Fra Giocondo

Giovanni Giocondo, Order of Friars Minor, (c. 1433 – 1515) was an Italian friar, architect, antiquary, archaeologist, and classical scholar.

Giovanni Giocondo was born in Verona around 1433. He joined the Dominican Order at the age of eighteen and was one of the many of that Order who promulgated the Renaissance. Afterwards, however, he left the Dominicans and entered the Franciscan Order. Giocondo began his career as a teacher of Latin and Greek in Verona, where Julius Caesar Scaliger was one of his pupils.

As a young priest, Friar Giovanni was a learned archaeologist and a superb draughtsman. He visited Rome, sketched its ancient buildings, wrote the story of its great monuments, and recorded, deciphered and explained many defaced inscriptions. He stimulated the revival of classical learning by making transcriptions of ancient manuscripts, one of which, completed in 1492, he presented to Lorenzo de' Medici.

Giocondo soon returned to his native town where he built bridges and planned fortifications for Treviso, acting as architect engineer, and head-builder during the construction.

In Verona, Giocondo designed the Loggia del Consiglio () for Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. It is considered one of the finest buildings in Verona and is famed for the decorations of its loggia. Thomas de Quincey also attributes the church of Santa Maria della Scala to Giocondo. He was then summoned to Venice, along with a number of other well-known architects, to discuss the protection of the lagoons against the rivers. Giocondo's plan of altering the Brenta's bed and leading this river to the sea was accepted by the Venetians, and the undertaking was a complete success.

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