The Gesu Church Rome – Mother church of the Society of Jesus with the Tomb of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Tomb of St. Ignatius of Loyola

The Church of the Gesù (full name is the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus Argentina) is the mother church of the Society of Jesus; in it is the tomb of its founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola.

The rooms of St. Ignatius

The rooms are on the top floor of St. Ignatius residence built by St. Ignatius and Codacio between 1543 and 1544. That house, badly built, stood until 1598, when a disastrous flood damaged its foundations. The rooms, which can be visited, are all that remains of the first building.

Father General Acquaviva won the patronage of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, nephew of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who had built the Church of Jesus, to build the current Professed House in 1599. Before Acquaviva started building, it was decided to save the rooms where Father Ignatius had spent the last 12 years of his life, writing the Constitutions of the Society and a voluminous correspondence, and where he died after long suffering 31 July 1556.

That decision involved the construction of a complicated system of times under the rooms already exist to support their weight, then the construction of the new building around them, and finally with their junction to the fabric of the new building. This work has kept the rooms virtually intact.

In the rooms they are kept heirlooms, furnishings and a statue of St. Ignatius. The rooms of St. Ignatius are preceded by a corridor with decorative perspective by Andrea Pozzo and frescoes of the Burgundian.

In view of the celebration of the Ignatian 1990-1991, for almost two years, more than fifty people worked at the restoration of the rooms of St. Ignatius and the corridor that joins Andrea Pozzo. The restoration was made possible thanks to the sponsorship of the Society of Jesus; Loyola Foundation, Washington DC; the Pope Foundation, New York; and O’Toole Foundation, New York.

Inside of the Church

Its singular artistic richness signals the Church of the Gesù as an important chapter in the history of art and is one of the most visited monuments in Rome. The monumental facade of James Dela Porta dominates the square. The dome, Della Porta, has an octagonal drum.

The interior has a Latin cross, has a wide nave whose vault is frescoed with the Triumph of the name of Jesus, grand, lively and bright fresco with extraordinary effect of aerial perspective by Giovanni Battista Gaulli. The grandstand is painted, again from Baciccia with Glory of the mystic Lamb. On the main altar stands a nineteenth-century altarpiece depicting the Circumcision of Alessandro Capalti.

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On the sides there are six chapels with works by prominent authors:

• Chapel of Saint Andrew with the Martyrdom of St. Andrew of Ciampelli;
• Chapel of the Passion with the Road to Calvary and Crucifixion of Celio;
• Chapel of the Angels, where the altarpiece is Seven Archangels in Adoration of the Trinity Frederico Zuccari;
• Chapel of the Holy Trinity with the Adoration of the Holy Trinity by the Saints of Francesco Bassano;
• Chapel of the Holy Family with the altarpiece, the work of Roman John Gagliardi
• Chapel of St. Francis Borgia with beautiful altarpiece, where it appears St. Francis Borgia in ecstasy before the consecrated Host. In the same chapel there are various paintings; especially St. Peter baptizing the Saints Processo and Martiniano and the Conversion of St. Paul, all two of Ticino Pier Francesco Mola.

In the left transept of the Chapel of St. Ignatius of Loyola (buried under the altar), magnificent work of Andrea Pozzo. In the right the beautiful altar of St. Francis Xavier by Pietro da Cortona. To the left of the grandstand is the Chapel Our Lady of the road and on the right is the small Chapel of the Sacred Heart.

Weekdays:

• 7:00
• 8:00
• 10:00
• 11:00
• 12:00
• 9:00

Sunday and holidays:

• 8.00
• 10:00
• 11:00
• 12:30
• 19:00

Visits of Chambers of St. Ignatius

• Monday to Saturday: 16:00 to 18:00
• Sunday and Holidays: 10:00 to 12:00

History

St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1551 commissioned the Florentine architect Nanni di Baccio Biggio to design a church for the Society of Jesus. The plan, which had a large church with a single nave, side chapels and apse shallow, was redesigned in 1554 by Michelangelo, but his project remained on paper.

Finally, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, perhaps the best known patron of the arts of the period, provided the financing in 1561 and appointed Jacopo Barozzi, called “Il Vignola”, one of his favorite architects, the design and construction of the church of Jesus in Rome. Jesuit architects John Tristan and Giovanni de Rosis were active collaborators of internal projects and directed the actual construction.

Not satisfied by the design of the façade made by Vignola, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese chose a progettto by Giacomo della Porta. The construction of the church began in 1568; but to conclude the execution, after the death of Vignola, was Giacomo della Porta in 1575. At the time of its dedication in 1584, the church was the largest and the first completely new built in Rome since the “Sack” in 1527.

In the second half of the seventeenth century there was the decorative painting of John the Baptist Gaulli said Baciccia and worked at two large transept chapels: that of St. Francis Xavier and St. Ignatius that particularly sumptuous. During the events of the late eighteenth century, that followed the suppression of the Order (1773), the temple was deprived of many riches.

In 1814 the church was returned to the Jesuits. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century it was adorned the forum and built the altar. From 1858 to 1861 the ornament of the temple Farnese was accomplished thanks to the generosity of Prince Alessandro Torlonia, who made the cover of marble aisle.

In conclusion, the Church of the Gesù, built in a style between the Renaissance and the Baroque, had a great influence on sacred baroque churches in Italy and elsewhere in the world, to inspire the term – today challenged – “Jesuit style” .

The sober facade, with volumes, the masses and the play of light and shadows that anticipated the Baroque, was carefully oriented towards the streets and the square bystanders: it rises majestically like a big portal that encourages the travelers to enter.