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piazza navona - act iiI
Last time we stopped at S. Ivo alla Sapienza (=wisdom).
Now we start this new adventure coming out of the Sapienza Palace and ovelooking Corso (=avenue) del Rinascimento(= Renaissance) in the background we see our destination: S. Andrea della Valle
S. Andrea della Valle was built for the will of Cardinal Alessandro Peretti Montalto, nephew of Pope Sixtus V, who commissioned Carlo Maderno (1556 - 1629) for preparing the drawings and in 1608 laid the first stone.
The dome, the highest in Rome after St. Peter, was inaugurated in 1622.
The two orders façade was made by Carlo Rainaldi (1611 - 1691), who largely followed the design of Maderno.
The junction between the first and second order is asymmetric, instead of the usual volute, to the left we see an angel by Ercole Ferrata (1610 - 1686).
Above the door the statues of Hope and Prudence are by Cosimo Fancelli (1619 - 1671), while in the niches near the entrance, still by Ercole Ferrata is S. Andrew the Apostle, and by Domenico Guidi (1625 - 1701) is S. Sebastian.
On the left side of the church there is a statue called Abbot Luigi (one of six talking statues in Rome), which indeed is a Roman sculpture of the late imperial era.
The talking Statues of Rome were so called because they had the task to mock the big powers of the time (especially in 1800), often using rhyming text posted on the statues, the most active of which was that of the neighboring Pasquino.
Among the curiosities of S. Andrea notes:
the capitals of the lantern of the dome were carved by the young Borromini, who arrived in Rome in the service of his uncle Carlo Maderno;
inside the church there is the tomb of Monsignor Della Casa, the etiquette book author;
finally, the famous Barberini chapel in which is set the first act of Tosca by Puccini.
The interior is vast, has a Latin cross as the neighboring Church of Jesus,
To those who enter it offers a magnificent view dominated by the basin of the apse and the spandrels of the dome, all by Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri 1581 - 1641), while the paintings of the apse, by Mattia Preti (1613 – 1699), complete the view.
Aided by the sensitive plant we shall undertake a thorough visit.
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