Ignazio Mariano Baldassarre Pellegrini (September 22, 1715 - October 2, 1790) was an Italian nobleman, architect, surveyor, and scholar of the military arts. Born to the prominent Pellegrini family of Verona, which was said to be of German origin, Ignazio was the sixth child of Count Bertoldo Pellegrini and Countess Giulia Serego. After receiving a basic education at home, Pellegrini became a page to Princess Violante Beatrice of Bavaria at the Court of Tuscany. Ignazio showed an early aptitude for drafting, engineering, and the military arts, for which his family was famous. After the princess died, he was enlisted to work for the Grand Duke Giovan Gastone de' Medici, but soon afterwards decided to join the Austrian army to fight alongside his brother, where he fought in the War of the Polish Succession (1733 - 1738). Before and during his military service, he had undertaken a study of military fortifications that would influence his later career and life. While still enlisted in the army, he was commissioned to design a church in Ferrara, where his regiment was stationed. After the end of the war, he went to serve in the court of Giovan Gastone de' Medici and became the official Grand Ducal Engineer while maintaining his military role, reaching the rank of Colonel in the Grand Duke's royal regiment by 1769. He was tasked with a number of architectural projects by the Grand Duke, including completing the Palazzo Pitti and plans for a Cappella Reale to be built nearby, though this project was interrupted by the death of the duke and an economic crisis in 1763. Similar projects to build a grand staircase for the Medici's Uffizi complex in Florence and renovate the shops on the Ponte Vecchio were also left incomplete. Though his Florentine projects largely came to naught, Pellegrini did design numerous buildings (churches, homes, and tombs) in Pisa, especially, as well as Livorno and Verona. In 1776, Ignazio returned to Verona permanently, devoting himself to writing books on the history of art and architecture, along with an autobiography, all of which were unfinished at the time of his death. His architectural work was confined to the renovation of homes of other prominent Veronese families. At an unknown date, Pellegrini married Lucrezia del Lante of Pisa, with whom he had two children. Late in life, he was a well-known figure among the grandees of Verona due to his military exploits, travels, and service in the Medici court, but no doubt he was frustrated by the inability to complete his most ambitious literary and architectural works.
