Sant’Andrea al Quirinale

With funding from Prince Camillo Pamphilj, the Jesuits commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to build a church for novices living on the Quirinale. The site was small and awkward, but Bernini solved the problem by designing an oval church with the entrance and the high altar very unusually on the short axis. Above the door, a section of the wall seems to have swung down on to the columns, creating an entrance porch. Inside, the church is richly decorated with the figure of St Andrew (by Antonio Raggi, Bernini’s star pupil) floating heavenwards through a broken pediment above the high altar.