Francesco Borromini (/ˌbɒrəˈmiːni/, Italian: [franˈtʃesko borroˈmiːni]), byname of Francesco Castelli (Italian: [kaˈstɛlli]; 25 September 1599 – 2 August 1667), was an Italian architect born in the modern Swiss canton of Ticino who, with his contemporaries Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Pietro da Cortona, was a leading figure in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture.
A keen student of the architecture of Michelangelo and the ruins of Antiquity, Borromini developed an inventive and distinctive, if somewhat idiosyncratic, architecture employing manipulations of Classical architectural forms, geometrical rationales in his plans, and symbolic meanings in his buildings. His soft lead drawings are particularly distinctive. He seems to have had a sound understanding of structures that perhaps Bernini and Cortona lacked, as they were principally trained in other areas of the visual arts. He appears to have been a self-taught scholar, amassing a large library by the end of his life.
