Four Baroque Walls…

Martino Longhi, SS Vicenzo ed Anastasio

Pietro da Cortona, SS Luca e Martina

Pietro da Cortona, S Maria della Pace

Bernini, S Andrea in Quirinale

Borromini, S Carlo alla Quattra Fontane

In our journeys across the city, we met four baroque walls each spoke its name…

First, there was the wall of Martino Longhi: the facade of SS Vicenzo ed Anastasio is composed in strata of layers added one upon the other compressing themselves to the center. His walls struck us as almost tectonic in their conception as if built from individual pieces, each set just in front or behind another.

Then came the wall of Pietro da Cortona – a wall that seemed to be everywhere, all of the time, following us about the city from S Maria della Pace near Piazza Navona to SS Luca ed Martina at the Forum. Cortona was a master of the sculpted depth of the wall: in the space of the wall, columns were liberated! His walls were carved, as if from a single mass, in a plastic unity of layers.

In the Quirinale, we were met by two walls: Bernini's S Andrea spilled forth into the city its structure into the street for the sake of the theater of narrative within. His wall was as a stage to organize our perception of the passion play of the life, martyrdom, and ascension of S Andrea… an elaborate stage set where sculpture, painting and architecture each speak together with one voice.

And then… Borromini's wall: the restless face in alternation of compression and tension: the wall became a spring, stretched taut or a sheet, bent inward upon itself. The wall was composed as a skeleton twisted bringing to the surface between the columns or pilasters, the interior forces of the body of the wall: S Carlo alla Quattra Fontane. And inside, we were enveloped by space – as if for the first time! – in the narrative of our being and God's presence…

And then… when we could sketch no more, we walked out into the snow of Rome…