Italian architect and painter (Naples around 1510 - Ferrara 1583). Having come to Rome in very young age, he devoted himself to painting (some of his frescoes still remain, such as Danza di Salomè (Salome's dance) and Decollazione del Battista (Beheading of the Baptist) in S. Giovanni Decollato ) and to antique studying. From 1549 he started working as an architect in Villa d'Este, in Tivoli. Afterwards he built Palazzo Torres (now Lancellotti) in Piazza Navona (iter 6), he worked from 1555 to 1565 in Pio IV's country house in the Vatican Gardens, and completed the large niche in the Cortile del Belvedere (iter 9), also working in the Quirinal Palace (iter 3) and elsewhere . From 1565 he was, for a short while, St. Peter's first architect . In architecture he expressed himself in pictorial modes, with southern fantasy, both in Villa d'Este's garden and in Pio IV's country house, which he plastered with plenty of stucco-work. With the same fantasy he carried on his work as an archaeologist (in 1553 he published a book on Rome's Antiquities ) proposing arbitrary completions for the ancient buildings studied by him.