Gisleni, Gislenus, Polonized Dziesleni, Giovanni Battista, *1600 Rome, †1672 Rome, Italian architect, visual artist, and musician. He came to Poland to the royal court of Sigismund III (exact date unknown) as an architect (i.e., designer-builder, decorator, painter, sculptor) and musician; he remained active there under the two subsequent Vasa kings as well as at the court of Prince Karol Ferdynand. It is not known whether he was a composer, as only two of his enigmatic canons have survived, included in Xenia Apollinea, an appendix to M. Scacchi’s Cribrum musicum (Venice 1643), which testify to his good musical education rather than to compositional activity. In the chapel he was a viol player; the information given after Mattheson (Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte…) that he was a singer is incorrect. Gisleni designed the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Lviv (1642) and in Warsaw (1652); he was the author of the pompae funebres for Władysław IV in Wawel Cathedral (described in the print Varietà de prospetti veduti nella Chiesa Cathedrale del Regio Castello di Cracovia, Krakow 1649) and for Prince Karol Ferdynand in the Jesuit church in Warsaw (description titled Descriptio Theatri in exequiis (…) Domini Ferdinandi Poloniae et Suecciae Principis (…) delineata a Joanne Baptista Gislenio Romano, Architecto Regio…, Gdańsk [1655]). He also collaborated as one of the stage designers in organizing royal theatrical and paratheatrical performances. He traveled from Poland to Rome several times, including in May 1656; in March 1656 he was elected (in absentia) a member of the Accademia di San Luca. He probably returned permanently to Rome shortly after the election of Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki, i.e. in 1668; in the following year he published an account of the election, Distinto raguaglio delle cose (…) nella Dieta dell’Elettione…, Rome 1669 (Polish translation in Relacje nuncjuszów apostolskich i innych…, ed. E. Rykaczewski, Berlin 1864). In 1670 he erected his own sculpted tomb with a self-portrait in Santa Maria del Popolo. He died three years later. Gisleni’s role in introducing Roman decorative Baroque forms to Poland is regarded as innovative.
Literature: L. Pascoli Vita de pittori, seultori ed architetti moderni, Rome 1736; I. Polkowski Groby i pamiątki polskie w Rzymie, Dresden 1870; N. Miks Zbiór rysunków G. B. Gisleniego, architekta XVII wieku w Sir John Soane’s Museum w Londynie, “Biuletyn Historii Sztuki” 1961 no. 4; A. Szweykowska Kapela królewska Jana Kazimierza w latach 1649–52, “Muzyka” 1968 no. 4; N. Miks Kapela królewska Wazów w rysunku G. B. Gisleniego, architekta i muzyka królewskiego, w Sarmatia artística. Księga pamiątkowa ku czci prof. W. Tomkiewicza, Warsaw 1968; N. Miks-Rudkowska Theatrum in Exequiis Karola Ferdynanda Wazy, “Biuletyn Historii Sztuki” 1968 no. 4.
