965 



FOSSOMBRONI, VITTORIO. 



FOSTER, JOHN. 



966 



new theatre, as he afterwarda did for those of San Samuele and San 

 Luca in that city. When Venice was visited by Pius VI., and by the 

 Grand Duke and Duchess of Russia in 1782, Domenico and his father 

 had the charge of getting up the splendid preparations made in honour 

 of those high personages. Nor was Venice the only field of his 

 talents : he resided for some time at Udine, where, besides painting 

 for the theatre, he was employed in decorating several palaces ; after 

 which he was engaged successively at Padua, Vicenza, and Verona, one 

 of his important performances being the ceiling of the church of 

 Martcllago. Those labours terminated, he went to Milan, and assisted 

 1'iermariui [PIERMARISI] in the internal decorations of the theatre of 

 La Scala, then just erected ; after which he painted for the theatre at 

 Monza, and that at Gratz, and while at the latter place received 

 invitations from both Rome and St. Petersburg. He was however 

 induced by his friends to decline them, and to return to Venice, but 

 there a disaster awaited him which neither they nor he could foresee. 

 He had just finished painting a ceiling in the Palazzo Contarini, and 

 was standing upon the scaffold with some of his assistants, when a 

 workman incautiously removed one of the props, and all were pre- 

 cipitated to the ground. The only one who received any serious 

 injury was Fossati, who broke his leg, and died in consequence, within 

 leta than a month afterwards, August 15, 1784. 



FOSSOMBRO'NI, VITTO'RIO, born in 1754, at Arczzo in Tuscany, 

 of a noble family, studied at Pisa, and applied himself especially to 

 the mathematical sciences, for which he showed a particular aptitude. 

 In 1782 he was appointed, by the Grand-Duke Leopold I., inspector 

 of the property of the military order of San Stefano, and in 1785 he 

 wag made commendatory of that order. In 1792 he was consulted 

 by the Grand-Duke Ferdinand III. on the subject of the corn-trade 

 and corn-laws, upon which he wrote a treatise, which has not been 

 published. In 1794 ho wag appointed hydraulic superintendent of 

 the Val di Chiana. Fossombrom had previously studied the ground 

 attentively, and had written a learned treatise on the causes which 

 had led to the encroachment of the waters over that low but fertile 

 district, and had pointed out the means of draining the country: 

 Memorie Idraulicc-storiche sopra la Val di Chiana,' 1789. He pro- 

 moted the works for that object, which having been continned through 

 a succession of years, at last restored the valley of the Chiana to 

 fertility and sulubriousness. In 1796 Fossombrooi was appointed 

 Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Grand-Duke of Tuscany. When 

 the French took violent possession of the country in 1799, Fossom- 

 broni accompanied his master to Vienna, where the grand duke gave 

 him leave to return home to attend to his own affairs. After Tuscany 

 was transformed into a kingdom, the new queen of Ktruria appointed 

 FoBsombroui in 1801 member of the Commission of Finance. In 

 April 1805 he was sent, jointly with the Prince Corsini, to Milan, to 

 compliment Napoleon on his assumption of the crown of Italy. 

 When Tuscany was annexed to the French empire, Napoleon made 

 Foseombroni a member of the Legion of Honour, and appointed him 

 president of the commission for the improvement of the Campagna 

 of Rome and the drainage of the Pomptine Marches, on which he 

 wrote a report for the emperor. On the restoration of the Grand- 

 Duke Ferdinand to his paternal dominions, Fo.-sombroni wag one of 

 the first persons employed in the new ministry. He was made 

 president of the legislative commission, councillor of state, minister 

 "or foreign affaire, with the presidency of the other departments of 

 the government. These offices he retained till his death, which took 

 place in 1844, when he was ninety years of age, having retained all his 

 mental faculties to the last. In 1832, when he was seventy-eight years 

 of age, he married a lady of a noble family of his native town, Arezzo. 



Besides the works already mentioned, Fossombroni published the 

 following works on hydraulics : 1, 'Memoria sopra la Diatribuzione 

 delle Alluvioni ; ' 2, ' Memoria sulla Resistenza ed Urto dei Fluid i ; ' 

 3, 'Illustrazione di uu Antico Documento relative all' originario 

 Rapporto tra le Acque dell' Arno e della Chiana,' 1826 ; 4, 'Memoria 

 sulla lielazione tra lo Acque dell' Arno e quclle della CUiana,' 1839. 

 In these last two papers he explained the remarkable change that has 

 taken place in the course of ages in the declivity of the bed of the 

 Chiana, which in ancient times afforded a water-communication 

 between the Arno and the Tiber. He also adverted to the danger to 

 which the city of Florence and the surrounding country were exposed, 

 in consequence of the alluvial deposits which are carried by the 

 Chiana and numerous other streams into the Arno, and which tend 

 t-. raise the bed of the Arno; 5, 'Saggio sulla Bonificazione delle 

 1'aludi Poiitinc ; ' 6, ' Memoria sul Lago di Fuccechio,' another marshy 

 district of Tuscany, in the valley of tho Lower Arno ; 7, ' Relazione 

 lopra 1'Inoanahunento di un Tronco del FiumeAruo;' 8, 'Memoria 

 sulle Mareoime Toscanc ; ' 9, ' Memoria sopra la Inclmazioue Arti- 

 ficiale.' Foasombroni wrote numerous other memoirs on hydraulic 

 subjects, which are inedited ; among the rest, a memoir on the lagoons 

 of Venice, for the Emperor of Austria, which was used for the works 

 in that quarter, and another memoir for Mehcmet AH, paaha of 

 Egypt, concerning the construction of a basin at Alexandria. Fos- 

 ombroni also wrote several treatises on mathematics and mechanics, 

 among others a 'Saggio sopra il Moto degli Animali e sopra i Tras- 

 porti ; ' a treatise ' Sopra la Misura delle For/e Muscolari ; ' another, 

 'Sopra la Valutiziono della Forza e degli Attriti ; ' and a 'Memoria 

 sopra il Priucipio delle Veloeita Virtual!,' published in 1796, and 



I 



I 



which was highly praised by Lagrange, Lacroix, Laplace, and other 

 eminent mathematicians. 



As a statesman, Fossombroni was enlightened and unprejudiced. 

 Jealous of the independence of his native country, he asserted its 

 righto upon every occasion during the long and occasionally critical 

 period of his administration ; he maintained the freedom of commerce, 

 which has greatly contributed to the prosperity of the country ; he 

 advocated toleration of opinions, and he strove to render Tuscany a 

 model of a paternal but enlightened government. His system appears 

 to have been to govern without bustle and noise, to let society move 

 on with as little apparent interfereuce as possible ou the part of the 

 governing powers, a task in which he was assisted by the disposition 

 of the people, the smallness of the state, and by his own tempera- 

 ment. It is generally admitted that during Fossombroui's adminis- 

 tration Tuscany was the happiest country in Italy. 



(Rivista Ligure, and other Italian journals for 1844 ; Communications 

 from Italy, and the works of Fossombroni quoted above.) 



FOSTER, JOHN, architect, was born about the year 1786 or 1787, 

 and was the son of a builder pf the same name, who carried on a, large 

 business in Liverpool where he also acted as architect and surveyor 

 to the corporation, and as engineer to the docks. Foster junior was 

 the second of six sons. According to one account furnished to us, he 

 became a pupil of James Wyatt ; and from other information it would 

 seem that he was also employed under Jeffry Wyatt, afterwards Sir 

 Jeffry Wyattville. In 1809 he went abroad ; was during some time 

 with Mr. Cockerell at -<gina and Phigaleia ; and was concerned in the 

 excavation of the ^Eginetan and Phigaleian marbles. The portico at 

 ^Egina that of the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius became a 

 favourite model with him in his later practice as an architect. He 

 did not return to England till 1816 or 1817, having in the meanwhile, 

 at Smyrna, married a Greek lady of that place. However, about the 

 time mentioned, he settled at Liverpool ; and for some years after- 

 wards carried on the building business, in partnership with a brother, 

 under the firm of John Foster and Co. his father having withdrawn, 

 but retaining his professional appointments with the corporation and 

 dock trustees. It does not appear that the numerous buildiogs in 

 which Foster, senior, was concerned, were erected from his own designs ; 

 Foster, junior, however had received better education in art; and for 

 some time, besides his building trade, had considerable practice aa an 

 architect. St. John's Market, in Liverpool, a covered area of little 

 short of two acres, and one of the earliest works of its character, was 

 commenced in 1820, "from the designs of Mr. John Foster, tho 

 corporation-surveyor of the day, and was completed and opened iu 

 1823." (' The Architectural History of Liverpool,' paper by Mr. J. A. 

 Picton, read at the Liverpool Architectural Society ; see ' The Builder,' 

 vol. xii. p. 231.) It is probable however that such architectural 

 design as there is in the work was due to the younger Foster, who 

 with his partner carried on the erection of the principal Liverpool 

 buildings. But Foster, senior, having been compelled by ill-health to 

 resign his several appointments, Foster junior was appointed iu 

 February 1824 corporation architect and surveyor, receiving a salary 

 of 1000/. per annum, conditional upon withdrawal from the building 

 business. When the Municipal Reform Bill came into operation in 

 June 1835, much of the influence of the Foster family was brought 

 to an end, and John Foster retired with a compensation of 5001. per 

 annum, and did not afterwards follow his profession. 



Few architects have had opportunities similar to those of John 

 Foster. It may however be questioned whether he succeeded in 

 turning these to proper account. That he had acquired a large stock 

 of architectural knowledge cannot be doubted; but, like many of 

 his contemporaries, he missed the special beauty of art iu architecture 

 in his manner of using the Greek models ; and perhaps there is no 

 town which now so well affords illustrations of two different systems 

 of practice, as does Liverpool in some of the works of Foster and the 

 great work of Elmes. [ELMES, HARVEY LONSDALE.] 



Amongst Foster's works is the church of St. Michael, Pitt street, 

 commenced in 1S16, though not completed till 1826; it is of excep- 

 tional character, having a portico and steeple obviously adapted from 

 the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields iu the metropolis, but is by 

 many considered his best work. The church for the School of the 

 Blind first erected in Hotham-street, and since removed and re-erected 

 in Hardman-atreet, is described as originally presenting a somewhat 

 imposing effect in its Grecian Doric columns. This has been 

 impaired by alterations in the removal. The small chapel of St. 

 James's cemetery in the same style, has a better effect from its site 

 near the edge of the rock, in that particular really adopting certain 

 good Greek principles of art. The Custom House, though a very 

 large building, is of little merit in point of art. It has a portico, as 

 it has been pointedly remarked, advanced from each of its sides except 

 that on which the sun shines. " There are no indications," says Mr. 

 Picton, "such as are stamped on every lino in St. George's Hall, of 

 careful study and creative power." The screen of tho Railway Station 

 in Lime street, built about tho year 1S35, is of more florid character. 

 It has attached Corinthian columns, and is not without merit. 



Foster died on the 21st of August 1846, after a long and painful 

 illness. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society ; was undoubtedly 

 possessed of great architectural knowledge ; holds an important place 

 in the recent history of architecture, but perhaps deserves commeuda- 



