Life

He was the first of a family of architects active in Rome in the 18th and 19th centuries. His sons Giuseppe and Giulio are recorded as collaborating with their father on the building of the Duomo at Subiaco

Subiaco, Italy

Subiaco is a town and comune in the Province of Rome, in Lazio, Italy, from Tivoli alongside the river Aniene. It is mainly renowned as a tourist and religious resort for its sacred grotto , in the St. Benedict's Abbey, and the other Abbey of St. Scholastica...

, and his grandchild Pietro Camporese the Younger

Pietro Camporese the Younger

Pietro Camporese the Younger was an Italian neoclassical architect. He was the grandson of the architect Pietro Camporese the Elder. One of his major commissions was the Palazzo Wedekind in Rome....

 (1792–1873), who led the reconstruction of Rome's basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura.

In 1754 Pietro the elder won second prize for Architecture in the "Concorso Clementino" from Rome's Accademia nazionale di San Luca

Accademia di San Luca

The Accademia di San Luca, was founded in 1577 as an association of artists in Rome, under the directorship of Federico Zuccari, with the purpose of elevating the work of "artists", which included painters, sculptors and architects, above that of mere craftsmen. Other founders included Girolamo...

, where he later became a professor.

His architecture is typical of the eclectic tendency of Roman architects of the late 18th century, before neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

 (as represented by the styles of his two sons) fully asserted itself. Pietro Camporese the Elder looked to late Baroque

Baroque architecture

Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...

 models, though at the same time showed clear influences from Luigi Vanvitelli

Luigi Vanvitelli

Luigi Vanvitelli was an Italian engineer and architect. The most prominent 18th-century architect of Italy, he practiced a sober classicizing academic Late Baroque style that made an easy transition to Neoclassicism.-Biography:Vanvitelli was born at Naples, the son of a Dutch painter of land and...

.

Works

Among the works of Pietro Camporese the elder are:

• the completion of the facade of the church of Santa Maria in Aquiro
  Santa Maria in Aquiro
  Santa Maria in Aquiro is a church in Rome, Italy. It is dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus, and is located on Piazza Capranica.The church is ancient – it was restored by Pope Gregory III in the VIII century, and thus must have existed before then. One theory is that it was the titulus Equitii,...
  
   (1774), built in the second order with stilemi resembling those of the 16th century church of Santa Maria dell'Orto in Rome;
• the completion of the facade of the German and Hungarian College in Rome, on via della Scrofa;
• an arch dedicated to pope Pius VI
  Pope Pius VI
  Pope Pius VI , born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, was Pope from 1775 to 1799.-Early years:Braschi was born in Cesena...
  
   at Subiaco (1789);
• church of Sant'Andrea (cathedral) and Palazzo del Seminario (1766–1789) in Subiaco;
• church of Santa Brigida a Campo de' Fiori
  Campo de' Fiori
  Campo de' Fiori is a rectangular square near Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy, on the border of rione Parione and rione Regola. Campo de' Fiori, translated literally from Italian, means "field of flowers"...
  
  in Rome.