The Church of the Gesù ( or "Church of the Holy Name of Jesus") is the mother church of the Society of Jesus, known as the Jesuits, an order of the Roman Catholic Church. Its facade recognized as "the first truly baroque facade" it was the model for innumerable Jesuit churches all over the world, especially in the Americas. The Church of the Gesù is located in the Piazza del Gesù in Rome.

First conceived in 1551 by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits Society of Jesus, and active during the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent Catholic Reformation, the Gesù was also the home of the Superior General of the Society of Jesus until the suppression of the order in 1773.

Although Michelangelo offered to design the church for free, the endeavor was funded by Alessandro Cardinal Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III, who had authorized the founding of the Society of Jesus.

Construction of the church began in 1568 to Vignola's design, and, since it set a pattern for Jesuit churches that lasted into the twentieth century, its innovations require enumerating. The Jesuit Mother Church was built according to the new requirements formulated during the Council of Trent. There is no narthex in which to linger: the visitor is projected immediately into the body of the church, a single nave without aisles, so that the congregation is assembled and attention is focused on the high altar. In place of aisles there are a series of identical interconnecting chapels behind arched openings, to which entrance is controlled by decorative balustrades with gates. Transepts are reduced to stubs that emphasize the altars of their end walls.

The plan synthesizes the central planning of the High Renaissance, expressed by the grand scale of the dome and the prominent piers of the crossing, with the extended nave that had been characteristic of the preaching churches, a type of church established by Franciscans and Dominicans since the thirteenth century. Everywhere inlaid polychrome marble revetments are relieved by gilding, frescoed barrel vaults enrich the ceiling and rhetorical white stucco and marble sculptures break out of their tectonic framing. The example of the Gesù did not completely eliminate the traditional basilica church with aisles, but after its example was set, experiments in Baroque church floor plans, oval or Greek cross, were largely confined to smaller churches and chapels.

Open hours

7.00 am to 12.30 am and 4.00 pm to 7.45 pm

Address

The main entrance of the Church is located at Piazza of the Gesù

Phone

00186 Rome (Italy) / +39 06.697001

Transport

• By underground: The closest underground stop is Colosseo (line B).
• By bus: lines 60, 84, 85, 175, 810, 850 which stop in piazza Venezia.
• By train: From the Termini Railway Station, use the bus line 64 fino alla fermata Corso Rinascimento.

Website

http://www.chiesadelgesu.org

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