Piazza Navona – with its dramatic fountains, stylish outdoor cafes, and abundant street performers – represents the social heart of Rome. Once a stadium for ancient gladiator games and chariot races, it attracts a steady flow of humanity drawn to great Renaissance and Baroque architecture, the romance of a candlelit table, and the resourceful trinket hawkers demonstrating glow-in-the-dark orbs that bounce around Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers like errant planets.
For as long as I can remember, this vivacious square has pulled me into its contagiously effusive energy. Considered one of the more touristy areas of Rome, it also feels strangely like home to me – a familiar arena where I can observe the non-stop spectacle of life in all its messy and refined grandeur. Now the freshly polished monuments make it even more attractive. I recently set aside an entire day to explore its many art-filled churches, apropos for an area that thrived during the heyday of the papacy’s return to Rome in the 15th century and the large-scale marketing push of the Counter Reformation that strove, among many things, to return the Roman Catholic Church to its spiritual foundation following the Protestant Reformation.
I entered the intimate Baroque Church of Sant’Agnese in Agone, built on the site of St. Agnes’ martyrdom in this former Roman arena. Softly sumptuous, it seems to wrap itself around worshippers like a velvet cape. A poster listing classical music concerts in one of the church’s side chapels caught my eye. I returned later and found myself reluctantly paying 30 euro for an operatic greatest hits performance by a buxom soprano encased in several crisp layers of satin and tulle. She belted out Verdi and Puccini as she fanned herself (obviously annoyed) with her bejeweled hand to fend off the unrelenting humidity. The room’s ceiling fresco of a Madonna and Child surrounded by a motif of just-picked leeks made the scene all the more incongruous.
Upon exiting, I faced Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers and its allegorical figure of the Rio de la Plata gasping in horror with its raised arms anticipating an avalanche. The established legend claims Bernini’s cowering statue served as a not-so-subtle attempt to discredit his rival Borromini’s architectural skills. Borromini designed the façade of Sant’Agnese in Agone. Scholars, however, point out that Bernini’s fountain was completed in 1651, six years earlier than Borromini’s façade. And, upon closer examination, the Rio de la Plata allegory appears more startled by a snake than by a building crashing down on his baldpate.
This spectacular fountain has been called one of the best examples of Baroque-style theater-in-the-round, for it takes the viewer on a journey across the continents, their waterways, vegetation and snarling beasts. Like many monuments in this city, it’s wrapped around an Egyptian obelisk – the favored ancient Roman structure of choice for self-glorification, later appropriated by the papacy. Pope Innocent X commissioned the art and architecture of Piazza Navona, and he even banned merchants from selling their wares here so as not to detract from the square’s elegance. Riots broke out as the result of this ruling. I smiled with great satisfaction as I observed scores of tourists snapping photos, waiters aggressively luring diners, artists painting caricatures, and a motionless mime (with thick mascara) bound in tight gold Lycra -- a living replica of Cleopatra’s tomb.
I popped around the corner to catch a glimpse of the corkscrew spire designed by Borromini for the Church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza in a courtyard (once occupied by the University of Rome) off a busy thoroughfare. One of the most picturesque examples of engineering brilliance, the spire sports a decadent layering that made me crave a pastry covered in white-chocolate ganache with a hint of lemon zest.
Since temperamental early Baroque painter Caravaggio worked on numerous commissions during his rocky tenure in Rome, it’s common to find many of his chiaroscuro masterpieces in situ, that is inside the city’s churches and monasteries precisely as they were meant to be viewed.
At a discreet corner, between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon, stands France’s national church in Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi. Similar to the rock star-level crowds gathered before Bernini’s semi-erotic statue of St. Teresa in Ecstasy inside the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Caravaggio’s mesmerizing trio on the life of St. Matthew – the Apostle’s Calling, Martyrdom, and accompanied by an Angel – swarms with captivated visitors. For me, the laser-sharp beam of light practically impaling the bearded and unsuspecting tax collector in The Calling of St. Matthew seems to swoop down from another stratosphere. As with much of his work, Caravaggio carves a humble and flawed – but no less enlightened – populace out of the darkness.
I was so moved by these paintings, which I make a point of experiencing whenever I’m in Rome, I bolted up the street to the Renaissance church of Sant’Agostino solely to view Caravaggio’s equally humbling Madonna dei Pellegrini in which the Virgin Mary is adored by two peasants sporting visibly dirty feet – a detail that once raised the ire of wealthy church patrons.
Between my church hopping, I stopped at a bar for a slice of pizza and suppli’ (a deep-fried fritter filled with mozzarella – the Roman version of Sicilian arancini). Then, for old time’s sake, I indulged in a pistachio/Bacio gelato at the historic Giolitti (though I’m told the cleverly named Frigidarium, near Santa Maria della Pace, gets higher marks). I jogged past the crowded Pantheon, now partially under scaffolding, and paid my respects to Bernini’s charismatic baby elephant sculpture in front of the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. It’s one of Italy’s most delightful works of art. The adorable little pachyderm supports an Egyptian obelisk associated with the ruins of a temple to Isis that once stood on this spot.
The Gothic church displays an unassuming façade. I entered Santa Maria sopra Minerva (which translates as St. Mary Church built atop a temple to Minerva, the Greek goddess of wisdom), which evoked the sensation of a twinkling fairyland – no doubt influenced by the gold stars and cloud-ensconced frescoes adorning the cobalt-blue arched vaulting. But its lighthearted design scheme contrasts with a less-than-sublime history. It remains the headquarters of the Dominican Order, whose adjacent monastery was the site of Galileo’s interrogations during the Inquisition. And speaking of the Inquisition, members of the infamous Torquemada family are painted here in the most compassionate of lights. St. Catherine of Siena is buried beneath the altar – minus her head, which is displayed in the Basilica of San Domenico in her Tuscan hometown of Siena. It was once considered prestigious for noble families to own the bodies, or body parts, of deceased saints.
On a less macabre note, beloved Dominican painter Fra Angelico – whose multidimensional frescoes served as a critical bridge between medieval and Renaissance art – is buried in the Frangipane Chapel. Filippino Lippi’s vibrant Assumption fresco graces the Carafa Chapel. And Michelangelo’s rather beefy Risen Christ sculpture sports a decidedly tacked-on gold fig leaf. Despite its tortured history, Santa Maria sopra Minerva is one of Rome’s more magical places of worship, with its collection of medieval and Renaissance tombs, heavenly ceilings, and groundbreaking art treasures.
Practically around the corner, down a side street off the front of the Pantheon, I came upon the massive Baroque Church of Sant’Ignazio di Loyola. Though not of the immense scale of St. Peter’s Basilica, it elicits a similar sprawling sense of marbleized and illusionistic awe. It’s named for the Basque soldier-turned-hermit-turned-priest and founder of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuit Order. A pivotal force during the Counter Reformation, St. Ignatius (1491-1556) encouraged spiritual reflection, missionary work, and teaching. This church is quite a formidable institution. It was erected on land bequeathed to the Jesuits by one Marchesa della Valle and has something of a complicated history, as it eventually consumed the earlier Church of Santissima Annunziata on the grounds of Collegio Romano, the first Jesuit university in Rome. The church opened in 1650 and, besides gargantuan statues of its namesake, boasts a brilliant illusionistic ceiling of dizzying, tumbling figures painted by Andrea Pozzo in 1685.
Even more impressive is the nearby Chiesa del Gesu’, Rome’s first Jesuit church built between 1568 and 1584. Grandiose naves and side pulpits, not to mention the violent allegorical sculptures, feel uncomfortably like unapologetic propaganda. Two marble sculptural groupings in particular prove my point: Triumph of Faith Over Heresy displays a female Religion stepping on the head of a snarling serpent Heresy; the other shows an angel about to kick an old barbarian couple (portrayed as bearded, unkempt, tangled-haired mongrels) as they are being strangled by a snake. Throughout the Counter Reformation, the Church engaged in a major image re-tooling campaign within the context of tremendous faith-based upheaval. It’s impossible not to link the art of this time with its controversial ecclesiastical-political history.
Even now, visitors can experience a taste of that dramatic fervor. Every day at 5:30 p.m., Chiesa del Gesu’ hosts the ultimate in spiritual “edutainment” – a sound and light show in the left transept that unveils, with great pomp and circumstance, a silver and royal-blue statue of St. Ignatius ascending to heaven. Against a voiceover backdrop of biblical text, the words of St. Ignatius and blaring organ music, a 1695 painting by Andrea Pozzo is lowered by mechanized pulleys to reveal the glistening statue. Interestingly, the original image of St. Ignatius from 1698 was melted down one hundred years later during one of the country’s Napoleonic occupations. The current silver-plated version dates from the 19th century. It’s an extraordinary multimedia experience, so deliciously Baroque in its theatrical audacity…not to mention a bit unsettling in an Abominable Dr. Phibes sort of way.
More than pilgrimage destinations, Rome’s churches serve as poignant history lessons on epic power struggles and epic struggles for one’s soul.
END
Comments
I enjoy Lucia Mauro articles on Italy. Keep them coming Lucia.
Grazie!
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!