Sant'Andrea al Quirinale: Bernini's Pearl
Why is it significant?
Stop on the pavement opposite the little church set back behind a curved forecourt. A semicircular porch on two columns pushes out towards you, like a stage, and above it, a broad simple pediment. It is calm, compact, almost modest.
Key Facts
| Place | Sant'Andrea al Quirinale: Bernini's Pearl |
|---|---|
| Address | Via del Quirinale 30, 00187 Roma RM, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.90070, 12.48940 |
| Part of Walk | Rivals on the Quirinal: Bernini vs Borromini in Baroque Rome |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop on the pavement opposite the little church set back behind a curved forecourt. A semicircular porch on two columns pushes out towards you, like a stage, and above it, a broad simple pediment. It is calm, compact, almost modest. This is what Bernini built when he was allowed to build a church entirely his own way.
He designed it from 1658 for the novices of the Jesuit order, who trained in the house next door, and the money came from Cardinal Camillo Pamphilj, a nephew of the late Pope Innocent the Tenth. The plot was wide but shallow, so Bernini did something daring. He made the church an oval, and turned it sideways: you enter on the short axis, and the altar is straight in front of you, very close, while the walls sweep away to left and right.
Step inside. Everything pulls your eye towards the altar. A painting of Saint Andrew on his cross is lit from a hidden window, and above it, carved in white stone, the saint himself breaks through the pediment and rises towards the golden dome, where cherubs and fishermen's nets wait for him. It is one continuous story in paint, marble and stucco, the martyrdom below and the heaven above. Bernini's sculpture again, doing the work of drama.
His son Domenico wrote that, in his old age, Bernini liked to come and sit here quietly, because it was the one building that gave him real satisfaction. Borromini's San Carlo is only a couple of hundred metres along this street. Two tiny oval churches, almost within sight of each other, by the two men who could not share a room.
Ask whether the rooms of Saint Stanislaus Kostka are open. He was a young Polish nobleman who walked to Rome to become a Jesuit and died here as a novice in 1568, aged seventeen. A marble statue of him on his deathbed lies there, in coloured stone. Now walk on along Via del Quirinale, beside the endless wall of the palace's long wing, to the great square at the end of the street.