Santa Maria della Pace

Step off the busy lanes west of Piazza Navona and the noise drops. The street narrows, then opens into a small square that feels almost like a room. Ivy climbs the walls of a café on the corner. And in front of you, a church facade curves forward like a theatre stage. You are standing in front of Santa Maria della Pace, Our Lady of Peace.

This is a church you discover rather than find. There is no grand avenue leading to it, no wide plaza to frame it from a distance. It sits pressed into a dense knot of medieval streets. That tight setting is not an accident of history. It is part of the design, and we will come back to that in a moment.

First, the story of how the church began. According to a popular tale, a small image of the Virgin Mary stood here on the wall of an older chapel. Legend has it that someone struck the image with a stone, and the painted figure began to bleed. Crowds came. Whatever you make of the story, devotion to the image grew strong enough to inspire a new church.

The rebuilding came in the late fifteenth century under Pope Sixtus Four, the same pope who gave his name to the Sistine Chapel. Italy was torn by wars at the time, and Rome had its own troubles. Sixtus dedicated the church to peace, a hope stated in its name. The building he raised has a short nave that leads into an eight-sided space under a dome. It is compact, almost private.

Now look again at the facade. It was added much later, in the middle of the seventeenth century, by the painter and architect Pietro da Cortona. The patron was Pope Alexander Seven, from the wealthy Chigi family. Cortona built a rounded porch on columns that pushes out into the square. Behind it, the upper level bends inward, and side wings fold back like curtains.

Here is the first surprise. Cortona did not only design a front. He redesigned the whole square around it. Some older buildings were cut back to open space in front of the church, and the surrounding houses were given matching fronts. The result is a stage set. The church is the actor, the square is the theatre, and you, standing here, are in the audience. Baroque architects loved this kind of drama — architecture that performs.

Inside, the most important treasure sits in the first chapel on the right as you enter. This is the Chigi Chapel, paid for by the banker Agostino Chigi in the early sixteenth century. Above the arch, Raphael painted four Sibyls. In ancient belief, Sibyls were women who spoke prophecies. Christians later read their words as foretelling the coming of Christ, so they appear in churches beside the prophets.

Raphael's Sibyls sit and recline across the curve of the arch, turning toward angels who hold tablets and scrolls. The figures are heavy, strong, and full of movement. Many scholars see the influence of Michelangelo here. At the same moment, Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, with its own great Sibyls. Raphael clearly studied what his rival was doing, and answered it in his own softer, more graceful way.

Now the second surprise. Beside the church stands a cloister, a square courtyard ringed by arcades. It was designed by Donato Bramante, and it is generally considered his first major work in Rome. A cardinal named Oliviero Carafa paid for it at the very start of the sixteenth century. A few years later, Bramante would draw the first plans for the new Saint Peter's Basilica. This quiet courtyard is where his Roman career began.

Bramante built two levels. The lower level has solid arches set between flat pilasters, which are columns pressed flat against the wall. The upper level is lighter, with slender columns that stand directly above the centres of the arches below. That detail breaks an old rule and gives the gallery a rhythm of its own. The proportions are calm and exact. Nothing shouts. It is the High Renaissance in its purest, most measured form.

Today the cloister is known as the Chiostro del Bramante and is used for art exhibitions, with its own entrance on the side street. It also has a café on the upper gallery. From up there, a window looks into the church, toward the Chigi Chapel. It is one of the more unusual ways to see a Raphael in Rome — from above, with a cup of coffee in hand.

So in one small corner of the city you have three great names. Bramante, who shaped the Renaissance in Rome. Raphael, who painted some of its finest figures. And Pietro da Cortona, who helped invent the theatrical style of the Baroque. Most visitors walk past this square on the way to Piazza Navona, never knowing how much is gathered here.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment in the middle of the little square. Notice how the curved porch seems to reach toward you. Notice how the houses around you hold the space together, like walls of a room. Listen to the café chatter and the footsteps on the stones. As you walk back into the narrow streets, look over your shoulder once. The church will disappear behind the corner almost at once — just as it was meant to.