Powered By Blogger

Welcome to Villa Speranza.

Welcome to Villa Speranza.

Search This Blog

Translate

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Chiesa della Sapienza (1642), Roma

Speranza




Wholly revolutionary in concept, Borromini's architecture was declared excessively extravagant by certain of his contemporaries, particularly friends of Bernini, whose collaborator he wsas before becoming his rival.

His masterpiece is the "Chiesa della Sapienza", with a ground plan of such complexity that it was thought to be in the shape of a bee, the emblem of Pope Urban VIII.

The exterior is distinguished by a surprising succession of concave and convex curves.

By way of a facciata, Borromini quite simply -- and quite brazenly -- used the incurvated end of the courtyard built a century before by Giacomo della Porta and which is overlooked by the church.

Borromini surmounted this facciata with a high drum with convex curves that hides all but the crest of the dome.

Above this, a very high lantern-tower is cut out in concave curves.

On top of this is a spiral, unique in western architecture, which probably has some symbolic meaning that is completely unknown for us today.

No comments:

Post a Comment