Whereas Gothic was to be the other respectable style in 19th-century Britain, in France and Italy the classical ruled firmly, because the students of the antique subsequently because the arbiters of taste back home, leading to the florid splendour of the Beaux Arts style (think of the Altare della Patria in Rome, or the Opera Garnier in Paris). But in the earlier 19th century, neoclassical chaste purity was the watchword, because the monuments studied by the scholars were archaic or classical, rather than of the Hellenistic baroque - the temples of Athens and Paestum, Delphi Epidauros and Eleusis, rather than Halicarnassus or Pergamum, which are drawn in 1877 and 1895 respectively. Of course, the architects chose what seemed congenial to them; so that any idea that the emple of Athena Aphaia at Aegina influenced Charles Garnier (envoi of 1852-3) in his later use of statuary and colour in the Opera Garnier must be balanced by the self-fulfilling prophecy of such reconstructions. Whether any balance between reconstruction and archaeology is kept may be judged from the account of Pinon & Xavier 1988. The Catalogue des Envois (p.385ff shows just how inclined to ancient Rome the architects are; with even the first Paestum in 1793; first Popmeii in 1818; the first Greek work in Sicily as late as 1825; the first Etruscan stuff in 1830 - and the first mediaeval/Renaissance monuments of Rome only from 1823;
The interests of architects differed from those of archaeologists in that they wished to use such buildings as inspiration for their own work, and hence reconstructed them, often to the contempt of the archaeologists [Paris-Rome-Athenes, op.cit., 40-44]. Ruins were of no use to them, and hence they resurrected the past, complete and coloured, and presented antique town planning as well as a model for their own day. Ironically, as Bruno Foucart explains [in Paris-Rome-Athenes, pp.49-60: La modernite des neo-grecs], the myth of Greece died as the country was opened up to visitors, because "le Saint des Saints doit rester dans l'obscurite ... les mysteres supportent mal la pleine lumiere" [ibid., p.49]. For a host of reasons, neoclassicism therefore remained focussed on Roman art and architecture - with, for SM del Popolo, the exception of neoclassical tomb sculpture based on archaic and classical Attic models. [cf ref to another part of this account...].
The drawings submitted for the annual Grand Prix de Rome (references are to Jacques & Miyake 1988: a first competition was in 1702, then 1720, then yearly) were on themes chosen by the Academy. Gradually, the tradition estgablished that the winner went to the Villa Medici in Rome to continue his studies - underlining the Roman (rather than the Greek) inspiration and rationale for much of the continuing French interest in the classical. The subjects set are indeed grand in scale and often in reach: triumphal arches (1730, 1747, 1763), palaces (1752, 1772, 1791, 1804, 1806), city squares and markets (1733, 1792, 1801), town halls (1742, 1787, 1813), law courts (1782, 1821) museums (1779) and educational institutions including libraries (1775, 1786, 1789, 1800, 1807, 1811, 1814, 1815, 1820) - all schemes for the promotion of civilization as the ancients would have understood the term. Stylistically, the entries usually share common characteristics: a grand Roman manner, with columns and orders, vaults and polychromy; an insistent and regular geometry, usually the square or the circle but sometimes the triangle; a penchant for the hemicycle, the propylaea and the pyramid; and finally a desire to impress by symmetry and the contrast between plain and decorated surfaces. [for a wider view of architectural competitions, cf. Jong & Mattie 1994.
A good example is Jean-Arnould Leveil's Museum Project, which won the Grand Prix in 1832 [Jacques op.cit., pp.42-7], the interior of which is inspired by the grandeur of Roman baths, but the exterior of which is suavely simple, with plain walls decorated by the occasional pilaster, by statues atop them, and by columns not only of the scale of the Column of Trajan, but evidently inspired by the layout of his Forum (could he have known this in 1832? seems unlikely, but what about the Marble Plan?). Such is the context against which Valadier produced his designs for unifying Piazza del Popolo.
A useful set of surveys of what French architects knew about ancient Rome is in David et al 1999. For some idea of what the Via Flaminia might have looked at outside the gate, cf. pp.191-3 for A.G. Ancelet's 1855 strip-reconstruction of the Via Appia at the fifth milestone, in both contemporary state and with the monuments reconstructed. It is worthwhile emphasising the beauty of so many of the envois!!
cf. generally Harouel 1993 especially the plans for Lyon and Toulouse (e.g. his figs 20 & 21), where radiating alleys incorporate not only greenery but also grand public space. But the biggest engine for the unifying action of the "place" is the work of Pierre Patte, whose plan for Paris (1765: cf. Harouel fig 3) offers a series of square and round "places" with radiating roads, some within the streets of the Left and Right banks, others making play of the theatre provided by a prospect onto the Seine itself. The ideas in their turn derive from classical formal gardening of the 17th century, and will be especially interesting to architects of the Revolutionary period, on which cf Leith 1991, pp. 6-8.
The Revolutionary architects often adopt the full panoply of the classical - amphitheatres, columns, statues, pyramids. One scheme with parallels for Piaqzza del Popolo is de Wailly's for the completion of the Louvre (Leith op.cit., figs 311-314) which included a colonnade-cum amphitheatre to classicize the Square Court (with another amphitheatre within the Tuileries), and a Victory Column in the centre; a variant scheme has a large basin and plan d'eau taking upabout 40% of the Tuileries area.
We must be careful not to try and link Valadier too closely to his French roots, since he settled in Rome and involved himself through his drawings and designs with directly the architecture of Roman antiquity, rather than as filtered at one remove by those who did not have the painstaking and laborious contact with the antique, close-up, which is required for him to complete his measured drawings.
Was Valadier himself a revolutionary? A Giuseppe Valadier was inscribed as a lieutenant in the Civil Guard (Second Regiment) during the Roman Republic: cf. Gasbarri & Giuntella 1958, p.73; but then, it is sometimes better to be inside rather than outside the tent, whatever its colour... The first account (Annali di Roma 1798-9) begins with the death of General Duphot, killed in a skirmish between Papal troops and Jacobins, and describes (p.9) his funeral in S. Peter's Square on 23 Feb 1798 (NB I have the print of his catafalque). The ceremony began with the procession of the French troops from Piazza del Popolo to S. Peter's. The catafalque (four steps leading to a pyramid) had a cypress at each corner with trophies attached. Also a funeray column at each corner, with a smoking censor on top; the General's ashes in an urn before the pyramid. Then a solemn procession to the Capitol, dove furono collocate sopra una colonna esistente innanzi il magnifico albero di liberta in detto luogo.
(One might add that the tremendous amount of cleaning, scaffolding, and restoration set in hand for the Giubileo 2000 gives confirmation that the City still works, and works well.)
In Panella 1989 cf Remiddi pp.251-70. This includes some of Valadier's excellent and precise drawings (1812ff) of architectural elements, which the author displays by monument;
Paolo Marconi, Giuseppe Valadier, pp.271 + 142 illus, Rome 1964; sxmall and lowish-quality illustrations, and text takes up only one of possible two-columns-width per page. So not a long book. Treats the whole of Valadier's career, with pp.80-93 for I primi studi per la piazza del Popolo, and pp.168-87 for L'occupazione francese;
Louis Madelin, La Rome de Napoleon: la domination francaise a Rome de 1809 a 1814, pp.727 + plans, Paris 1906; largely historicaql, but with an excellent chapter 'Un Gouvernement Athenien" at pp.527-551, which looks briefly at cultural life, and some very energetic archaeological excavations to xclear things up e.g. Forum, which employed 1200 workmen for four years. What is the recent book that does this period in detail???
Helge Gamrath, Roma sancta renovata: studi sull'urbanistica di Roma nella seconda meta del sec. XVI con particolare referimento al pontificato di Sisto V (1585-1590), pp.191 + 156 illus, Rome 1987; for the development of Piazza del Popolo, Ripetta and (under Clement VII) Babuino), cf. pp.20-22. Author notes that Via Flaminio (renamed to Corso) was one of the few streets preserved from Antiquity. Nor was Popolo the only trident in Rome: cf. his pl.11, which is P.Brill & A. Tempesta's fresco in Loggia del Bologna in the Vatican of the Piccolo Tridente fromPonte Sant'Angelo looking south;