Maestro e allievo: Gustavo Giovannoni e Luigi Moretti

Gustavo Giovannoni, founder of the Regia Scuola di Architettura in Rome (the first school of architecture in Italy), played a fundamental role in the education of many Roman architects. The teaching of Giovannoni, professor of monument restoration, and Vincenzo Fasolo, professor of architectural history, had a very important part in the development of the interests and research of Luigi Moretti, who attended the school between 1925 and 1930. For example, Giovannoni and Fasolo, who were among the first scholars of the late sixteenth-century and Baroque architecture, led Moretti to discover the works of Michelangelo and Borromini. The relationship among Moretti, Giovannoni and Fasolo was very close and lasting, from both a professional and a personal point of view. Thanks to the Borsa triennale di Studi romani, Moretti devoted himself to the study of ancient, medieval and Renaissance architecture under Giovannoni’s guidance after graduating and was his assistant at the school between 1932 and 1933. Moretti acknowledged his debt to Giovannoni in a letter of 1937, describing their relationship as a «spiritual filiation [...] from master to pupil».