RAGUZZINI, Filippo

Piazza Sant’Ignazio, surrounded by an ensemble of five residential buildings for the growing administration class of the city, is characterised by its complex interplay of ovoid shapes and the ingenious theatre-wing like construction. People walking from the nearby Piazza di Pietra find themselves suddenly emerging in Piazza San Ignazio into a confrontation with the church, as if they had stumbled in from offstage. Although the decorative effect of the buildings is an important component of their overall effect, the ensemble signifies a departure from the typical operative logic of the anteposed piazza. Raguzzini subtly undermines the supremacy of the church in the church/piazza relationship typical of Counter-Reformation urban planning, and invests the space of the piazza itself with considerable energy and intrigue: in this way, the church has become a pendant to the piazza, rather than the reason for the piazza’s existence.

View the plan of the Piazza San Ignazio, Rome.

Piazza Sant’Ignazio, surrounded by an ensemble of five residential buildings for the growing administration class of the city, is characterised by its complex interplay of ovoid shapes and the ingenious theatre-wing like construction. People walking from the nearby Piazza di Pietra find themselves suddenly emerging in Piazza San Ignazio into a confrontation with the church, as if they had stumbled in from offstage. Although the decorative effect of the buildings is an important component of their overall effect, the ensemble signifies a departure from the typical operative logic of the anteposed piazza. Raguzzini subtly undermines the supremacy of the church in the church/piazza relationship typical of Counter-Reformation urban planning, and invests the space of the piazza itself with considerable energy and intrigue: in this way, the church has become a pendant to the piazza, rather than the reason for the piazza’s existence.

View the plan of the Piazza San Ignazio, Rome.

Piazza Sant’Ignazio, surrounded by an ensemble of five residential buildings for the growing administration class of the city, is characterised by its complex interplay of ovoid shapes and the ingenious theatre-wing like construction. People walking from the nearby Piazza di Pietra find themselves suddenly emerging in Piazza San Ignazio into a confrontation with the church, as if they had stumbled in from offstage. Although the decorative effect of the buildings is an important component of their overall effect, the ensemble signifies a departure from the typical operative logic of the anteposed piazza. Raguzzini subtly undermines the supremacy of the church in the church/piazza relationship typical of Counter-Reformation urban planning, and invests the space of the piazza itself with considerable energy and intrigue: in this way, the church has become a pendant to the piazza, rather than the reason for the piazza’s existence.

The construction of Santa Maria della Quercia, the church of the butchers’ guild of Rome, appears to have been sponsored by Benedict XIII. The church is named for a miraculous image housed at Viterbo in the care of the Dominicans and, as Dominican himself, Benedict seems to have taken a keen interest in the church. Although renovated, this church is a masterpiece of the style of the 1720s-1730s and is one of the few early 18th century churches in Rome built from the ground up and designed by a single person.

The picture shows the fa�ade of the church.