Name of Monument:

Church of Santa Maria della Pace

Location:

Rome, Latium, Italy

Date:

1656–57

Artists:

Pietro da Cortona

Denomination / Type of monument:

Square, church

Patron(s):

Pope Alexander VII Chigi

History:

The pontificate of Alexander VII Chigi was characterized by the will of the pope to give a new face to Rome through large-scale urban interventions, such as the construction of straights, squares - such as that of St. Peter's Basilica, commissioned to Bernini - and scenic widenings. Having as goal the celebration of his own family name, Alexander VII promoted the restoration of many civil and ecclesiastical buildings that had been erected or decorated at the beginning of the 16th century by his famous ancestor, the Sienese banker and patron Agostino Chigi, such as the 15th-century church of Santa Maria del Popolo or the church Santa Maria della Pace, which was decorated with frescoes by Raphael.
In particular, in the case of Santa Maria della Pace, the new facade, commissioned to Pietro da Cortona, followed a vote of the pontiff to the Virgin to avert the plague and the threats of Louis XIV king of France.

Description:

Alexander VII ordered the opening of the square in front of the church within the dense urban fabric of medieval Rome, thus producing a spectacular effect: when the beholder comes from Via della Pace, the facade suddenly appears in all its monumentality among the buildings that surround it.
Two concave lateral wings constitute the backdrop of this real theatrical architecture. From this background, the convex body of the semi-circular portico of the church, supported by Doric columns, powerfully juts out. The architrave is Ionic instead, and is not divided into metopes and triglyphs as in the Bramante temple of San Pietro in Montorio. This generates a pleasant contrast between the plastic chiaroscuro of the Doric columns and the fluidity of the continuously horizontal architrave.
The upper part of the facade is also plastically framed by a set of pilasters and semi-columns, re-proposing, in the central part, the convexity of the portico: moreover, the sense of spatial emptiness provided by the entrance between the columns at the centre of the portico corresponds, in the upper floor, to the emptiness of the window, aligned with the portal of the church. The motif of the paired columns is symmetrically repeated in the upper part of the facade.
It is possible to access the square from the back of the church too, through two openings in the side wings of the facade. The side wings’ function is, moreover, to hide the two back streets from those looking at the church from the square.

The façade is one of the most perfect examples of Baroque theatricality applied on urban planning. Semicircular portico links up with the sides, like two theatrical wings.

How Monument was dated:

Archival documentation.

Selected bibliography:

Grundmann, S., “S. Maria della Pace: facade”, in Grundmann S. (ed), The Architecture of Rome, Stuttgart/London: Edition Axel Menges, 2007: 231–233.
Rolfi, S., “S. Maria della Pace”, I Principi della Chiesa, Milan, 1998: 200.

Citation of this web page:

Pier Paolo Racioppi "Church of Santa Maria della Pace" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2026.
https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;BAR;it;Mon11;27;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 27