Pane, Roberto

Date born: 1897

Place Born: Taranto, Italy

Date died: 1987

Place died: Sorrento, Italy

Critic, conservator, and historian of Italian renaissance and baroque architecture. Pane befriended several prominent philosophers and art historians of his era, including Benedetto Croce and Bernard Berenson (q.v.). Pane studied at the University of Rome, teaching renaissance and baroque architecture in Naples in the 1930's. He published monographs on Andrea Palladino, Gianlorenzo Bernini, and Antoni Gaudi after World War II. Pane served as the chair of the department of Architecture at the University of Naples until 1949, when he went to work for UNESCO in Paris, serving as an expert on the restoration of war-damaged monuments. The journal Napoli nobilissima was founded by him, which covered topics on urban planning, archaeology, and conservation in Italy. In 1964, he wrote the Venice Charter (the International Charter for the Restoration) with fellow architect Pietro Gazzola, which was approved by the International Commission on Monuments and Sites. In the 1970's, Pane published a work entitled Il rinascimento nell'Italia meridionale, a critical analysis of art in its cultural context based on the ideas of Carl Jung and Benedetto Croce, the latter a personal friend. He also published several essays on Filippo Brunelleschi and Michaelangelo.  His research interests also included Spanish and Central American architecture and 19th-century French literature. LMW

Home Country:  Italy

Sources: New York Times, August 8, 1987, section 1, p. 50;  The Dictionary of Art; mentioned, Ackerman, James S. "In Memoriam: Manfredo Tafuri, 1935-1994."   The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians  53, No. 2 (Jun., 1994): 137.

Bibliography:  La casa di Loreio Tiburtino e la villa di Diomede in Pompei.  Rome: La Libreria dello stato, 1947; Antoni Gaudí. Milan: Edizioni di Comunità, 1964; Attualità dell'ambiente antico. Florence: La nuova Italia,1967; and Franciscis, Alberto de.  Mausolei romani in Campania. Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1957; Il Rinascimento nell'Italia meridionale.  Milan:  Edizioni di Comunità, 1975.