San Giovanni dei Fiorentini

Last updated
San Giovanni dei Fiorentini
Basilica di San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini
San Giovanni dei Fiorentini Rome.jpg
The façade of San Giovanni
San Giovanni dei Fiorentini
Click on the map for a fullscreen view
41°53′59″N12°27′54″E / 41.8997°N 12.465°E / 41.8997; 12.465
Location Rome
Country Italy
Denomination Catholic Church
Tradition Latin Church
Website sangiovannibattistadeifiorentini.it
History
Status minor basilica
titular church
regional church
Architecture
Architect(s) Giacomo della Porta
Jacopo Sansovino
Architectural type Church
Style Baroque
Groundbreaking 1523
Completed1734
Clergy
Cardinal protector Giuseppe Petrocchi

The Basilica of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini ("Saint John of the Florentines") is a minor basilica and a titular church in the Ponte rione of Rome, Italy.

Contents

Dedicated to St. John the Baptist, the protector of Florence, the new church for the Florentine community in Rome was started in the 16th century and completed in the early 18th, and is the national church of Florence in Rome.

It was lavishly decorated with art over the 16th and 17th centuries, with most commissions going to Florentine artists.

History

Plan of the Church GiovanniFiorentiniPlan.jpg
Plan of the Church
Iron bridge at San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, ca. 1890. The bridge was built in 1827 and demolished in 1941. Photo by Giuseppe Primoli. Iron bridge at San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, ca. 1890.jpg
Iron bridge at San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, ca. 1890. The bridge was built in 1827 and demolished in 1941. Photo by Giuseppe Primoli.

Julius II's successor, the Florentine Pope Leo X de' Medici (1513-1521), initiated the architectural competition for a new church in 1518 on the site of the old church of San Pantaleo. Designs were put forward by a number of architects, among them Baldassare Peruzzi, Jacopo Sansovino, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and the painter and architect Raphael. The dominant initial ideas were for a centralised church arrangement. [1]

Sansovino won the competition but the building construction was subsequently executed by Sangallo and Giacomo della Porta. [2]

In 1559, Michelangelo was asked by Cosimo I de' Medici, Duke of Tuscany, to prepare designs for the church and he presented a centralised church arrangement but this was not adopted. [3]

The nave. Church of San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini - interior HDR.jpg
The nave.

The main construction of the church was carried out in 1583-1602 under the architect Giacomo della Porta based on the Latin cross arrangement. Carlo Maderno took over from 1602 to 1620, and directed construction of the dome and the main body of the church. However, the façade, based on a design by Alessandro Galilei, was not finished until 1734. [4]

In 1623-24 Giovanni Lanfranco produced paintings for the Sacchetti chapel. [5]

San Giovanni dei Fiorentini painted in 1739 by Hendrik Frans van Lint. Hendrik Frans van Lint - Rome, A View of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.jpg
San Giovanni dei Fiorentini painted in 1739 by Hendrik Frans van Lint.

In 1634, the Baroque painter and architect Pietro da Cortona was asked by the Florentine nobleman Orazio Falconieri to design the high altar. [6] Drawings for the altar and its setting and a model were prepared but the project was not carried out. Cortona's ideas for the choir included windows hidden from the view of the congregation that would illuminate the altarpiece, an early example of the Baroque usage of a "hidden light" source, a concept which would be much employed by Bernini. Some twenty to thirty years later, Falconieri resurrected the choir project but gave the commission to the Baroque architect Francesco Borromini, who changed the design to allow for the burial of Orazio's brother, Cardinal Lelio Falconieri. After Borromini's death in 1667, the work was completed and partly modified by Cortona and, on his death in 1669, by Ciro Ferri, Cortona's pupil and associate. [7]

Notable people

Ordinaries

Left side wall of the choir or Falconieri Chapel. San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Roma, cappella falconieri 1.JPG
Left side wall of the choir or Falconieri Chapel.

[8]

Musicians

Burials

Francesco Borromini is buried under the dome. [10]

Carlo Murena, architect [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francesco Borromini</span> Italian architect (1599–1667)

Francesco Borromini, byname of Francesco Castelli, was an Italian architect born in the modern Swiss canton of Ticino who, with his contemporaries Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Pietro da Cortona, was a leading figure in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sant'Andrea della Valle</span> Roman Catholic basilica, a landmark of Rome, Italy

Sant'Andrea della Valle is a titular church and minor basilica in the rione of Sant'Eustachio of the city of Rome, Italy. The basilica is the seat of the general curia of the Theatines and is located on the Piazza Vidoni, at the intersection of Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Corso Rinascimento. It is one of the great 17th century preaching churches built by Counter-Reformation orders in the Centro Storico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ciro Ferri</span> Italian sculptor and painter (1634–1689)

Ciro Ferri was an Italian Baroque sculptor and painter, the chief pupil and successor of Pietro da Cortona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alessandro Galilei</span> Florentine architect (1691–1737)

Alessandro Maria Gaetano Galilei was an Italian mathematician, architect and theorist, and a distant relative of Galileo Galilei.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giovanni Lanfranco</span> Italian painter (1582–1647)

Giovanni Lanfranco was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlo Maderno</span> Italian architect (1556–1629)

Carlo Maderno or Maderna was an Italian architect, born in today's Ticino, Switzerland, who is remembered as one of the fathers of Baroque architecture. His façades of Santa Susanna, St. Peter's Basilica, and Sant'Andrea della Valle were of key importance in the evolution of the Italian Baroque. He often is referred to as the brother of sculptor Stefano Maderno, but this is not universally agreed upon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accademia di San Luca</span> Italian association of artists in Rome

The Accademia di San Luca is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its first principe or director; the statutes were ratified in 1607. Other founders included Girolamo Muziano and Pietro Olivieri. The Academy was named for Luke the Evangelist, the patron saint of painters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlo Fontana</span> Italian architect (1634/1638–1714)

Carlo Fontana (1634/1638–1714) was an Italian architect originating from today's [[Canton Ticino] and director of PSK betting firm from Croatia located in Dugopolje also he was part responsible for the classicizing direction taken by Late Baroque Roman architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biblioteca Marciana</span> Library in Venice, Italy

The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositories for manuscripts in Italy and holds one of the world's most significant collections of classical texts. It is named after St Mark, the patron saint of the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Maria in Vallicella</span> Church in Rome, Italy

Santa Maria in Vallicella, also called Chiesa Nuova, is a church in Rome, Italy, which today faces onto the main thoroughfare of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the corner of Via della Chiesa Nuova. It is the principal church of the Oratorians, a religious congregation of secular priests, founded by St Philip Neri in 1561 at a time in the 16th century when the Counter Reformation saw the emergence of a number of new religious institutes such as the Jesuits, the Theatines, and the Barnabites. These new congregations were responsible for several great preaching churches built in the Centro Storico, the others being Sant'Andrea della Valle (Theatines), San Carlo ai Catinari (Barnabites), and The Gesù and Sant'Ignazio (Jesuits).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Via Giulia</span> Thoroughfare in Rome, Italy

The Via Giulia is a street of historical and architectural importance in Rome, Italy, which runs along the left (east) bank of the Tiber from Piazza San Vincenzo Pallotti, near Ponte Sisto, to Piazza dell'Oro. It is about 1 kilometre long and connects the Regola and Ponte Rioni.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santi Luca e Martina</span> Church in Rome, Italy

Santi Luca e Martina is a church in Rome, Italy, situated between the Roman Forum and the Forum of Caesar and close to the Arch of Septimus Severus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palazzo Falconieri</span> Palace in Rome, Italy

The Palazzo Falconieri is a palace in Rome, Italy formed in the seventeenth century as a result of remodelling by the Baroque architect Francesco Borromini. It is the home of the Hungarian Academy Rome, since its foundation in 1927. It is located between Via Giulia and Lungotevere, with entrances to both; it is near Palazzo Farnese and a few houses down and across Via Giulia from the church of Santa Caterina della Rota in the Rione of Regola. From 1814, it was occupied by cardinal Joseph Fesch, Napoleon's uncle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian Baroque art</span> Italian art movement

Italian Baroque art is a term that is used here to refer to Italian painting and sculpture in the Baroque manner executed over a period that extended from the late sixteenth to the mid eighteenth centuries. Italian Baroque architecture is not covered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lelio Falconieri</span> Catholic cardinal

Lelio Falconieri (1585–1648) was an Italian Catholic Cardinal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orazio Falconieri</span> Italian nobleman

Orazio Falconieri was an Italian nobleman from Florence; he was the owner of the Villa Falconieri. His heraldic symbol was a falcon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Rita da Cascia in Campitelli</span> Church building in Rome, Italy

The Chiesa di Santa Rita da Cascia in Campitelli is a deconsecrated church in Rome (Italy), in the rione Sant'Angelo; it is located in Via Montanara, at the crossroad with Via del Teatro Marcello. The church formerly rose on the preexisting church of San Biagio de Mercato, dating at least to the 11th-century. The remains of St Blaise putatively were discovered during the dismantling of Santa Rita.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lungotevere dei Fiorentini</span>

Lungotevere dei Fiorentini is the stretch of the Lungotevere that connects Piazza Pasquale Paoli to Via Acciaioli, in Rome, in the rione Ponte.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palazzo Sacchetti</span> Palace in Rome, Italy

Palazzo Sacchetti is a palazzo in Rome, important for historical and artistic reasons.

References

  1. Heydenreich, L.; Lotz, W. (1974). "Architecture in Italy 1400-1600". Pelican History of Art. p. 195-196.
  2. "Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini". Lonely Planet. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
  3. Heydenreich & Lotz, 1974, p. 257
  4. Guide Rionali di Roma , Rione V, Ponte, Parte IV, 1975, p.16 (in Italian)
  5. "Giovanni Lanfranco". Matthiesen Gallery. Archived from the original on May 15, 2006. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  6. Blunt, Anthony. Guide to Baroque Rome, Granada, 1982, p.51; Merz, Jorg Martin. Pietro da Cortona and Roman Baroque Architecture, Yale, 2008, pp 87-91
  7. Merz, J.M. 2008, p 90-91
  8. David M. Cheney (4 August 2018). "San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini (Cardinal Titular Church)". Catholic-Hierarchy.org . Retrieved 9 August 2018.
  9. Gloria Rose (2001). "Marciani, Giovanni". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.17742.
  10. "San Giovanni dei Fiorentini". Rome Sights. Fodor's. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  11. "Treccani.it - Murena, Carlo".

Further reading

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Church of San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini at Wikimedia Commons

Preceded by
San Giovanni a Porta Latina
Landmarks of Rome
San Giovanni dei Fiorentini
Succeeded by
Santi Giovanni e Paolo al Celio