ROME - THE CHURCH OF THE GESU - CHIESA DEL GESU

The church located in central Rome, on Via degli Astalli, 16.

Its full name is almost as complex as its glamour interiour design: Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus - Chiesa del Santissimo Nome di Gesù all'Argentina .



The temple's fasade was the first baroque elevation ever and became an icon, the pattern for other Jesuits' churches and then all other roman- catholic temples.



The building was commisioned in 1568 by relatives of the Pope Paul III, the Farnese family.



The two main project architects were Giacomo Vigniola and Giacomo Della Porta - they introdused a simplified plan of the church consisting of a main , singular nave with a very shallow nartex,and the main apse with the altar at the very end.Along the main nave - body of the building,

they provided a chapels behind arched openings.

The nave gain a barell valt, a cross

 vault in the middle and the dome onthe drum, also called
tambour, a cylindrical wall supporting a dome with windows.

The facade was divided into two parts vertically - then sections where subdivided by six pairs of pilasters with Corinthian capitals to lower and by four pairs of pilasters to upper part.
The most characteristic features of the external, front elevation are twe two volutes on each side of the upper part and three entrance doors with the middle, main one under a curvilineared tympanum that was even repeated at the conrice level and the two side doors under a triangular tympanum.To accentuate the symetry even more the architects provided the curved shield ilustrating the histogram IHS.The interiour of the church was decorated with the frescoes and paintings very often enriched with a golden reliefs .The church is a masterpiece of the early baroque architecture .



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