Neoclassicism in the Fermo area | Itinerario

Around the middle of the XVIII century, while the Illuminism reached its peak, a rejection to Baroque began to creep across the European territory, which reached its most exaggerated form with the extreme and sumptuous frivolities of Rocaille. To accentuate that sort of intolerance were the frequent discoveries of archaeological finds from the classical age or from the first imperial age, the growing work of cataloging the remains brought to light, the consequent desire to visit places of excavation, to undertake the well-known grand tours and enjoy the landscapes littered with ancient Roman vestiges. Each of those activity exalted in a totally conscious sobriety of ancient art that pushed Johann Joachim Winckelmann, one of the most distinguished theoreticians of Neoclassicism, to urge painters to "dip their brush into intellect" because he considered humility and simplicity "the two real sources of beauty." In art the exaltation of the aesthetical rationality and of the purity of style resulted in a break with the illusionism, the bizarre and the glamour typical of Baroque, with praise instead of the balance, of "noble simplicity and calm grandeur" found in classical antiquity. Ambitious and sublime was the search for a pure and universal code to be applied to arts to them to nature.   These same principles, which in Italy were reflected in sculpture thanks to masters such as Antonio Canova and in architecture with characters such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, also influenced the design of the works carried out around the XVIII century in the Fermo territory. Walking through the streets of towns like Porto San Giorgio, Sant'Elpidio a Mare and Monte San Pietrangeli there are different architectural examples that clearly demonstrate the Neoclassicism and its constant recourse to the solid essentialism, to geometric simplification and to a severe expressive solemnity that used only a measured décor deprived of excesses. In the Fermo areas the greatest exponents of this movement inclined to exalt the "ideal beauty" were architects like Cosimo Morelli, Ireneo Aleandri and Giuseppe Valadier, who, moving away from the figure of the craftsman ready to meet the customer's frivolities, often worked in the design of public buildings such as theatres, cathedrals or representative buildings.