Wednesday 1 March 2006: More Borromini and the Modern Art Museum

The morning was spent visiting many of Borromini’s works: St. Ivo’s Church, Chiesa Nuova, San Giovanni of the Florentines. Borromini was underappreciated during his life and only after his tragic death did scholars begin to realize his artistic genius. He was a troubled soul who was difficult to work with. Borromini was in competition and at the same time collaboration with Bernini. Bernini was a sociable artist, who was loved by his patrons. Their rivalry ended with Borromini’s suicide.

St. Ivo’s
St. Ivo’s is a church that was completely designed by Borromini. Scholars have studied the structure because of its unusual shape. St. Ivo’s is the seat of the head of education until 1935. The theme of the church is wisdom and the decoration of the church holds true to this theme. Some scholars say that the floor plan is meant to look like a bee in flight or a hexagon, which is the symbol of a honeycomb and therefore connected to the bee imagery. The bee symbolizes wisdom and intelligence.


The most stunning part of this church is the lantern that spirals up to heaven. Scholars have tried to figure out the symbolism behind the spiraling lantern. The few discussed today were: conch shell, allegory of philosophy, imagery from the Old Testament (pillar of fire), and the most believable the papal tiara.

Chiesa Nuova


Borromini designed the oratory that is attached to this church. In order to not take anything away from the splendor of the church Borromini was not allowed to use marble columns in his design. In order to get around this he built columns out of brick. Borromini has taken a lot of his designs from Michelangelo, which can be seen in the windows of this façade.


What Borromini does, however, is change the original slightly in order to add a sweeping, swirling movement (characteristic of the Baroque). We went inside the oratory, which also has an incredible library, but it was closed so we wandered around inside for a while staring through windows and standing in courtyards.

San Giovanni of the Florentines (The Florentine Church)
Borromini is buried inside of this church.


He also designed the dome and cross-section of the Church. Borromini was a troubled soul and died a very sad death. One day Bernini was talking with Louis XIV and mentioned that he thought Borromini’s work was gothic. This was a terrible thing to say because it meant Borromini’s work was old fashioned and didn’t fit the times. The word of this affront spread like wildfire and poor Borromini upon hearing it stopped going out and fell into a great depression. One evening he chooses to rewrite his will. While he is writing his servant tells him he must go to sleep and turns out the light. In the middle of the night Borromini wakes up and wanted the light turned on. His servant refused and in a fit of rage and frustration he decided to inflict some type of bodily harm on himself. He saw a sword at the head of his bed, laid it on the bed and fell on it. He did not die immediately. Instead he writhed in pain for 14 hours until he bled to death. During this time he wrote out the account of his death so everyone would know about his sad demise.

On this happy note we all split for lunch.

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna
This afternoon we caught the 116 mini-bus up to the Villa Borghese so we could take a short stroll over to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (the modern art museum).


The museum was incredible. Lisa talked to us for a little while about modern style of Italian painting called Futurism. Futurism was a movement that began in the early 1900’s. It asked for artists to throw away past art and turn to a modern approach that had no connection to antiquity.


The museum was full of all different sorts of modern art and also a few interactive exhibits. An Italian artist in the 1960’s created interactive exhibit where you walk inside of a dark box and all of the sudden lights turn on and manipulate your experience. It was very interesting to look at art that was not ancient and stare at the bold colors and strange designs.



Ciao,
Ema