The Baroque Architecture
in Italy
The Church of Il Gesu, Mother
Church of the Jesuit Order,
signals a new era in Italian
architecture and its relationship
to the Roman Catholic Church.
Giacomo Vignola
(1568-1576)
Giacomo della Porta
As a symbol of the Counter-Reformation,
the Gesu solution for façade and interior
provides a flexible “corporate” image for
the Church in small and large structures
alike.
Santa Susanna by Carlo
Maderno, 1597-1603
St. Peter’s Basilica,
façade & nave by Carlo
Maderno, 1606-12
St. Peter’s Basilica, nave
Dome and Altar of St. Peter
Gianlorenzo Bernini
At St. Peter’s
St. Longinus
The Baldacchino
(or Ciborium)
The High Altar with the Doctors of the Church and the Cathedra Petri
Bernini’s symbolism of
the Church Triumphant
and the new Rome: the
vivification of the main
processional axis
The Piazza and Colonnade: the Church
embraces the world
The power of the Church as an
institution takes expression in the
new churches of the 17th century.
Along with it other kinds of forces
also appear, including dynamism
(energy and motion), spatial
fluidity, and the destruction of
limits and boundaries leading to
the notion of “continuum.”
Saints Luca and Martina,
by Pietro da Cortona, 1634-69
Energy can be perceived in the
nervous perimeter established by
the entablature over the wall
columns. The interior becomes
part of a continuum that is not
clearly bounded in the layered
wall system. The interior is no
longer a container delimited by
wall planes but a locus of forces.
San Carlo alle
Quattro Fontane
(St. Charles at the
Four Fountains)
by Borromini,
1634
The dynamic energies of Italian
Baroque architecture were explored
by many designers and artists.
Saint Ivo della Sapienza by
Francesco Borromini, 1642
Chapel of the Holy Shroud,
Turin by Guarino Guarnini,
1667ff
San Lorenzo, Turin, by Guarino
Guarnini, 1668-80
Ceiling
Ceiling Frescoes
Frescoes
Michelangelo’s
Sistine Chapel
Annibale
Carracci,
Loves of the
Gods,
Farnese
Gallery 15971601
Guido Reni, Aurora, 1613-1614
Pietro da Cortona, Triumph of the Barberini, 1633-1639
Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Triumph of the Name of Jesus, 1676-1679
Fra Andrea Pozzo, Glorification of
Saint Ignatius, 1691-1694