Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio di Loyola
Baroque Jesuit church where a flat ceiling is painted to look like a soaring dome.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio di Loyola in Rome centers on the disc set into the nave floor, the one spot from which the painted ceiling above reads as a soaring dome. It traces the story back to 1642, when the Jesuits ran out of money for a real dome and left the crossing bare for over forty years, until lay brother Andrea Pozzo arrived with an obsession for the mathematics of perspective. You'll hear how quickly he worked. Try standing on and off that marked spot before you move on.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Chiesa del Ss.mo Nome di Gesù all'Argentina
Mother church of the Jesuit order, with a Baroque ceiling where heaven and nave seem to dissolve.
Galleria prospettica del Borromini
Seventeenth-century colonnade using forced perspective to make nine meters appear as forty.
Church of St Andrew on the Quirinal
Oval Baroque church designed by Bernini, considered by him the most perfect work of his career.
Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria
Baroque church sheltering Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, lit by golden rays in a marble chapel.
Piazza del Popolo
Oval piazza anchored by a three-millennium-old Egyptian obelisk and framed by twin Baroque churches.
Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica - Palazzo Barberini
Baroque palazzo turned national art gallery, holding masterworks by Raphael and Caravaggio.