Sant’Andrea della Valle stands on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II in the historic centre of Rome, its façade (completed 1665) a relatively late addition to a building whose construction ran from 1591 to the mid-seventeenth century. The history of that construction is, in compressed form, the history of early Baroque Rome.
The Theatines, or Clerics Regular of Divine Providence, founded in 1524 by Gian Pietro Carafa (1476–1559), later Pope Paul IV, received the commission from Cardinal Alfonso Gesualdo (1540–1603), protector of the order, in 1591. The architects Giacomo della Porta (c.1532–1602) and the Theatine Francesco Grimaldi (1543–1613) drew up the plan on the model of Il Gesù. Foundations and convent were laid in 1591; the main walls rose between 1594 and 1596; chapels and nave vault were largely complete by 1599. When Gesualdo died in 1603, funds collapsed and building halted for five years. Work resumed only under Cardinal Alessandro Peretti di Montalto (1571–1623), grandnephew of Pope Sixtus V, who from 1608 entrusted the completion to Carlo Maderno (1556–1629). Under Maderno the nave was extended and the dome was raised: at 16.1 metres in diameter, the second largest among Rome’s church domes after St Peter’s. It was completed in 1623, receiving a lantern to which a young Francesco Borromini (1599–1667), then in Maderno’s workshop, contributed in 1621. Vaults and roofs were finished by 1625. The interior was ready for the jubilee of 1650; the façade, designed by Maderno, was completed by Carlo Rainaldi (1611–1691) and Carlo Fontana (1638–1714). The final phases were financed by Cardinal Francesco Peretti di Montalto (1597–1655) and Pope Alexander VII Chigi (1599–1667; reigned 1655–1667), whose patronage the dedicatory inscription records.
The decoration of the interior, begun after 1620, is the building’s principal claim on attention. It brought together two painters who had trained under Annibale Carracci (1560–1609): Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri, 1581–1641) and Giovanni Lanfranco (1582–1647). The commission was fought over. Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi (1595–1632), nephew of Gregory XV (Alessandro Ludovisi, 1554–1623; reigned 1621–1623), pushed to give Domenichino both the pendentives and the dome. Cardinal Montalto, who still controlled the site, refused to yield the dome to Ludovisi’s candidate. The dispute reportedly came close to a duel. The eventual compromise gave Domenichino the pendentives and the vault and conch of the apse; Lanfranco the dome.
Domenichino worked in the apse between 1622 and 1627. The vault bay opens with John the Baptist Proclaiming Christ to Saints Peter and Andrew; the conch shows The Call of Peter and Andrew at its centre, flanked by The Flagellation of St Andrew and St Andrew Being Shown his Cross, with the Apotheosis of St Andrew above. On the four pendentives, the Evangelists sit with a physical gravity that anchors the register below the dome. The compositions are legible, the gestures deliberate. Domenichino had formed himself on Raphael and on the Carracci reform, and the apse proceeds on that basis throughout: figures that endure and reason rather than ascend.
Lanfranco’s dome fresco, the Glory of Paradise (1625–1628), covers 622 square metres. The Virgin, robed in red with a blue mantle, ascends through a press of clouds populated by patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and heroines of Scripture; two putti are about to crown her with roses; angelic musicians circle above; at the lantern’s base, seven cherubs support garlands of fruit and flowers. Christ, in a white robe, descends from the lantern to receive her, his light dissolving the nearest figures into pale air, gaining body lower through tones of pink, yellow, grey, orange, green, and violet. Among the lower figures, Saint Andrew holds his cross and welcomes the Theatine Saint Andrea Avellino (1521–1608; canonised 1624, just a year before the commission began) into Paradise; Saint Peter greets Saint Cajetan (1480–1547), founder of the order. The composition draws on Correggio’s dome frescoes in Parma, brought to Roman scale. The fresco set the standard for illusionistic dome painting in Rome for the following decades; Bernini admired it.
The three large apse wall frescoes — the Crucifixion, Martyrdom, and Burial of Saint Andrew — are by Mattia Preti (1613–1699), painted 1650–1651 on commission from Cardinal Francesco Peretti di Montalto and Donna Olimpia Maidalchini. Preti’s Crucifixion shows Saint Andrew on the X-shaped saltire, at a diagonal against a concentrated light source, drawing on Caravaggio in its directness and physical weight. Preti’s Theatine patrons were satisfied; later critics have rated his contribution below those of his predecessors.
What Domenichino and Lanfranco had worked out between them at Sant’Andrea della Valle continued in Naples. In 1631 Domenichino accepted the decoration of the Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro in Naples Cathedral, where he spent a decade on pendentives, lunettes, twelve fresco scenes, and three oil-on-copper altarpieces representing scenes from the life of Saint Gennaro. He died in Naples in 1641 with the dome still unpainted. Lanfranco was called in to complete it, painting his Paradiso in 1643: figures and angels spiralling toward a radiant Christ, the architecture surrendering to light and movement. The same arrangement — Domenichino’s systematic work on the walls and vaults, Lanfranco’s illusionism above — played out in Naples as it had in Rome, this time to conclusion.
Mattia Preti ( 613-1699), The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew, Fresco, 650 x 400 cm, Sant’Andrea della Valle, Rome
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Domenichino (1581–1641), The Flagellation of Saint Andrew – Above the left window, the apostle endures his scourging before martyrdom.
Domenichino (1581–1641), The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew – Above the right window, the saint is shown at the moment of crucifixion.
Domenichino (1581–1641), Saint Andrew in Glory – In the apse’s semicircular vault, the saint ascends triumphantly into heaven, completing the narrative of faith and endurance.
Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri, 1581–1641), Virtues surrounding the apse windows – Six allegorical figures representing Charity, Faith, Religion, Contempt of the World, Fortitude, and Christian Contemplation. Above the lateral windows, nude figures wreath festoons of fruit alluding to the Peretti family, the patrons of the work.
Domenichino (1581–1641), Saints Andrew, John the Evangelist, and John the Baptist – Central composition between the windows, depicting the Baptist pointing to the coming Redeemer.
Domenichino (1581–1641), Christ Calling Saints Peter and Andrew – Above the central window, Christ summons the two apostles to follow Him.
Domenichino (1581–1641), Saints Andrew, John the Evangelist, and John the Baptist – Central composition between the windows, depicting the Baptist pointing to the coming Redeemer.
Domenichino (1581–1641), Christ Calling Saints Peter and Andrew – Above the central window, Christ summons the two apostles to follow Him.
References
Blunt, A. (2025) A Guide to Baroque Rome: The Churches. 2nd edn. London: Pallas Athene.
Haskell, F. (1963) Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque. London: Chatto & Windus
Spear, R.E. (1982) Domenichino. 2 vols. New Haven and London: Yale University Press
Wittkower, R. (1999) Art and Architecture in Italy 1600–1750, vol. 2: High Baroque, revised by J. Connors and J. Montagu. 4th edn. New Haven and London: Yale University Press (Pelican History of Art)