Santa Maria della Vittoria site features

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

The reason to come. Commissioned from Gian Lorenzo Bernini by the family of Cardinal Federico Cornaro, executed in marble and gilded bronze between 1647 and 1652. It is among the most celebrated works of all Baroque sculpture, and it depicts the moment Saint Teresa of Ávila described in her autobiography: the vivid vision of a Seraph piercing her heart with a golden shaft.

The staging

What makes it work is not the carving alone but the scenic construction that sets the saint suspended at the centre of a very white and soft cloud, with gilded rays behind. Stand centrally. From an angle it falls apart.

The chapel light

A coin box. The group was designed around light and no longer reliably gets it; the coins are how you see the faces rather than the drapery.

Soria's façade

Paid for by Scipione Borghese, who also granted the Carmelites his own architect, and erected between 1624 and 1626 while Maderno was still alive — so the church has one architect inside and another at the front.

The name

It was built as a chapel dedicated to Saint Paul. The rededication to the Virgin followed the Catholic victory at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, which reversed the Reformation in Bohemia. The church is named after a battle.

The interior surfaces

Contrasting marble revetments enriched with white and gilded stucco angels and putti in full relief. Read them knowing the interior suffered a fire in 1833 and required restoration.

The nave

Turismo Roma describes a Latin cross with a single nave under a barrel vault and three chapels per side; Wikipedia a single wide nave under a low segmental vault with three interconnecting side chapels. Either way it is one room — the Cornaro Chapel is a few paces from the door.