Giovanni Maria Fontana
Illustration — Oranienbaum Giovanni Maria Fontana (c. 1670 – after 1712) was an Italian-Swiss architect, born in Lugano, who worked in Russia. Alleged to be a relative of the famous Roman architect Carlo Fontana, Giovanni Maria or Francesco Fontana arrived in the Russian port of Arkhangelsk from Denmark in 1703.
Giovanni Maria Fontana
Chezenatiko · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Born
- 1670 · Lugano.
- Died
- 1712
- Nationality
- Switzerland
- Occupation
- architect
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Illustration — Oranienbaum Giovanni Maria Fontana (c. 1670 – after 1712) was an Italian-Swiss architect, born in Lugano, who worked in Russia. Alleged to be a relative of the famous Roman architect Carlo Fontana, Giovanni Maria or Francesco Fontana arrived in the Russian port of Arkhangelsk from Denmark in 1703.
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In this article
Biography
Biography
He worked in Moscow until 1710 when he moved to the newly founded city of Saint Petersburg. Nothing is known about him after 1712 (when he apparently left Russia). Fontana's most prominent commissions were those from Prince Menshikov, to build his various palaces, notably Oranienbaum. He often worked in tandem with Johann Gottfried Schädel. Some of his designs were apparently plagiarized from architectural textbooks of the day.
Giovanni Maria Fontana (1670–1712) was a Swiss architect.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1670
Giovanni Maria Fontana was born in 1670 at Lugano.
1712
Giovanni Maria Fontana died in 1712.
Primary material
Documents and archives
Institutional database
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q4122020: Giovanni Maria Fontana
Scholarly · Wikimedia Foundation
reference work
- “Giovanni Maria Fontana”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
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Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Malinovski K., l'architecte Francesco Fontana, architecte de Menchikov, conférence pour le 300e anniversaire de la fondation de la ville de Saint-Pétersbourg/ Малиновский К. В. Архитектор А. Д. Меншикова Франческо Фонтана // Петровское время в лицах-2003: Краткое содержание докладов научной конференции, посвященной 300-летию основания Санкт-Петербурга. СПб., 2003. P. 76-77.
- 2.S. Gorbatenko/ С. Б. Горбатенко. Новый Амстердам. Печатный двор, 2003. С. 172.
- 3.Igor Bondarenko/Игорь Андреевич Бондаренко. Словарь архитекторов и мастеров строительного дела Москвы: XV-середины XVIII века. Изд-во ЛКИ, 2008. С. 316
- 4.N. V. Kaliazina, Menchikov constructeur de la Russie /Н. В. Калязина, Е. А. Калязин. Александр Меншиков--строитель России: . Печатный двор, 2003. p. 343.
- 5.T. Gatova/Т. А. Гатова
- 6.Вестник Московского университета: География, Том 18. Изд-во Московского университета, 1963. p. 71.
References
Citations
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Institutional database
Wikidata, structured authority record Q4122020: Giovanni Maria FontanaWikimedia Foundation
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Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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