This dissertation treats the roles and social status of carpenters and woodworkers employed on significant projects in Rome during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Up to now these falegnami have received little critical attention in the literature because their contributions were little understood or considered insignificant in comparison with those of contemporary architects, painters and sculptors. I have been able to demonstrate instead that many master carpenters were highly respected and widely sought out, although their names have since been forgotten, and were closely involved in the design and execution of the most important building projects and sculptural and decorative programs of the period. Based on an exhaustive analysis of primary and secondary sources, my research has enabled me to reconstruct a group of carpenter-architects (falegnami-architetti), including Flaminio Boulangier, Giovanni Battista Montano, Jan Van Santen (Vasanzio), Gian Antonio De Pomis, and Giovanni Battista Soria, who worked closely with architects on monumental projects in Rome, if not practicing outright as architects.

The text is organized under four main rubrics: the position and status of carpenter-architects and woodworkers; Flaminio Boulangier and the wooden ceiling of the nave in S. Giovanni in Laterano; Francesco Nicolini and the wooden ceilings of the churches of S. Maria dell'Orazione e Morte and S. Eligio de' Ferrari; and biographies of Renaissance and Baroque master carpenters and woodworkers in Rome. In the last rubric, I present a biographical dictionary based on previously unpublished archival documents, with entries for 26 international carpenters and woodworkers active from the mid 16^th to the late 17^th century in Rome, elucidating their national origins, the locations and components of their workshops, collaborators, and the projects in which they participated. The appendices comprise transcriptions of documents, including three registries of carpenters and woodworkers who were matriculated, licensed, and certified to work in Rome between 1540 and 1661. These sources provide invaluable demographic information which allow for the reconstruction of workshops of artisan families and actual schools that were active in the Eternal City during this period.