Poccianti, Francesco Gurrieri Pasquale (1774–1858). Poccianti, Francesco Gurrieri Pasquale (1774–1858). Italian architect, a pupil of Gaspero Maria Paoletti (1727–1813). As First Architect to the Royal Works in Tuscany (1817–35), he carried out numerous alterations and improvements to Grand-Ducal residences (e.g. at the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (1818–47), the villa at Poggio a Caiano (orangery, reservoir, stables, and reordering of the chapel), the villa at Pratolino, and the villa at l'Ambrogiana (all c.1822–36) ). He converted the Palazzo Strozzi into offices, designed a new School of Anatomy at the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova (1818–26), and the extension of the Bibloteca Laurenziana, including the domed Sala d'Elci (1817–41), all in Florence. He made a huge contribution to the architectural fabric of Tuscany, but his master-work is the massive system of aqueducts, filters, water-works, etc., in and around Livorno, for which he designed Il Cisternone (1829–41—a water-distribution reservoir), one of the most successful realizations of the severe Neo-Classical style of Boullée, Ledoux, and their contemporaries. A plain façade is fronted by an octastyle unpedimented Roman Doric portico, and above is half a Pantheon dome, built in section, as it were, with the interior coffers showing. He prepared a plan for the expansion of Livorno which is a remarkable expression of Neo-Classical ideals of harmony, balance, function, and rationality.

Bibliography

F. Borsi et al. (1974);
Matteoni (1992);
Meeks (1966);
Middleton & and Watkin (1987);
Jane Turner (1996)