Filippo Raguzzini

Filippo Raguzzini (19 July 1690 – 21 February 1771) was an Italian architect best known for a range of buildings constructed during the reign of Benedict XIII.

Raguzzini was born in Naples into a family of stonemasons. Little is known of his early history, but he was called to Benevento in the wake of the earthquake of 1702, which caused widespread destruction in the city. In Benevento, he came to the attention of Pietro Francesco Orsini, the then archbishop of Benevento for 38 years, who in 1724 became Benedict XIII. This encounter with Orsini would be of crucial significance for Raguzzini’s later career. There is considerable scholarly debate about which works in Benevento should be attributed to Raguzzini’s early period, but the chapel of San Gennaro in the church of the Annunziata (1710) is thought to be his work. Two later churches, San Filippo (1724–27) and San Bartolomeo (consecrated in 1729) in Benevento, are attributed to Raguzzini from the period after Benedict XIII's election.

Once Benedict XIII was elected, Raguzzini moved to Rome and commenced a meteoric rise to the top of the papal architectural establishment. Official honours were lavished on him from as early as 1725, when he was made a Knight of the Golden Spur; in February 1727, he was elected an accademico di merito of the Accademia di San Luca. The pope's patronage saw Raguzzini ultimately serve in almost every major public architectural office in the city. The most significant posts he held were those in which he supplanted the much older and highly respected Roman architect, Alessandro Specchi, whose most important work, the Porto di Ripetta, had been executed in the reign of Clement XI: these roles were those of the architect of the popolo romano (essentially the city architect), the architect of the Tribunale delle acque e strade and the architect of the Sacri Palazzi Apostolici. Raguzzini held these offices from 1728, although they were nominally to be held by the incumbent for life. Specchi died in November 1729.

Benedict XIII’s reign was marked by financial mismanagement. Benedict himself practically vacated the temporal government of Rome and the Papal States, turning this over to Cardinal Niccolò Coscia who nearly bankrupted the State, and which ultimately led to the cardinal's temporary excommunication and imprisonment in the reign of Clement XII. As a result, few major architectural projects were started during Benedict’s reign. The most significant projects executed in Rome by Raguzzini during Benedict’s reign were the construction of the Ospedale di San Gallicano in Trastevere (1724 – 26), the erection of the church of Santa Maria della Quercia near the Palazzo Spada (1727 – 31) and the systematisation of Piazza Sant'Ignazio (1727 – 35).

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