Paper short abstract:

Joao V asked C. Fontana to create the apparatus for the funeral of Pedro II, to be celebrated in Rome in 1707. The work will be published and it was re-elaborated by many architects, such as F. Juvarra, B. Vittone, J. B. F. von Erlach e N. Tessin.

Paper long abstract:

In 1707, Joao V of Portugal asked Carlo Fontana to create the decoration for the funeral of Pedro II, to be celebrated in the church of S. Antonio dei Portoghesi in Rome.

Besides the apparatus that upholster the entire hall, Fontana creates the catafalque: the ephemeral structure measures a diameter of about 10m, while the canopy is suspended above 12 m high and reaches about 18m inside the dome.

The catafalque had great resonance and became the object of a print publication that will help to spread it: Funerale celebrato nella chiesa di Santo Antonio della nazione portoghese in Roma per la morte del re di Portogallo Pietro II, anno 1707.

The structure will be adopted in many European courts and re-elaborated within the Lusitanian and Roman worlds; it constituted a reference in the peculiar case of the catafalque of Joao V, designed by Emmanuel Rodriguez dos Santos in 1751 for the Portuguese church in Rome.

Numerous drawings of the catafalque are preserved: these allow us to understand the genesis of the project, the changes and the final definition, as well as the methods chosen for the dissemination of the work in the published text.

The several drawings show different planimetric and constructive solutions, detailed descriptions of the final structure as well as relations among sculptural elements and decorative. The drawings are full of information: the size of the structural parts, the mutual proportions of these, the positioning inside the hall, the dimensional relationships with the church, the materials and the installation methods.

Influences and relationships emerge in the funeral apparatus designed by subsequent major figures of the architectural scene; among these, the elaborations of Filippo Juvarra, Bernardo Vittone, Luigi Vanvitelli or Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Nicodemus Tessin.