© Soprintendenza Speciale PSAE Roma © Soprintendenza Speciale PSAE Roma © Soprintendenza Speciale PSAE Roma © Soprintendenza Speciale PSAE Roma


Name of Monument:

Church of St. Ignatius, Triumph of St. Ignatius ceiling fresco

Location:

Rome, Latium, Italy

Contact DetailsChurch of St. Ignatius, Triumph of St. Ignatius ceiling fresco
Piazza Sant'Ignazio
00186 Rome

Date:

1691–94

Artists:

Andrea Pozzo

Denomination / Type of monument:

Fresco

Patron(s):

Order of the Jesuits

History:

In 1626 Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory XV, sponsored the construction of a large church dedicated to Saint Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit order (he had been canonized by Ludovisi’s uncle in 1622) and promoter of the adjacent Collegio Romano, an institution modelled after the University of Paris, where Gregory XV himself had studied.
The works, directed in this phase by the Jesuit architect Orazio Grassi, continued until the end of the 17th century, when Andrea Pozzo, a Jesuit architect and painter from Trento, who had studied at the Collegio Romano, was commissioned in 1685 to paint a fake dome on canvas, since erecting a real one was considered impossible due to static and logistical problems. The perspective dome gained Pozzo success and fame, and thus he later received the commission for the frescoes of the presbytery and the vault of the nave too.

Description:

It is one of the largest frescoed vaults in the world, extending over a length of over forty meters. Inside the fake architectural framework, consisting of colonnades and arches supporting a broken frame that appears of the same height of the nave, the figure of Christ with the cross stands out in the dazzling central empty space. From him a ray of light stems, hitting St. Ignatius, the closest person to Christ and placed at the top of a pyramid of clouds and angelic figures. Four other light rays radiate from Ignatius, reaching the corners at the base of the fresco, below the false coupled columns, where the personifications of the four continents Europe, Asia, Africa and America are depicted. The goal of the fresco is thus clear: the exaltation of Ignatius and the missionary activity of the Jesuits, enlivened by the divine light which, starting from Christ and reflected by Ignatius, radiates to the whole world. The personifications of the then known continents are four young women who each have a different animal as their attribute, according to the tradition as formulated in the famous Iconologia by Cesare Ripa (1593): the horse for Europe, who holds the terrestrial globe to symbolize her dominion on the world; the camel for Asia, with her arms outstretched to the sky to signify that all religions originated there; the crocodile for Africa, a brunette queen holding elephant tusks; the puma for America, armed with a spear and with coloured feathers on her head. Under each of them the personifications of Vices and Errors are seen falling down or chained, defeated by the evangelizing mission of the Jesuits. In addition to Ignatius, other saints of the Order are depicted in the sky, such as Francis Xavier, Francis Borgia and Aloysius de Gonzaga. The influence of the brightness of Venetian painting, particularly Veronese’s, and of the monumental effects achieved by Pietro da Cortona in the vault of Palazzo Barberini are very tangible in this immense composition. Moreover, it is possible to recognize the influence of Roman painting of the late 17th century, such as the vault in the Galleria of Palazzo Colonna by Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi.

View Short Description

Masterpiece of illusionist Late Baroque painting: the multitude of figures which seem to be freely floating in the space is strictly ruled by the laws of perspective. Example of quadratura or perspective painting recently brought to Rome by Enrico Haffner.

How Monument was dated:

Archival documentation.

Selected bibliography:

Strinati, C., “Gli affreschi della chiesa di Sant'Ignazio a Roma”, in De Feo V. and Martinelli V. (eds), Andrea Pozzo, Milan: 1996, 66–93.
Fabrini N., La chiesa di Sant'Ignazio in Roma, Rome: 1952.

Additional Copyright Information:

Copyright images: Archivio fotografico Soprintendenza Speciale PSAE e Polo Museale della Città di Roma.

Citation of this web page:

Pier Paolo Racioppi "Church of St. Ignatius, Triumph of St. Ignatius ceiling fresco" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;BAR;it;Mon11;32;en

Prepared by: Pier Paolo RacioppiPier Paolo Racioppi

Laureato e specializzato in storia dell'arte presso l'Università di Roma “La Sapienza” sta conseguendo il dottorato di ricerca in Storia e conservazione dell'oggetto d'arte e d'architettura presso l'Università di Roma TRE. Ha svolto attività seminariali presso l'Istituto di Storia dell'Arte all'Università La Sapienza di Roma e attualmente è docente di storia dell'arte del Rinascimento presso la IES at Luiss (Roma).
Ha pubblicato diversi contributi sulla tutela artistica, il collezionismo e le accademie d'arte, ed ha collaborato al Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani dell'Enciclopedia Treccani.

Copyedited by: Janice MedinaJanice Medina

Janice Medina is an artist and educator based in Upstate New York. She studied interior design at Syracuse University and obtained her M.S. in Building Conservation in 2008 (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and Master of Fine Arts in 2019 (University at Albany).

Janice is a former participant in the US/ICOMOS International Exchange Program and she has taught courses in the history of design and historic preservation. Her artwork is influenced by her experiences in historic preservation, as well as by building materials and the natural environment.

Janice has participated as a copy-editor with Museum With No Frontiers since 2019. In this role she has had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects including Discover Islamic Art, Discover Baroque Art and Discover Glass Art.

Translation by: Lavinia Amenduni

MWNF Working Number: IT1 32

RELATED CONTENT

 Timeline for this item


On display in


Download

As PDF (including images) As Word (text only)