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Vanvitelli (van Witel) Luigi
painter and architect; b. 1700; d. 1773.
Vanvitelli was the son of one Kasper van Witel, a Dutch painter, and spent his entire life in Italy. He was a pupil of Philippo Juvara. At the age of twenty-six he was made supervising architect of S. Peter's in Rome. He conducted the works at the harbour of Ancona and built the campanile of the church of La Casa Santa at Loretto. He built the convent of S. Agostino at Rome, and designed the chapel for the church of the Jesuits at Lisbon. About 1749 he remodelled Michelangelo's church of S. Maria degli Angeli (the great hall of the Baths of Diocletian in Rome). Vanvitelli's chief monument is the immense Palazzo di Caserta in Naples. This building is described in a monograph by Vanvitelli, Dichiarazione del reale Palazzo di Caserta (1 vol. folio, Naples, 1756).
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