Sant'Andrea delle Fratte: Both Rivals Under One Roof

Why is it significant?

Stand in the narrow street and look up above the rooftops at the bell tower of this church. It is unlike any bell tower you have seen: tiers of columns, curving balconies, angel herms with folded wings, and at the very top, a crown of iron and stone like a strange flower.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand in the narrow street and look up above the rooftops at the bell tower of this church. It is unlike any bell tower you have seen: tiers of columns, curving balconies, angel herms with folded wings, and at the very top, a crown of iron and stone like a strange flower. Now glance along the street. A few steps away, on Via della Mercede, is the house where Gian Lorenzo Bernini lived, and died, in 1680.

The tower was designed by his great rival, Francesco Borromini. So every morning, for years, the most famous artist in Rome opened his shutters onto a masterpiece by the one man he could not stand. The two had started out working side by side. They ended up as the two poles of baroque Rome: Bernini, charming, quick, a courtier, a sculptor who made marble breathe; Borromini, dark, solitary, a stonemason's son who thought in geometry.

Now step inside and walk towards the altar. On either side stand two angels in white marble, one holding the crown of thorns, the other a scroll. Bernini carved them, when he was around seventy, for the bridge in front of Castel Sant'Angelo. But the pope of the day found them far too beautiful to leave out in the rain, and copies went on the bridge instead. Bernini's family kept the originals until 1729, when they were given to this church.

So in this one building, you have Borromini's tower outside, Bernini's angels inside, and Bernini's front door across the road. The church has its own miracle too. In 1842 a young Jewish banker from Strasbourg, Alphonse Ratisbonne, walked in here a sceptic and walked out convinced he had seen the Virgin Mary. He became a priest. The chapel where it happened is on your left.

This walk is the story of that rivalry, and it is played out on the hill above you, where the popes built their summer palace and both men fought for commissions. Head up towards Via del Tritone and on to Piazza Barberini, where the bees are waiting.