Late Renaissance Rome & Jesuit Cultural Policy - Sandrine Ferrans

       This week we focused on the art related to the Jesuit’s cultural policy. Ignatius’s mission was to help souls by means of education and missionaries and to excite devotion with spiritual exercises. The art the Society of Jesus employed followed the decree of the Council of Trent. The Council of Trent was a meeting of Bishops in the mid 16th century after the counter reformation of the Catholic Church as a response to the Protestant reformation. As a result, the church moved away from the mannerist style to the Baroque. The church found that the mannerist style was too sensuous. The Baroque excites devotion and glorifies the Catholic church by manifesting the drama and spectacle by means of emotion, movement, and light. 




We visited the ancient Roman church of Santo Stefano al Rotando, which is a central plan church with gruesome frescos of matyrdom by Nicolò Circignani . This church is important because the Counter Reformation wanted to bring back early christian imagery to reestablish their power and authority. 







The art inside of the Gesu exemplifies a response to the Council of Trent. The Gesu, the mother church of the Jesuits, was built in the late 1500s after the death of Ignatius Loyola. The church is dedicated to Jesus. The Gesu was meant for preaching and social ministries. It is located in the center of Rome, where two major crossroads from the Middle Ages meet, behind the papal palace. One of the missions of the Jesuits was to serve the popes, and the location of the Gesu shows the Jesuit’s proximity to power and popes. The facade is one of the earliest examples of Baroque architecture and contains the words “IHS” which is Jesus’s name in Greek translated to Latin. The entablature has the words, “Cardinal Alessandro Farnese”, and he is the patron of science, art, and literature. Alessandro Farnese is the grandson of Pope Paul III, who established the Jesuit society. The Jesuits wanted the church to be simple, while the patron wanted it to be grandiose. However, the Jesuits controlled the iconography within the Gesu. The architectural plan inside of the church is rather simplistic, in which there is a single nave with side chapels. The church was created in three different phases, the original phase takes place in the late 16th century, the 2nd one is Baroque, and the third one is in the 19th century after the restoration of the society. The first phase is a unified program based on the spiritual exercises. The altarpiece depicts Ignatius’s mission by portraying symbols of different continents in precious metals. The jesuits had visual experimentation to glorify its founder and saint, Ignatius, by employing a mechanism that pulls down the altarpiece and reveals a beautiful sculpture of Ignatius. The experience is theatrical and very exciting. Next to the altarpiece is a sculpture of Faith defeating Heresy, which is in reference to the Counter reformation.



We then visited the Chiesa Nuova, which embodied the art following the counter reformation and Baroque style. The church had a similar architectural plan as established by the Gesu, which exemplified simplicity.  What was most notable about the church were paintings by Caravaggio. Caravaggio was a Baroque painter. His dark emotionally charged paintings depict violent and gruesome imagery using tenebrism and chiaroscuro. However, the Caravaggio painting that we saw was the Visitation and the Deposition. They were unbelievably naturalistic and the figures were emerging out of darkness. 


We visited the Villa Borghese to learn more about Baroque art in a non church setting, particularly focusing on Bernini’s sculptures. Bernini achieves the sensuous lavish naturalism and expressive gesture that comes to define his artistic style.These works reflect a revolutionary approach to space and sculpture that embodies the theatrical expressive movement characteristic of Italian Baroque.




Pluto and Persephone (1621-22) was commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese and originally stood in the Villa Borghese. The statue is a reference to the ancient myth of Springtime. Persephone, the queen of the underwolrd, is being raped by Pluto. The sculpture is unbelievably realistic with the different textures, such as the differentiation of flesh, hair, and tears. The emotion in Pluto and Persephone is conveyed in such a powerful way that upon initially viewing the statue, one can instantely feel Pluto’s dominance and Persephone’s extreme fear.  






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