Danie's Italy: Sant'Ignazio

Ciao
Sorry no blog yesterday, I got home late from practice and then had an awesome dinner that Pier cooked for us. It was tuna eggs with tomatoes and pasta, sounds weird but it was good. We didn't get to sleep until after 11pm so...Today Pier took us to Sant'Ignazio. This is a church that we had passed before on one of our trips , but didn't know what it was. Now I do know and I'll tell you.
Sant'Ignazio was built between 1626 and 1650 to honor Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order.
Originally it was just a small room that was built as an add on to the Collegio Romano. Collegio Romano was a school for the arts that was built in 1551. When the Jesuits decided to build a church to honor Saint Ignatius, they hired a Jesuit priest to design it, when it was done the church that was once a small room now took up an entire city block.
The neat thing about the church is that is covered with frescoes, most of which were painted by Andrea Pozzo. There is a huge one that goes down the center of the Church's ceiling. (it is pretty cool because depending on where you are, the fresco changes, the closer you move to it's center the more life like the paintings become). The fresco that the church is most famous for is it's "false dome". It is actually a flat piece of ceiling that Pozzo painted to look like a real dome. There is also a big pipe organ and an organist was playing while we walked around the church.
Pier told me how the frescoes were painted, here is how they were done. First a huge tarp is laid out on the ground and then the design is drawn onto the tarp. Next, pins are pushed through the tarp to create an "outline" of the drawing. Next the tarp is hung up on the ceiling and then black paint is sponged over the pin holes, this makes the ceiling look like a big coloring book, now all the artist has to do is paint inside the lines.
Sounds easy but it probably wasn't as the ceilings are huge. So that was my lesson for the day. Now we can talk about the fun stuff.......... the church was one word..... AMAZING!!!!!!! When you first entered the church the first thing you saw was gold............the ceiling had a huge 3d ( well it was 3d if you tilted your head back and looked at it upside down ) painting and there was gold leaf molding everywhere you looked. The coolest thing I have ever seen was this " dome ". When you entered the church you saw the dome, but when you walked towards it you saw it was fake. ( it was just a normal ceiling painted to look like a dome. The painter that painted the dome was a true genius for his time. ) Here is the fun part, when I was taking a picture of the dome, I leaned back on my boots and one of my heels broke off. So here I am walking through Rome ( after we left the church ) clomping through the streets , Ok, scratch that HOPPING through the streets looking for some glue so that I can put my heel back on. Well lets just say that we found another church, a cool antique shop, a pasta shop, multiple bakery shops and a guy who was pretending to be a statue ( have a video of him ) before we found the glue to fix my boots.
Tomorrow is Easter and Pier ( a friend of mine ) invited us to dinner at his house. He warned us there will be more than 15 main courses for dinner. I have prepared myself (I barely had anything to eat today) so I think I will make it through tomorrow. Did you know that the day after Easter, here in Rome, is called little Easter? No shops are open so everyone eats left overs from Easter Sunday. The pools aren't open either, so I don't have to swim.......Yea!!!!!!
Ciao