Gaetano Matteo Pisoni

Gaetano Matteo Pisoni was an Italian architect born at Ascona, in the modern Swiss canton of Ticino, who worked in a somewhat chilly academic Late Baroque manner that lies on the cusp of the latest Baroque classicising manner and Neoclassical architecture. Pisoni is known especially for two small cathedrals built in an uncompromising Italian manner that makes each of them stand out in its urban context. One is St Aubin's Cathedral, in Namur, Belgium. The other is the larger St. Ursus' Cathedral, in Solothurn, Switzerland; it was completed by Pisoni's nephew and collaborator, Paolo Antonio Pisoni (1738-1804). The churches have similar interiors, of an unrelieved white, with rich architectural members and a richly sculptured frieze that runs entirely round.