Da Messina a Venezia. Domenico Paternò, Guarino Guarini e il battistero di Santa Maria del Giglio

The article deals with the chapel in the baptistery of the church of Santa Maria del Giglio in Venice. The chapel was built in 1690 by the architect Domenico Paternò from Messina, and it is worth of note because of the use of a 'Solomonic' architectural order, having two twisted columns featuring an ondulated entablature. Comparison between literary sources and archival documents has allowed to ascertain the date and the author of the chapel. Given the origin of Paternò it is now possible to conjecture that the architectural model for his work in Venice was the now disappeared chapel of St. Antonio built by Guarino Guarino around 1660 in the church of the Annunziata dei Teatini, Messina. A new analysis of the sources relating the Annunziata, hitherto overlooked, clarifies that the chapel which acted as a model should not be identified with the octagonal space at the base of the bell tower depicted in the corresponding plate of the 'Architettura Civile' by Guarini.