Church Saint-Louis-of-French of Rome

The church Saint-Louis-of-French ( San Luigi dei francesi in Italian) is a Roman church located between the the Pantheon and the place Navone.

Drawn by Giacomo della Porta and built by Domenico Fontana and completed 1589, it was the cardinal Jules de Médicis, the future pope Clément VII, which posed the first stone of them and it was thanks to Valois Henri II, Henri III, Catherine de Médicis and with the Duc Charles III of Lorraine that its construction could be concluded. It was devoted the year of its completion like the national church of the French to Rome. It is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, holy Denys Aréopagite and to holy Louis king de France.

One perceives the French character as of the frontage where one finds several statues pointing out the French history: Charlemagne, holy Louis, Holy Clotilde and holy Jeanne de Valois, works of Pierre Estache. The interior has frescos telling the history of Saint Louis (by Charles-Joseph Natoire), Saint Denis and Clovis. One also finds there the salamander of François Ier.

Interior, composed of three naves and side chapels and decorated mainly in the style baroque by Antoine Derizet, watch a marble profusion, gildings and stuccos. Dominiquin painted in the second vault of the nave of right-hand side one of its masterpieces, of the frescos telling the legend of Holy Cecile. Other artists worked with the Saint-Louis-of-French decoration like the Rider of Arpin, Francesco da Bassano the young person, Girolamo Muziano, Giovanni Baglione, Siciolante da Sermoneta, Jacopino del Conte, Pellegrino Tibaldi.

However, the most famous work of the church is without question the cycle of painting decorating the fifth vault of left, the Contarelli vault, carried out by the Master of the baroque Michelangelo Merisi known as Caravage in 1599-1600 and devoted to the life of Matthieu Saint. Three tables illustrate this cycle: on the left " The Vocation of Matthieu" Saint; , opposite " Saint Matthieu and Ange" and on the right " the Martyrdom of Matthieu" Saint;.

The church, together with the other French churches of Rome, is controlled by an administrator named by the ambassador of France near the Saint Sits within a structure named the Pieux Establishments from France in Rome and Lorette. The cardinal priest of Titulus S. Ludovici Francorum de Urbe was the cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, who died on August 5th, 2007.

Joint of the church, the palate San Luigi dei Francesi, of style late baroque, was built of 1709 to 1716 to be a place of reception of the French religious community and pilgrims without resources. Its porch shows a bust of the Christ whose face is identified traditionally with that of César Borgia. The interior includes/understands in particular a gallery of portraits of kings de France and a famous room of music.

Places of burial

High prelates and members of the French community of Rome chose it like place of burial: one can see there fall it (set up by Chateaubriand and carved by Joseph Charles Marin) from Pauline de Beaumont, died of consumption in Rome in 1805, that of the liberal economist Frederic Bastiat, and that of the Cardinal of Bernis, ambassador of Louis XIV and Louis XV at the Holy See. The burial of the painter Claude Gellée known as Claude Lorraine the was transferred there in 1840 per decision from Thiers. Initially its skin rested with the Trinité of the Mounts. One also sees there the monumental mausoleum of Louise Cheuvreux-Guillemin (1828-1859), work of the sculptor Charles Gumery, price of Rome in 1850.

Random links: