Keywords

• Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre Fontaine (1762-1853)
• known as the architects of Napoleon
• are also the authors of two seminal books of architecture devoted to the buildings of «Modern Rome». The first of them
• Palais
• maisons et autres édifices modernes dessinés à Rome
• which will be more specifically studied here
• was published in parts of six engravings
• between 1798 and 1801. The production
• from 1809 to 1815
• of the second book: Choix des plus célèbres maisons de plaisance de Rome et de ses environs
• was even longer. Both circulated widely but they also initiated a new tradition by encouraging former students of Charles Percier
• who were themselves winners of the Prix de Rome
• to publish their own portfolios of Italian models: a series of books that played a major part in French architectural publishing and theory during the first half of the nineteenth century. Thus the two authors appear as the main agents of the change that occurred in Paris around 1800
• when Italy became the principal frame of reference for domestic architecture
• a field previously regarded as a French speciality. Influential in the institutions
• in education and among the public
• mainly thanks to their publications
• Percier and Fontaine did not create Italianism from scratch
• since it had already existed in the years preceding the Revolution
• when they were companions at the French academy in Rome.
• But they embedded it firmly in the heart of the culture of French architects. In themselves
• this architectural interest in Italy
• nurtured by nostalgia enhanced by a strong personal preference
• and the importance of the Renaissance at the centre of it
• are beyond question. But a more detailed analysis of the two architects examines the Cinquecento and the relative importance they attributed to this period in the carefully selected corpus of their «Modern Rome»
• among the Christian basilicas and the baroque palazzi
• helping to highlight their choices of designers and illustrating the way they built their own history of architecture in a perspective of project