| Giovanni Salucci | |
| Birth Name: | Giovanni Battista Salucci |
| Birth Date: | 1 July 1769 |
| Birth Place: | Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany |
| Death Place: | Florence, Tuscany, Italy |
| Education: | Accademia delle Arti del Disegno |
| Occupation: | Architect |
Giovanni Battista Salucci (born 1 July 1769 in Florence; died 18 July 1845 in Florence) was an Italian architect.
In 1783 Giovanni Salucci began studying architecture at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. He received his first commissions during study trips to Rome and the Veneto.
In 1797, during a stay in Bologna, he moved in political circles close to the ideas of the French Revolution. Salucci thereby aroused the mistrust of the government of the Habsburg Grand Duchy of Tuscany and was sentenced to death in absentia in 1798. Thereupon he joined the French Italian Army.
In 1801 he was employed as topographer for the Cisalpine Republic, a daughter republic under Napoleon in northern Italy, and in 1802 he worked on the fortifications of Alessandria, Mantua, and Verona.
Afterwards he took part in the French invasion of Russia. He survived and managed to escape to Danzig. After the Battle of Waterloo he fell into English captivity, from which he was released in 1816.
After his release, he initially worked for the Geneva banker Jean Gabriel Eynard, from whom he received a recommendation for King Wilhelm I of Württemberg. The latter appointed him court architect in 1818.
In Württemberg, the Royal Pavilion in Weil near Esslingen was initially built in collaboration with the Queen Catherine of Württemberg, who was a passionate lover of architecture. In 1819, after her death, he built her Württemberg Mausoleum. From 1823 to 1829 the Schloss Rosenstein was built according to the plans of Salucci. Other buildings designed by him are the Wilhelmspalais and the Alte Reithalle (royal riding hall), both in Stuttgart.
Since the planned costs for the Royal Pavilion in Weil were exceeded, he soon had to have everything approved by the Building and Garden Directorate. In 1828, after a dispute with a superior, he applied for his dismissal. Four days later, however, he asked to be reinstated. In 1839 dry rot was discovered in Rosenstein Castle, for which Salucci was made responsible; this led to his final dismissal.
In 1840 Salucci returned to Florence almost penniless. He died there in 1845 and was buried in the cloister of the St Mark’s, Florence.