A BIT IN DEEP: BACICCIA

When you are facing the nave of Jesus your gaze is inevitably attracted by the light that coming down from the dome illuminates the great cycle of frescoes by Baciccia, who painted the apse, the arch of the presbytery, the spandrels of the dome, the dome itself, the vault of the chapel of St. Ignatius and the vault of the nave.

We must give credit to the Jesuits who had the courage and the insight to assign to a single artist, and most young, a series of paintings of that commitment.

The theme of the apse is the Glory of the Mystic Lamb, in the vault of the presbytery Baciccia painted Musician Angels glorifying the Name of Jesus, in the spandrels of the dome are depicted Prophets, Evangelists and Doctors of the Church, in the dome the Paradise exalts Jesus, and by the time in the nearby chapel of St. Ignatius, the Holy leans towards the light coming down from the dome.

But it's in the vault of the nave Baciccia that expressed all his spectacular visionary qualities.
At the center of the fresco “The Triumph of the Name of Jesus” the light of God attracts groups of saints and the blessed and rejects the damned. Resorting to an illusionistic artifice different groups of figures break down the frame, with divergent effects, to enter, as the group of St. Ignatius, and to get out, as the rebellious angels, who seem to fall down.

Baciccia was not limited to the fresco, also designed all the stucco of the vault, to get the accomplished synthesis between painting and sculpture.

The extraordinary cycle of paintings of Jesus reaches that point beyond which the Baroque painting can’t go.

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