This book is the result of a symposium organized by Fordham University entitled "Baroque Art and the Jesuit contribution". The most important overall outcome of this research is its clarification of the myth of the monolithic structure of the Jesuits and their uniformity of thought on the subjects of art and architecture.
[Architecture and Art of the Jesuits] This book is the result of a symposium organized by Fordham University entitled “Baroque Art and the Jesuit contribution” (1969). The contributions of scholars (Rudolf Wittkower, James S. Ackerman, Howard Hibbard, Francis Haskell, René Taylor, Per Bjurström and Thomas Culley) are published in their entirety, and reassessed in the light of more recent findings. The most important overall outcome of this research is its clarification of the myth of the monolithic structure of the Jesuits and their uniformity of thought on the subjects of art and architecture. There was certainly no unified, shared, programmatic conception of the architecture and decoration of all the buildings of the order; but there were basic principles derived from constitutions and spiritual exercises that oriented the leaders of the Company in their assessment of the relationship between means and ends, and in seeing all the arts as creatures capable of leading man to God. The position of leadership of the Jesuits in the cultural and intellectual life of the time made it possible to translate these principles into artistic forms, producing some of the most beautiful monuments of the “splendid century” in Rome, including the Church of Gesù, Sant’Ignazio, and the incomparable Sant’Andrea al Quirinale.