Giornale 5: Chiesa del Gesu

I was originally planning on going on my final solo excursion the same day that I went to Keats-Shelley House, but I overestimated my energy and was forced to push it to my last day in Rome. Saturday morning Emily and I decided that we wanted to return to Sant’Eustachio, the deservingly well-known coffee shop that we visited as a group after walking through the Piazza Navona. After we bought ground coffee to bring back to our families and savored our last Roman cappuccino, we walked to the Chiesa Del Gesu, one of the sites on the “big churches” list. I have to admit that as I was walking, I was less than excited about seeing another church. I thought to myself about all the churches we had visit over the course of the two weeks and felt like they were all beginning to blend together in my mind. I also thought about how I had already seen such beautiful and grand churches like St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and the Basilica of St. John Lateran, and wondered how a church I had never heard of could possibly compare. Walking into the Church, my first reaction was that the lighting was much dimmer than other churches I had seen. Even though there were plenty of windows at the top, light didn’t seem to pour in the way it did in most of the other places of worship we had been in. At the entrance of the Church I glanced at a visual guide map to the Church’s chapels and niches; I was surprised to see that there were two tombs (to Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Joseph Maria Pignatelli). After orienting myself with these facts that I may not have realized on my own, I began to walk around the Church and see all of its chapels. Many of the chapels constructed with darker red and gray marbles reminded me of the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. As I gained interest in the Church’s details and was trying to make them out in the dim lighting, I realized that I had walked right up to a confessional that was in use. I was slightly startled because it reminded me that I was in a functioning Church that is frequented as much by Roman parishioners as foreign tourists. Keeping my eye out for other confessionals for the rest of my visit, I noticed faint light and voices emanating from most of them. This was definitely the busiest church I had been to in Rome in terms of actual religious activity. For the 45 minutes I spent walking around, dozens of nuns also entered the building. After I surveyed the main altar and all the chapels, I felt that it was time to leave. On my way out I almost missed one of my favorite features of the Church; before the central aisle a mirror had been placed facing the ceiling at an angle. Walking up to it one could suddenly see the ceiling’s details. I noticed for the first time the illusion created with the combination of painting and stucco work. After enjoying the now-illuminated artwork, I had no complaints about the Church; the dark lighting was not a problem, after all. Once again pleasantly surprised by a structure in Rome, I felt that I had found another site worth revisiting some day.