Friday morning was our last walk as a class in Rome with Jeffery again, very good this time on the chapels of Borromini and Bernini, the two rival architects of the Baroque period. Some general walking around first though, to the former Baths of Diocletian - now converted to a very unconvincing church... the scale was just wrong, and the plan was non-traditional in a very unplanned way. it felt a lot like the church shoved into the old roller rink in alex, or any of the pole barn megachurches. ick... although this one was a little more traditionally decorated... and had 6 foot diameter monolithic columns... still not a convincing place of worship, too much memory of secular romans or something.
Next saw Santa Maria della Vittorio, the church housing the extasy of St. Teresa, famous Bernini sculpture... quite effective, lots of tourists..... Next San Carlo della Quatto Fontane - a Boromini chapel for spanish nuns I remembered quite well from history... it was genuinely amazing. decorations thought out and thoughtfully and discretely applied, a complex spacial arrangement that kept your eyes spinning up and down and around constantly - beutiful. the basement and side chapel were also nice....
Bernini's San Andrea church down the street also had a lot of Baroque complexity... in a little more obvious form, lots of colored marble, a stage-like presense of sculptures at all levels and paintings, oval in the wierd direction... it was impressive, a little gaudy.
I was happy I liked Boromini better then Bernini... Borromini had been the tortured melancholy reclusive artist who came out of hiding to do these few outrageously beautiful and simple chapels, Bernini was well connected (although fanatical, 3 years drawing 12 hours straight every day....) sculptor's sun, best friend of a few popes.... shrug rooting for the identifyable underdog - Borromini's stuff was spatially much more exciting though.
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