Rooms of sanctity: Rome's other Baroque hidden gems.

It’s early October here in Rome and the weather has been cooling down a little. That doesn’t mean it is cold, not even chilly for that matter, the Romans are already sporting their best winter gear out, but for most people the days are still quite warm and sticky, perhaps more humid and definitely rainier… so what could one possibly do during these particularly rainy days one might wonder? Given that when it rains in Rome it does pour down a lot and if one has a liking for the Baroque - admiring Borromini’s steeples is perhaps not the best idea in this weather, also most of Rome is covered in scaffoldings because of the oncoming 2025 Jubilee.

Once again one does wonder what to do then? You might have explored all the best Baroque churches, from the Gesù to Sant’Ignazio, from the Chiesa Nuova to the splendid masterpieces by Borromini and Bernini; you might have also paid a visit to some of the greatest private palazzi of Baroque Rome, the Doria-Pamphilj and Colonna gallerie come to mind. You know what? You might just be missing the hidden gems which are the private rooms of the great saints of the Counter-Reformation, two of them being Jesuits of course and one an Oratorian!

Let us start with a bang, let us head towards the home of the Jesuits, the religious order that defined the Roman Counter-Reformation and which helped spreading Catholicism to the four corners of the globe: the Gesù (it’s not pronounced Jesu in the use of the Prayer Book for my English speaking friends, there is a reason if there is a little stress on that “u”)…

I am proudly a product of the Pontifical Gregorian University and I hope to not offend anyone but the Gesù is not my favorite church... it does its job however. It is a lot, it’s the first Baroque church in the world, it was paid for by the Farnese popes and cardinals, but it’s almost Spanish in Baroque opulence without being tacky. It's effectively Cinquecento Renaissance architecture on steroids and where the painting becomes tridimensional in the form of sculpture, worship becomes theater. It is a lot to take in, this church *is* the Counter-Reformation. It does what it has to do and very well too. Call me crazy but my favorite artwork there is not the Baciccio frescoes but the Annibale Carracci one in the beautiful Farnesian sagrestia.

What brings us to this church then? The Gesù is not just the church itself but it is a huge complex which includes housing for the first Jesuits, it is here that Saint Ignatius of Loyola was living while he was in Rome. 

The rooms used to be located on the ground floor of the complex, right behind the church under instruction of Saint Ignatius himself, between 1543 and 1544. They were then moved to the upper floors after one of the Tiber River’s infamous floods of the Eternal City. These rooms allow us to dive into the midst of Jesuit pre-history.

The present clergy palazzo of the Jesuits was built in 1599 surrounding the original rooms of Saint Ignatius after he died in 1556. This was not easy, they accomplished the hard feat of raising a Renaissance palazzo surrounding the original rooms by erecting some rather bulky vaulting beneath the original structure and then raising the new “case” above and around it. That explains why the entrance to the rooms feels like a rather odd and claustrophobic maze.

The rooms are now a beautifully restored set of sacred spaces that follow the life of the saint who gave us the spiritual exercises which are still used throughout Christendom. His room is now converted into a chapel where the mass can be celebrated and there’s also an ante-chapel-like space where the office can be said, the whole liturgical space is very much shaped in the Jesuit liturgical style. In these rooms, one can also find many relics used by Saint Ignatius himself, objects which served him in his daily life. 

The crowning jewel of the rooms of Saint Ignatius is perhaps the great corridor that leads us to the (let’s face it) rather underwhelming rooms themselves. The Corridoio di Sant’Ignazio is a true Baroque masterpiece decorated with a splendid Baroque perspective vista by Andrea Pozzo, the same Jesuit who decorated the amazing vault of Rome’s Baroque Sistine Chapel, the church of the Jesuit university, the Collegio Romano, the church dedicated to the saint himself: Sant’Ignazio di Loyola.

Let us then take a short walk to the huge complex of the Collegio Romano, this huge university was built in the 16th century by the Jesuits to train its clergy, the amazing church of Sant’Ignazio is one Rome’s largest Baroque churches and also its university chapel (take that King’s College Cambridge or Christ Church Oxford). 

The only reason the church doesn’t have a dome is because the next door Dominican friars at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, their rivals in Roman Catholic education, thought it very rude of these newbies to build a dome that would cast a shadow on their beautiful library. This gave Pozzo another chance to come up with the amazing idea of the painted dome trompe-l’oeil and indeed also the majestic one of the greatest Baroque ceiling in Rome (besides the Pietro da Cortona one at the Palazzo Barberini, that is not a church though). 

The complex itself is huge and it covers an entire block, it now belongs to the state because it was seized by the Piedmontese in 1870 which is also why it is falling apart and indeed why one cannot visit the beautiful rooms since 2017. 

So what is so special about the Collegio Romano? It has to be the splendid rooms of San Luigi Gonzaga. The stanze are named after Luigi Gonzaga, a heir to one of the greatest northern Italian families of the Renaissance who left all of his privilege behind, against the will of his family, in order to become a Jesuit and even dying due a plague epidemic. A perfect score indeed for a Baroque saint.

The rooms were later home to many ordained scientists of the Jesuit order during the late 16th century, where they established the first space observatory in the world, they even hosted Galileo Galilei here, but secular academia wants you to believe the Church was against religion, so pretend you didn’t read this. One of my favorite composers, Domenico Zipoli, also sojourned here before going off to evangelize the world in the name of the Jesuits God.

The rooms are located on the highest floor of the Collegio Romano adjacent to the great church of Sant’Ignazio and where you can find the old Ritiramento, the former dorm rooms. One enters the stanze via the Salone della Ricreazione which is decorated with images of the life of San Luigi Gonzaga. The room where the saint himself lived was converted into a chapel with a glorious Baroque altar by San Roberto Bellarmino, another great Jesuit. The chapel is also decorated with fine works also commissioned by the man who had the room converted, they were located in the infirmary room where Gonzaga died. 

The other rooms follow the same beautiful Roman Baroque interior style. These are among my favorite because unlike the stunning frescoes of the Sant’Ignazio rooms, here you have some fine Roman 17th century home decor, Gonzaga might have left his family but he didn’t leave his taste behind. The rooms have been under restoration since 2008, they almost opened in 2016, they’re technically ready but the Italian authorities won’t open them up, some say the entire floor is falling apart, we hope we will be able to see them again at some point. Oh tempora oh mores…

Finally, we might have grown tired with those Jesuits, so let’s move on with another Counter-Reformation order; the Oratorians. The Oratorians are based at the Chiesa Nuova also known as Santa Maria in Vallicella. In my opinion, this is the most beautiful and comprehensive Baroque church in Rome (I wish its Caravaggio would have stayed there). The spirit of the Oratorians, the Filippini, much like that of the Jesuits was to convert the world through beauty, they still cling on to that sense by having beautiful liturgies and playing beautiful music. 

Anyway, why is this church so great? Because it is the most comprehensive Baroque church in Rome (in my opinion). It has splendid frescoes by Pietro da Cortona, it has a major dome, it has altarpieces by Rubens, Cavalier d’Arpino, etc.; it also maintains its beautiful oratory and library in a beautiful complex designed by Borromini himself, it even boasts a Medieval altarpiece that comes with its own foundational legend. It ticks all the boxes. Finally, it has a splendid sanctuary where Saint Philip Neri is resting, on the other side, where one can have direct access to these relics are the Stanze di San Filippo Neri.

I absolutely adore San Filippo Neri, he was a Renaissance man, a mad one at that. he would randomly go into the catacombs at night to pray on the tombs of the martyrs, he would spend his time opening up his church to all manner of people (listen up, London Oratory), he would randomly show up in princely palazzi to briefly resurrect deceased infants so that they could give their goodbyes, as it happened with the Massimo, they still have a celebratory mass to remember that occasion.

This simple and humorous saint also happened to live in a beautiful set of rooms, unfortunately the Oratorians don’t have the same funding as the Jesuits (not that, that helps when the Italian state is involved). The rooms are not in the best shape and they also burnt up at some point but like Gonzaga’s rooms, they are beautifully decorated in the Roman Baroque 1560 Home Depot©️ catalog style. To be fair, it was the Oratorians who made it so beautiful as San Filippo lived quite the simple life.

My suggestion is to go to mass or vespers at the Chiesa Nuova, the Oratorians are a lot more liberal in sharing their treasures than the Jesuits when it comes to appointments. Ask one of them nicely to see the rooms and they will first take you to the beautiful sacristy, designed by Bernini, then they will lead you through some hidden and dusty corridors that are somewhat remindful of those in the dusty palazzi of Rome’s historic center.

The first room one encounters is the so-called Camera Rossa and the Cappella Interna. This room is a beautiful space decked out in red damask which contains some of the most significant relics related to the saint’s life, including the banner used on the occasion of his canonization. The vault is decorated with a stunning fresco which represents Saint Philip being saved by Saint Mary the Virgin through a miracle. As mentioned earlier, the chapel is the natural continuation of the space in the church that houses the saint’s relics which can be accessed via the altar which is directly symmetrical to the one in the church’s chapel. The altarpiece is a fine work by one of Rome’s great Baroque masters, Guercino. 

We are then taken up a spiral staircase which leads us the the upper rooms of the saint which are a perfect replica of the original stanze of Saint Philip; the original ones were destroyed by fire and later demolished. In the first room is a chapel with a wonderful altarpiece by another great Baroque master, Guido Reni, it depicts Saint Philip Neri in adoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The rooms has a collection of old dusty Baroque cabinets overflowing with relics, in the room is also the saint’s own confessional and his bed. Next to the chapel is the saint’s own private oratory which was also moved here, the room itself where the saint lived was maintained in its original simplicity as a testament to the holy state of poverty the saint lived in.

So next time you’re in the Eternal City, you've done your Colosseum and your St. Peter's, you came back a second time and you did your churches and museums, and you’re up to some mischief, come visit the rooms of Rome’s Baroque saints. You won't be disappointed.