Before starting to talk about the peculiarities of this architectural piece we need to know that the church of Il Gesu was made during the Counter-Reformation. The Counter-Reformation, created during the Council of Trent, aimed to confirm the power of the Catholic Church and take away the corruption pointed out by Martin Luther's movement. What is interesting here is that the Council also created a decree on art against mannerist style, taking Michelangelo as example, they found mannerism as a threat to the idea of the conservative church with their “modern” ways of interpreting the language of past architecture and transgressing the artistic limits of what could be shown in the house of God. Everything had to be perfectly harmonious and balanced and the art of Mannerism was quite different (Nudes, combination of Classic+Christian+Mythological, etc…) It is ironic that after that the Catholic Church banned Michelangelo’s art they asked him to lead the first commission of Il Gesu, and when he rejected it, they gave it to Giacomo da Vignola, who was one of the three architects (with Andrea Palladio and Giulio Romano) that later would become the main figures of the Italian Mannerist movement and the pioneers anticipating Baroque style.
Fernando Jiménez Salmerón