After 12 years, my husband can still be a mystery to me. How the man who found the irregularities of San Marco, Venice, “scabrous” and dismisses most Vivaldi and Puccini as “bombast” could find a place in his heart for Roman Baroque architecture is bewildering. But he likes it.
I suspect it’s a combination of three things. First, he tends to appreciate the quirky or strange. Second, he loves spotting imperfections and irregularities. Baroque, from its very origin as a style named after a malformed pearl, is full of oddities and clever rule breaking. But, third, it all springs from neo-classical order, so there’s a framework that keeps the chaos in control.
Whatever the reason, his appreciation for the riotous architectural style makes planning sightseeing in Rome easy. Because if there’s one thing I love, and this city has in abundance, it’s Baroque churches. You can get your fix just wandering around and popping through any open door, but I decided on a more targeted approach. While preparing for our trip I’d re-watched Waldemar Januszczak’s fabulous documentary on the birth of the Baroque, and decided to follow the path he’d taken through three churches that had each been instrumental in developing the style. Despite more than 10 trips to Rome I’d never been in any of them, so this was a real treat.
We started at San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. The four fountains refers to the space just outside, where the corners of four buildings … one of them the church … have all been designed to match as they face off across the intersection. Fountains built into the corners feature larger-than life-sized figures representing, or lounging next to, major rivers. It’s a memorable architectural showpiece, though not that well known to tourists because the area leans towards government office buildings rather than tourist hotspots. Thus San Carlo, on the corner where a personification of the River Thames protects young Romulus and Remus sucking at the wolf’s breast, isn’t very crowded.
That’s a good thing, because it’s also not very big. One hundred worshippers would pack San Carlo for mass, making it a surprisingly intimate space despite its grandeur. What it lacks in girth it has in height. It took an exceptional architect to avoid the illusion you’re trapped in the bottom of a well. Borromini did the trick with an innovative mix of geometry: an oval dome sitting on half circles and triangles above the wavy but generally rectangular shape of the church. There are so many architectural bits and bobs in here you loose count, but somehow they all coalesce into an elegant, soothing white space. The windows set inside the dome help, flooding the place with light.
If you head out the unobtrusive door to the right of the altar you’ll wind your way out to the double-storied cloister Borromini designed for the monks. It’s another triumph of height over footprint and something I wouldn’t have known was there without advance intelligence.
Barely 200 yards down the same street, just across from what’s now the presidential palace, is Bernini’s Sant’Andrea al Quirinale. While Borromini is a subversive Baroque rule breaker, Bernini turbocharges everything he touches. Most people will know him for his lavish interiors at St. Peter’s. His Quirinale church would hardly be a side-chapel in that blockbuster. But here, in splendid isolation, it’s a show-stopper.
Few churches tell a story as comprehensively as this place, where its namesake is crucified on his saltire cross in a painting above the altar, then becomes a three-dimensional, larger-than-life sculpture ascending to heaven at the base of the dome before drifting into the celestial sphere represented by a golden-glazed cupola. Three-dimensional putti the size of real toddlers gambol around the dome, sometimes paying attention to St. Andrew and sometimes just being wilful children up to no good. (See top photo>) All of this takes place in an oval-shaped church a bit like a squashed Pantheon, ringed with side chapels and slathered with gold. Everything directs your attention up to that dome, which … like the Pantheon … covers the majority of the building’s space. It’s remarkable.
It’s a stone’s throw from Sant’Andrea on to the Piazza del Quirinale, where there’s an elevated view over the city with all the architectural grandeur of the Spanish Steps and none of the crowds. Linger here for a while before strolling down the wide staircase on the right which takes you into the neighbourhood around the Trevi Fountain. Turn right and make a quick detour to see it looking magnificent since its cleaning but don’t linger. Even with COVID-limited tourism this area is too crowded to be pleasant, and over-run with 20-something wannabe “influencers” and their friends taking alluring photos for their Instagram feeds. After photo-bombing a few or their attempts for the joy of it, continue over the Corso to the last in our Baroque trio: Sant’Ignazio di Loyola.
Andrea Pozzo is arguably the best painter of trompe l’oeil (the style of fooling the eye to think there’s depth and reality in a painted space) who’s ever existed. Forget the Sistine Chapel. Come here and look up. Above the main nave, it’s as if there’s not a roof at all but towering architecture stretching to blue skies full of dramatic characters ascending to heaven. Humans and gods … both Christian and pagan … frolicking amongst the clouds is a stalwart of Baroque art and if you’ve been in many 17th century buildings you’ve seen plenty of this. But you’ve never seen it done so well.
The dome where the transepts cross is another trick of the eye, actually Pozzo’s test canvas to prove he was up to the bigger church. It’s arguably more intriguing, with its unusual monochrome colour scheme. There’s more wonderful 3D trickery in the Eastern apse between the dome and the high altar, where high points of St. Ignazio’s life play out in high drama. It’s great fun to look at this stuff from where you’re supposed to see it, and then go out of your way to look at it from extreme angles where the trickery starts to become obvious.
I was tempted to lie down and just revel in the scenes above me, but that seemed a bit excessive. Fortunately there are plenty of chairs around and a big mirror you can use to take in the whole panoply of the main nave without straining your neck. You can also feed a euro into a box next to the mirror to turn on the ceiling lights. Do it. Illumination kicks the drama up another notch.
As if this weren’t magnificent enough, there’s a bonus sight in a chapel to the right of the main altar. Nope, I’m not talking about the monument to Gregory XV and Cardinal Ludovisi, even though it has all the gold, bronze, life-sized statuary and swirling angels to place it in Baroque masterpiece territory. Instead it’s one man’s humble hobby. Neapolitan Vincenzo Pandolfi started his project at the age of 78, deploying woodworking skills to create a doll’s-house scale model of a massive, domed, imaginary Ecumenical Church of Christ surrounded by scores of models of famous buildings of worship from around the globe. Gothic cathedrals, Islamic mosques, Hindu temples and Japanese pagoda all sit side-by-side in beautifully realised detail. He worked on it for 20 years before his death in 2005, leaving some empty spaces but mostly completing a very different but equally extraordinary piece of art. How it got here isn’t related on the explanatory labels, but it’s not to be missed.
No matter how much you love the Baroque, it’s a style on which you can overdose. Your brain simply won’t be able to take in any more after Pozzo’s heavens. You’ll want to recharge with a long, lingering, late lunch. Which must mean it’s time for me to write about food.
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