The Holy Name: Art of the Gesù; Bernini and His Age

VG + hardcover, noi DJ as issued. 640 pages, immaculately illustrated. The Holy Name: Art of the Gesù. Bernini and His Age is the most significant book available in any language on the Church of the Gesù in Rome—the mother church of the Society of Jesus. It is a permanent record of the landmark exhibition, mounted at the Fairfield University Art Museum (1 February – 19 May 2018), that featured artistic treasures, never before seen in the U.S., from the Gesù: Bernini’s bust of St. Robert Bellarmine; Gaulli’s monumental painted wood model of the apse; a gilt bronze altar sculpture by the versatile painter, draftsman and sculptor Ciro Ferri; the sumptuous jeweled cartegloria from the altar of St. Ignatius of Loyola; and the magnificent embroidered chasuble of the Gesù’s great benefactor, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. These masterpieces were joined by more than fifty paintings, sculptures, rare books, precious objects, drawings, prints, and historical documents by Bernini, Domenichino, Gaulli, Ciro Ferri, Carlo Maratta, and Andrea Pozzo, among other Italian baroque masters, on loan from U.S. museums and private collections. Richly illustrated with 246 color images, this volume tells the fascinating and intertwined stories of the Gesù’s early history and splendid interior embellishment, together with the foundational chapters of the Society of Jesus. The narrative threads of these stories include the enviable patronage of the powerful Farnese family, who championed the cause of the new order and funded the building of the Gesù; the long and at times challenging campaign to suitably embellish its austere and barren interior and dedicate its principal altars; and the imperative to formulate a new imagery exalting and promoting the Order’s founders, Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, following their canonization in 1622. The catalogue of the works of art included in the exhibition is preceded by fourteen essays by an international team of specialists in Italian baroque sacred art and religious culture.