school of music, among other things.
Also by Ferdinando Fuga is the east-facing façade of the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, for which Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758) laid the foundation stone and which since its completion has attracted an innumerable amount of pilgrims.