1608/1620 Carlo Maderno (1556/1629) for Cardinal Scipione
Caffarelli Borghese (1577/1633) as a chapel dedicated to St. Paul
During the
work for the construction of the chapel the ancient statue of the Hermaphrodite
was found to the great joy of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who included it in
his collection of ancient statues. It is now in the Louvre
1625/26 G.B. Soria (1581/1651) and re-consecration of the
church dedicated to the “Image of Our Lady” found in the trash of the Castle of
Pilsen, to which was attributed the victory of the armies of Ferdinand II of
Habsburg over the Protestant City of Prague on November 8, 1620
Above the
doorway relief “Adoration of the Child” 1627/29 by Domenico
De Rossi (1659/1703)
VAULT
“Triumph of the
Virgin Mary on heresies and fall of the Rebel Angels” executed for the Holy Year of 1700
by the brothers Andrea Orazi (1670/after 1724)
and Giuseppe Orazi (seventeenth century)
“Glorification
of St. Paul” 1654/55 by Giovanni Domenico Cerrini
(1609/81)
Spectacular
ORGAN of the nineteenth century with
Baroque choir made in 1680 by Mattia De Rossi
(1637/95)
1st
RIGHT - CHAPEL OF St. TERESA OF THE CHILD JESUS OR OF LISIEUX
She was
canonized in 1925
Above the
altar “St. Therese of the
Child Jesus” 1926 by Giorgio Szoldatics (1873/1930)
In the
vault stucco “Stories of Mary Magdalene” by an anonymous
artist of the seventeenth century
Prior to
1926, the chapel was dedicated to Mary Magdalene. In the “Noli Me Tangere”
scene Jesus is curiously represented as a gardener with a big shovel
2nd
RIGHT - MERENDA CHAPEL
Under the
patronage of the lawyer Ippolito Merenda
Above the
altar “Madonna and Child
with St. Francis” 1629/30, the last work in Rome by Domenico Zampieri aka Domenichino (1581/1641)
On the
sides, to the right “St. Francis in
Ecstasy” and to the left “St. Francis
Receiving the Stigmata” by Antonio Alberti aka
Barbalonga (1600/49), maybe from cartoons of his master Domenichino
Altar of
the 1800 by Pio Piacentini (1846/1928)
Sculpture “Virgin
Mary giving the scapular to St. Simon Stock” 1895 by Alfonso
Balzico (1825/1901)
On the left
“Funerary memory of Cardinal Girolamo Vidoni” with bust by Pompeo Ferrucci (about 1566/1637)
On the
right “Bust of Giovanni Vidoni” maybe also by Pompeo
Ferrucci
In the
vault stucco “Coronation” at the center and “Apparition of the Assumption to
St. John the Evangelist” and “St. Jerome penitent” on the sides, maybe by Pompeo Ferrucci
1694 G.B. Contini (1641/1723) in imitation of the Cornaro
Chapel in the left transept
Marble
group “Dream of St. Joseph” 1699 by Domenico Guidi
(1625/1701)
On the
sides there are marble groups:
On the
right “Flight into Egypt”, on the left “Adoration of the
Shepherds” 1699 by Pierre-Étienne Monnot
(1657/1733)
Under the
altar wax statue with remains of St. Vittora martyred under Diocletian (284/305)
In the
vault fresco “St. Joseph taken to
heaven by angels” about 1695 by Bonaventura Lamberti
(about 1653/1721)
MAIN CHAPEL
Restored in
the years 1840/68 by Carlo Nicolò Carnevali for
the Torlonia family
“Our Lady of Victory
enters Prague with the Catholic armies after the battle of the White Mountain” 1880 by Luigi
Serra (1846/88)
1884 for
Prince Alessandro Torlonia and his wife Teresa Colonna
On the
altar “Image of Our Lady of Victory” copy made for the Torlonia family from the
original destroyed by fire on June 29, 1833
CHOIR
BEHIND THE ALTAR (normally not open to visitors)
“Abduction
of St. Paul to the third heaven” 1620 by Gerrit Van
Honthorst aka Gherardo Delle Notti (1590/1656) for Cardinal Scipione
Borghese
“Christ in
Glory with Sts. Anthony Abbot, Francis and a Carmelite saint” by an unknown seventeenth-century artist
“Prophets
in expectation of the Messianic event” maybe by the eighteenth-century painter Francesco Ferrari
LEFT TRANSEPT –
CORNARO CHAPEL
For the
Venetian Cardinal Federico Cornaro, the first on the left in the right balcony
Sculptural
group “Ecstasy or
Transverberation of St. Teresa of Avila (1515/82)” 1644/52 absolute masterpiece by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680)
He was helped by Giacomo
Antonio Fancelli (1619/71), Lazzaro Morelli (1608/90),
Ercole Antonio Raggi (1624/86),
Baldassarre Mari, Giovanni
Antonio Mari (active since 1635/d. 1661) and a woman identified as Francesca “Bresciana” (from Brescia)
In the vault
painting “Glory of the Holy
Spirit”
by Guidobaldo Abbatini (1600/56)
“The
paintings of the vault penetrate deep into the architecture. As sculpture was
for him a kind of pictorial art in three dimensions, painting was a sculptural
art projected on a surface” (Rudolf Wittkower)
“Translated
in the erotic Baroque marble, Caravaggio's conception expressed in the image of
Lena of the Magdalene in Ecstasy lost its quality and its radical disfiguring
distress (...), and immediately became more mystical, more sensual, more
theatrical (...). In line with the institutions of power in his time as much as
Caravaggio was rather estranged from the ones of his time, in the great Ecstasy
of St. Teresa Bernini had a double debt to Caravaggio: the joyful angel
teenager who was about to pierce the saint was a suitably refined baroque
descendant of the grinning Cecco holding tight his arrows in Amor Vincitore
(Love winner)” (Peter Robb)
Bernini
used alabastro nuvolato (cloudy alabaster) in the alcove behind the
statue and in the panels of the side walls as if it belonged to the space of
the apparition, in continuity with the clouds on which the group rests
“The heavens
painted within the niche, the sculpture and the architecture come together in a
compact spatial image resulting in a total spectacle. The observer is involved
in an impressive network of relationships. Bernini translated with unsurpassed
analytical mind those feelings, that spiritual and sensual trouble that Teresa
described in her literary works. Natural light coming through a hidden window
becomes mysterious light, heavenly, designed pictorially, a light which strikes
and glorifies, fulfilling a dramatic and transient function for the group and
materializing in the gold rays. Polychrome marbles add a warm and harmonious
ambience to the experience of the viewer, the statuary group is asserting
itself in its supernatural candor. It's a great living tableau: the observer
located in the central axis may have a vision of divine revelation and can be
witness of a realistic and convincing religious experience” (Carlo Bertelli,
Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)
“No more
talk of sculpture in the conventional sense, but a pictorial scene framed by
architecture that includes us believers in the religious drama that is not so
much acted, as it is revealed. Bernini used painting, sculpture, architecture
and added the natural resource of light to create a hallucinatory revelation”
(Howard Hibbard)
On the
floor “Hatches with skeletons in opus sectile (inlaid marble)
symbolizing the resurrection” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
executed by the stonemason Gabriele Renzi
3rd
LEFT - CHAPEL OF THE HOLY TRINITY
Above the
altar “Holy Trinity” 1637/38 by Giovanni Francesco
Barbieri aka Guercino (1591/1666)
On the
right “Portrait of Cardinal
Berlingero Gessi” 1641 maybe by Guido Reni (1575/1642).
Cardinal Gessi had the patronage of the chapel
On the left
“Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and St. John” copy made by an anonymous Capuchin Father from the original by Guido
Reni now in Great Britain
Above the
arch, allegorical statues “Prudence” and “Justice” about 1635 by Alessandro Algardi (1598/1654) who also made the
stuccos of the ceiling framing frescoes representing in the center “Transfiguration”
and in the sides “Nativity” and “Baptism of Christ” by Giovanni
Francesco Grimaldi (1606/80)
Above the
altar “Apparition of Christ to St. John of the Cross”
On the left
“Death of St. John of the Cross”, on the right “Virgin Mary saves
St. John of the Cross” about 1667 by the French François Nicolas de Bar aka Nicolas
Lorrain or Niccolò Lorenese (1632/95)
Sculptures
of “Angels” on the pediment by Giuseppe Mazzuoli
(1644/1725)
In the
golden wood shrine “Holy Infant of Prague” donated in 1890 by the bishop of
Prague
Above the
altar “St. Andrew waiting for the punishment” by an anonymous
Capuchin Father who replaced a painting by Cavalier D'Arpino stolen by
the French
On the
sides “Gravestones of the deacon Luca Angelo Maraldi and of the priest
Marcantonio Maraldi” with portraits in oil on copper by Giuseppe Cesari aka Cavalier d'Arpino (1568/1640)
CORRIDOR
BEHIND THE RIGHT TRANSEPT
“Tomb of Cardinal
Sebastiano Antonio Tanara” 1743/44 by Ferdinando
Fuga (1699/1782) with bust by Agostino Corsini (1688/1772)
NEW
SACRISTY
Various
paintings with the Battle of Prague
“Maximilian of
Bavaria gives the horse to Father Dominic of Jesus and Mary before the Battle
of the White Mountain” about 1730/40 by Sebastiano
Conca (1680/1764)
OLD
SACRISTY
Marble
altarpiece “Assumption of St. John the Evangelist and St. Jerome” 1629 and
frontal with “Adoration of the Shepherds” by Pompeo
Ferrucci (about 1566/1637) originally in the third chapel on the right
The
CARMELITE CONVENT was suppressed and the premises were occupied by the
Geological Museum. The garden of the convent was expropriated for the
construction of the Ministry of Agriculture
which was built in the years 1907/14
No comments:
Post a Comment