Italian
Writer's
GUIDE
TO
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
Piazza St. Ignazio
If you look for a place where to find the true essence of Rome
walk this astounding square, surrounded by buildings resembling an eighteenth-century theater's stage:
real life and artistic creation are closely intertwined in the same spot for your delight
Sometimes life seems to take on the hue of a theatrical fiction. Piazza St. Ignazio is the most remarkable example of such charming combination in downtown Rome. When architect Filippo Raguzzini devised the square in the eighteenth century, he wanted it to be the summit of the rococo style: a late-baroque reverie of elegance, curved surfaces and perfectly drawn asymmetrical volumes, designed for the visitor's astonishment and entertainement. In a sense, it had to be just like theater.
And theater it is, with the refined building parading in front of you as if you were in the middle of a stage: it comes as quite a surprise to the visitors to raise their eyes and find the blue sky rather than a theater's ceiling, so powerful is the impression given by the Raguzzini's clever and superlative design.
Raguzzini used new weapons when engaging in this struggle. He simply turned the visual angle around, thus solving all the aesthetic problems by a single stroke of genius: from then on, interest was no longer concentrated upon the church façade, but instead upon the new ensemble of buildings. Raguzzini, for the first time, designed blocks of rented apartments to look like palazzi [...] yielding to the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie.
Words from a contemporary Grand Tour
Stefan Grundmann, "The Architecture of Rome", 1998
Visitor information
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Between Via del Corso and the Pantheon
Piazza S. Ignazio - Rome
Always open
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Special atmosphere and sunlight effects at dawn