San Agnese, Rome

After his election in 1641 Pope Innocent X had ambitions to make Piazza Navona the grandest of all in Rome. His family's (Pamphili) palace was situated there.....It was to be dominated by a new Church dedicated to St Agnese and Innocent wanted  to be buried there .The Piazza was the site of the Circus of Domitian and traditionally where St. Agnes had been martyred. There had been a church there dedicated to her since the 8th century. It had been aligned in the opposite direction and since 1581 possessed by the Congregazione dei Chierici Regolari Minore. It was now considered inadequate for their needs. Carlo Rainaldi, and his father Girolamo, were employed and the foundation stone laid in 1652. The site was constricted and due to its shallowness a Greek cross design was adopted. Work progressed quickly but the Rainaldis soon came under fire and they were dismissed. For example the planned big flight of steps into the Piazza was going to take up too much space there. 

 Chosen by the Pope  Borromini took over in  August 1653. He was stuck with the basic shape because part of the facade and the  pillars for the crossing were well advanced. First he pulled down the central part of Rainaldi's facade and abandoned the planned vestibule and huge flight of steps. This allowed the central section to be joined up with the end bays with concave units. The end bays with their cupolas were retained with some revisions. 

Night shot toward St Agnes. Creative Commons Michael Foley 

In the interior he transformed the building and his alterations emphasised the octagonal nature of the central area and the feeling of height. The site is shallow so the transverse axis is 10% longer than the longitudinal axis. The feeling of height is because the the height is 25% greater than the longitudinal. The coloured marble columns leading to the tall arches, highly coloured pendatives and cupoila all give an upward thrust. The red and white marble illuminated by light from the dome dominate the central space. John Varriano in Italian Baroque and Rococo Architecture (Oxford, 1986) sees this as part of the Counter Reformation  trend of salvation coming from above : therefore priest and people are looking upward. 

Interior looking toward high altar Creative Commons NikonZ711

Near the end of 1653 the Pamphili bought the adjoining Palazzo Ornano and after it had been demolished Borromini was able to use the space for a sacristy and courtyard. It also enabled him to extend the facade. By 1655 when Innocent died the building was nowhere near finished. The Pamphili family continued with the work but relations with Borromini declined and he withdrew. Carlo Rainaldi returned in 1657 and with some help from others, completed in 1657. Of course he made some changes from Borromini's intentions including a high attic storey to the facade and changed the nature of the pediment.

Work progressed internally into the next century, particularly with the large marble relief altar pieces. Domenico Guidi only completed the Holy Family relief for the high altar in 1724. We now have a museum of Roman sculpture and perhaps the finest Baroque church decoration in Rome.

View into frescoed cupola and pendentives; apse on left, entrance with organ and tomb of Pope Innocent X on right

Many different artists had worked on the planning, building and decoration of this church. There is a similarity in its complex development with that of St Peter's. It is almost a kind of replay  and we have been shown a new way of solving the relationship of facade and dome- a better way. Here the great high dome set on its elegant drum crowns the exterior  reminding us of Borromini's greatness and graces Rome's finest square.