Church of the GesùChiesa del Gesù

Church of the Gesù was begun in 1568 for the Society of Jesus and became the defining church type of the Counter-Reformation: a single, preaching-focused nave shaped by Vignola and given its emphatic façade by Giacomo della Porta. Inside, Baroque art turns doctrine into theatre, above all Giovanni Battista Gaulli’s The Triumph of the Name of Jesus (1676–79), where paint and stucco seem to break the vault open to divine light. The shrine of St Ignatius of Loyola anchors it as a living Jesuit center in Rome.