Sant'Ignazio

St. Ignatius - the first Jesuit church in Rome

Of the 450 churches in Rome, each has something to offer, even if it's only the solitude you get from the lack of another person in there. Other churches house well known works of the great masters, or were even designed by the likes of Michelangelo or Borromini. One church that goes unnoticed by many, but deserves a closer look, is Sant'Ignazio. Just a few minutes walk from the Pantheon.

Before entering the church it worth taking a close look at the piazza in front as well. It was constructed after the church, and, unlike many places in Rome, there was nothing already built there that would dictate the exact shape of the piazza, it was only limited in its small size. The church was built in the middle of the 17th century and has a massive baroque facade. A facade so large that it dwarfs the piazza in front of it. Since enlarging the piazza was impossible they made it a more dynamic space, a stage even. There is a small building that faces the church, maybe sixty feet across the front, but instead of being a square or rectangle, it is a triangle. The streets on either side of it angle back toward the middle of the building, rather than going back perpendicular to the facade. As you stand with your back to the church and watch people come in and out of the piazza they appear as actors coming on and off stage. A couple disappears around one side of the building as a scooter whizzes into view from the other side. You do not see them approaching nor trailing away, they just come and go. It is known as the one Rococo space in Rome.

Now for the church itself. St. Ignatius, a Spaniard, founded the Jesuit order and he came to Rome in 1537 seeking the approval of the Pope for his new Christian order. The aim of his order was to travel the globe spreading the word of Christ. This mission is represented in the ceiling frescoes, the first thing that catches a visitor's eye when he or she enters. The four known continents of the world at the time are each depicted with a representative animal: Asia with a camel, Africa with a crocodile, America with a jaguar and Europe with a horse.

The ceiling fresco, the second largest in Rome after the Sistine Chapel, was done by Andrea Pozzo, a Jesuit brother. Like Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel he paints a considerable amount of false architecture into the ceiling. In the closer up view (below) with St. Ignatius in the upper part, you can see an arch quite well in the lower half. The most fascinating thing about his architectural pieces is the perspective he is able to achieve. The ceiling where the arch is painted is actually curving inward, but the columns and the arch look like they are going away from the viewer. But Pozzo's use of perspective was just getting warmed up...



The two images below are of the dome over the crossing, have close look at see if anything jumps out.






The first image actually looks like a dome, but in the second the perspective is all off. That's because it is not in fact a dome. When they built the church they didn't build strong enough foundations for a large dome, which of course they didn't figure out until well into construction, so they stretched a canvas across the space where a dome should be. As it was the baroque era and one point perspective was all the rage they also decided not to paint a dome as you would see it simply from standing directly under, but from a different angle. There is now a small marble disk between the sets of pews near the front where you get the perfect view of the dome. Pretty neat trick if you ask me.