POZZO, Andrea

The picture shows a detail of the fresco on the nave vault.

The picture shows a detail of the fresco on the nave vault.

The picture shows a detail of the fresco on the nave vault.

The picture shows a detail of the fresco on the nave vault.

The most important sculptural commissions of the late seventeenth century in Rome came from the Jesuits, who embarked upon the transformation of the Gesù and sant’Ignazio in the full flood of triumphalism in the 1680s and 1690s. The stimulus came from a gifted Jesuit lay brother with a flair for illusionistic painting and design, Andrea Pozzo. In 1695, Pozzo obtained the commission for one of the most splendidly extravagant of Baroque altars, that of the Jesuits’ founder, St Ignatius Loyola, in the church of the Gesù.

Embracing the whole of the left transept, the altar assumes the form of an undulating aedicule which breaks open to reveal a statue of the saint (actually a stucco copy of the original, silver and gilded copper statue, destroyed in 1798) beneath a representation of the Trinity; this central group is surrounded by gilt-bronze and marble reliefs illustrating scenes from Loyola’s ministry as well as large marble tableaux of the triumphs of Faith and Religion. The whole is further enriched by the profusion of rare marbles and lapis lazuli as well as gold and silver, all intended to evoke admiration and wander.

Some one hundred artists and artisans worked on the altar, and the most important commissions went to two Frenchmen. Jean-Baptist Th�odon (1645-1713) and Pierre Le Gros the Younger (1666-1719). Th�odon executed the over life-size marble group of the Triumph of Faith over Idolatry and Le Gros the Religion Overthrowing Heresy and Hatred, both archetypal images of the Church Triumphant. The initial conception for each sculpture would have been supplied by Pozzo, whose earlier fresco in Sant’Ignazio essayed similar themes, but the sculptors must have been given a fairly free hand in realizing such abstract ideas.

Although it was carried out in the last years of the 17th century, the Saint Ignatius altarpiece is one of the high points in Roman Baroque sculpture. Father Pozzo provided the drawings for the ensemble and called on a number of specialists to carry out the work. The altar gleams with vivid colours of lapis lazuli, which covers the travertine of the columns, gilded bronze, silver, coloured alabasters and marbles. The sculptural decoration creates powerful effects of movement. On the urn, a masterpiece by Algardi, stands the statue of St Ignatius, not the original, but a version reworked in 1814 under Canova’s direction.

The picture shows the fresco on the antechoir vault.

Pozzo had achieved his first successes as painter of perspective church decorations working as a lay brother of the Society of Jesus in Lombardy, where he also gained experience as a painter of figures. His works there and his painting in the Jesuit church at Mondovi (Piedmont) had made him so famous that he was greatly sought after by secular patrons as well.

The picture shows the simulated cupola with the Apotheosis of St Francis Xavier painted in the in the Jesuit church at Mondovi.

The fresco in the apse calotte was executed in 1687-88. It shows St Ignatius floating downward on a cloud as a helper of Rome’s sick and poor. Here the painter produced a seemingly two-dimensional image on a concave surface.

The picture represents Sant’Ignazio Curing Victims of the Plague. It is part of the decorative program by Andrea Pozzo which focused on the miracles of the founder of the Jesuit order. The frescoes were considered, both in Rome and beyond, an excellent example of the Baroque technique of creating the illusion of architectural depth in painting.

The picture shows the ceiling fresco in the Hercules Hall of the Liechtenstein Garden Palace at Rossau.

The decorative scheme of the Hercules Hall culminates in the ceiling fresco by Andrea Pozzo. The monumental painting relates the story of Hercules from his birth and the strangling of the snakes placed by his cradle by Juno, to his fight with the Nemean Lion and other monsters, his defeat of Antaeus and the Amazons, his humiliation by Omphale, his punishment of Nessus to his suicide on a funeral pyre, with Hebe suspended above it, and the allegorical triumph of his translation to Olympus.

The ceiling frescoes, on which Pozzo worked for four years, are his main work north of the Alps.

The picture shows a detail from the ceiling fresco with the Deeds of Hercules and his Apotheosis in the Hercules Hall, Liechtenstein Garden Palace at Rossau.

The picture shows Andrea Pozzo’s “Sitientes venite ad aquas” (Thirsty, come to the waters), festival decor for Il Gesù, with representation of the apse after Baciccio. It was published in Pozzo’s “Perspectiva pictorum architectorum” (Rome, 1698).

The illusionistic expansion of spaces with painted mock architecture in Baroque ceiling and wall decorations would never have attained perfection had it not been based on the painting of theatre sets and ephemeral decorations for all manner of religious and secular celebrations developed since the Renaissance.

The picture shows a detail from the ceiling fresco with the Deeds of Hercules and his Apotheosis in the Hercules Hall, Liechtenstein Garden Palace at Rossau.

The picture shows a detail from the ceiling fresco with the Deeds of Hercules and his Apotheosis in the Hercules Hall, Liechtenstein Garden Palace at Rossau. The detail represents the amazement at Hercules’s first heroic deed choking Juno’s snakes.

This spectacular composition is almost an inventory of Baroque architectural ceilings and their final triumph. According to Jesuit ideas, the space within a church was a single area in which the faithful congregated. In Sant’Ignazio space is stretched (Pozzo was clever at the illusion of “doubling” the perspective of the real architecture) before exploding into light and glory. Saints, angels, allegories, and floating clouds accentuate the virtuoso effect. The impression is one of exuberance and freedom. In reality, it was worked out using scientific criteria.

Designed to be viewed from a point in the centre of the nave, which is marked by a white stone, Padre Pozzo’s ceiling produces the illusion of a palace opening on the sky.

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The figures of the illusionistic fresco on the ceiling of the nave in Sant’Ignazio people the sky, they inhabit it as far as the eye can see, and dazzling light envelops them.The nearer they are to the source of divine illumination, the more ethereal they become. Aerial perspective supports the diminution of figures in creating the sensation of infinitude.

Pozzo’s work on the ceiling of the nave in Sant’Ignazio - together with Baciccio’s work in the Gesù - are regarded as the epitome of monumental Baroque painting. It is interesting to note that they were done at a time when High Baroque architecture and sculpture had long passed their zenith.

The ceiling fresco is also referred to as the Apotheose of Sant’Ignazio.

The picture shows a detail from the ceiling fresco with the Deeds of Hercules and his Apotheosis in the Hercules Hall, Liechtenstein Garden Palace at Rossau.

The picture shows the corridor leading to the rooms once occupied by St Ignatius Loyola (Camere di Sant’Ignazio) in the Casa Professa del Gesù in Rome. Here Pozzo created a perspective that made out of the small space with architectural irregularities a virtual gallery after the pattern of the Galleria Colonna in the Palazzo Colonna, Rome. Its figural program, with scenes from the life of St Ignatius, was so skillfully integrated into the scenographic architecture that one has the impression that this is in fact a monumental gallery. Only when one walks through it is the reality revealed.

The effect of the simulated cupola rests largely on the figural groupings on the pendentives, which were executed immediately after the canvas with the painted cupola was put in place. Painted on actual concave pendentives, they make the sham cupola more believable, especially when viewed from the entrance. The monumental figures (Judith, David, Samson, Jael) have an imposing physicality, emphasized by their bright colours and strong contrasts.

The effect of the simulated cupola rests largely on the figural groupings on the pendentives, which were executed immediately after the canvas with the painted cupola was put in place. Painted on actual concave pendentives, they make the sham cupola more believable, especially when viewed from the entrance. The monumental figures (Judith, David, Samson, Jael) have an imposing physicality, emphasized by their bright colours and strong contrasts.

The effect of the simulated cupola rests largely on the figural groupings on the pendentives, which were executed immediately after the canvas with the painted cupola was put in place. Painted on actual concave pendentives, they make the sham cupola more believable, especially when viewed from the entrance. The monumental figures (Judith, David, Samson, Jael) have an imposing physicality, emphasized by their bright colours and strong contrasts.

The effect of the simulated cupola rests largely on the figural groupings on the pendentives, which were executed immediately after the canvas with the painted cupola was put in place. Painted on actual concave pendentives, they make the sham cupola more believable, especially when viewed from the entrance. The monumental figures (Judith, David, Samson, Jael) have an imposing physicality, emphasized by their bright colours and strong contrasts.

The picture shows a detail from the ceiling fresco with the Deeds of Hercules and his Apotheosis in the Hercules Hall, Liechtenstein Garden Palace at Rossau.

The painted program in the church was completed in 1697-98 by frescoes on the right transept vault (Vision of St Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi) and on the tribune wall (three scenes from the lives of Jesuit saints). The left transept was frescoed only in 1720 with the Assumption of the Virgin by Ludovico Mazzanti.

Pozzo points to a preparatory painting on canvas for his illusionistic decoration of Rome’s Church of Sant’Ignazio; the monochrome sketch emphasizes the realism of Pozzo’s self-portrait, commissioned by Cosimo III.

During the construction of the church of Sant’Ignazio, there was a dispute with the Dominicans of Santa Maria sopra Minerva who objected the planned cupola because it would have stolen light from their library. It was recommended by the architect Mattia de’Rossi, that the cupola problem could be resolved by having one painted instead of actually built. The architecture painter and Jesuit lay brother Andrea Pozzo was selected for the commission, which was completed in 1685.

That one of the most venerable architectural features of Roman church architecture could be replaced by a painting was something as spectacular as it was symptomatic. By means of perspective, Pozzo had managed to triumph over architecture with the arsenal of painting. The simulated cupola, as an alternative to actual constructed architecture, was born of necessity, but it demonstrated both that painting could not only replace architecture in ephemeral festival settings and that permanent theatrical effects were permissible in a sacred space.

This painting was conceived as an altarpiece for the Church of Our Lady (“Matthias Church”) in Budapest. It is now on permanent loan from the History Museum, Budapest.

After the liberation of Hungary from the Turkish occupation, the church of Our Lady in Buda Castle passed into the ownership of the Society of Jesus. Their annals referred as early as 1701 to a “new and elegant” altarpiece of St. Francis Xavier, while a minute record from 1710 also describes the subject of the picture and its great artistic value. In this latter notice it is also mentioned that the altarpiece was painted by the greatly loved member of the order, the highly gifted Andrea Pozzo. The note about this brilliant and versatile Baroque artist (he was a painter, drawer, aquarellist, architectural designer, as well as an art theoretician), written in the year following his death, should be taken as fully authentic. It is inspired by the pleasure the Jesuits of Buda felt with the possession of at least one work of art from his splendid oeuvre.

The picture represents one of the most glorious successes of St. Francis Xavier as a Jesuit missionary in India: the very moment of his baptizing Queen Neachile of India, an eminent member of the royal family, giving her the name Isabella. Until then the Queen, a devout adherent of the ancient Indian religion, had been a most stubborn enemy of the Cristian faith, so her conversion was regarded as a singular achievement of Cristian missionary work in the Far East.

In Pozzo’s oeuvre there are also some other variations on the same theme. In the Buda altarpiece the main figures of the scene are brought into relief by a monumental shaping; the modelling of light and shadow lays emphasis on the moment of administering the sacrament. The balance of the composition is given by a kneeling boy who holds a baptismal bowl in his hands - a figure entirely absent in the other variations.

On the ceiling of the nave St Ignatius is depicted in a state of ecstasy, and functions as a mediator between heaven and earth. Issuing from his heart are four rays of flame radiating outwards toward elaborate animated groupings representing the four corners of the globe. These personifications sit enthroned above monstrous giants. The four groupings suggest the worldwide reach of the Jesuits’ missionary activity.

On the ceiling of the nave St Ignatius is depicted in a state of ecstasy, and functions as a mediator between heaven and earth. Issuing from his heart are four rays of flame radiating outwards toward elaborate animated groupings representing the four corners of the globe. These personifications sit enthroned above monstrous giants. The four groupings suggest the worldwide reach of the Jesuits’ missionary activity.

On the ceiling of the nave St Ignatius is depicted in a state of ecstasy, and functions as a mediator between heaven and earth. Issuing from his heart are four rays of flame radiating outwards toward elaborate animated groupings representing the four corners of the globe. These personifications sit enthroned above monstrous giants. The four groupings suggest the worldwide reach of the Jesuits’ missionary activity.

On the ceiling of the nave St Ignatius is depicted in a state of ecstasy, and functions as a mediator between heaven and earth. Issuing from his heart are four rays of flame radiating outwards toward elaborate animated groupings representing the four corners of the globe. These personifications sit enthroned above monstrous giants. The four groupings suggest the worldwide reach of the Jesuits’ missionary activity.

The decorative scheme of the Hercules Hall of the Liechtenstein Garden Palace at Rossau culminates in the ceiling fresco by Andrea Pozzo. The monumental painting relates the story of Hercules from his birth and the strangling of the snakes placed by his cradle by Juno, to his fight with the Nemean Lion and other monsters, his defeat of Antaeus and the Amazons, his humiliation by Omphale, his punishment of Nessus to his suicide on a funeral pyre, with Hebe suspended above it, and the allegorical triumph of his translation to Olympus.

The ceiling frescoes, on which Pozzo worked for four years, are his main work north of the Alps.

During the construction of the church of Sant’Ignazio, there was a dispute with the Dominicans of Santa Maria sopra Minerva who objected the planned cupola because it would have stolen light from their library. It was recommended by the architect Mattia de’Rossi, that the cupola problem could be resolved by having one painted instead of actually built. The architecture painter and Jesuit lay brother Andrea Pozzo was selected for the commission, which was completed in 1685.

The effect of the simulated cupola rests largely on the figural groupings on the pendentives, which were executed immediately after the canvas with the painted cupola was put in place. Painted on actual concave pendentives, they make the sham cupola more believable, especially when viewed from the entrance. The monumental figures (Judith, David, Samson, Jael) have an imposing physicality, emphasized by their bright colours and strong contrasts.

The fresco in the apse calotte was executed in 1687-88. It shows St Ignatius floating downward on a cloud as a helper of Rome’s sick and poor. Here the painter produced a seemingly two-dimensional image on a concave surface. The antechoir vault fresco, painted at the same time, depicts the Vision of St Ignatius at the Battle of Pamplona.

Pozzo secured the commission for painting of centre aisle in 1688. He worked on St Ignatius in Glory, The Four Corners of the World, and the Mission of the Jesuit Order for five years until the unveiling in July, 1694.

The painted program in the church was completed in 1697-98 by frescoes on the right transept vault (Vision of St Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi) and on the tribune wall (three scenes from the lives of Jesuit saints). The left transept was frescoed only in 1720 with the Assumption of the Virgin by Ludovico Mazzanti.

In the artistic skill and trompe-l’oeil technique the decoration of Sant’Ignazio could not be surpassed. For Rome such virtuosity in perspective was both a climax and a conclusion.