Early Life in Italy
Born near Graz, Johann Fischer was trained in the workshop of his father, a provincial artisan, before departing for Rome at the precocious age of 16. He spent the following sixteen years in Italy. In Rome he joined the workshop of his fellow Austrian Johann Paul Schor and of the great Bernini, who gave him ample opportunities to study both ancient and modern sculpture and architecture. He then moved to Naples, where he was reported to have amassed a considerable fortune serving the Spanish viceroy.
Back in Austria in 1687, Fischer von Erlach was installed as a fashionable and sought-after architect. Commissions were plentiful, as royalty and highest echelons of aristocracy sought to repair damage inflicted on their country residences by the Ottoman Turks in the course of their 1683 campaign. Fischer's understanding of an urbane Baroque idiom appeared superior to that prevalent in Central Europe, and in 1687 he secured the key position of court architect, which he would retain in the service of three emperors.
Read more about this topic: Johann Bernhard Fischer Von Erlach
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