Baroque

On this cast

• Two-storey frontA wide lower storey and a narrow upper one, like the nave rising over the side chapels behind.
• Curving wallThe central bays bow forward, so light slides across the façade. Borromini made whole fronts undulate.
• Great volutesGiant S-shaped scrolls that hide the aisle roofs and lead the eye from the wide base up to the narrow top.
• Crescendo of supportsFlat pilasters at the edges, half-columns next, full columns at the centre: the façade swells toward the door.
• Broken entablatureThe cornice steps forward over every column group (ressauts), so the horizontal line flickers with shadow.
• Shell niches with statuesRound-headed niches with a scallop hood, each holding a saint in motion, robes twisting.
• PortalAn eared door frame under a segmental (curved) pediment carried on scrolled brackets.
• CartoucheA curling, scroll-edged frame for a coat of arms or an inscription, the signature ornament of the Baroque.
• Central windowOne large window above the door lights the nave and anchors the axis.
• Broken and nested pedimentsPediments split open, curl into scrolls and sit inside one another. Classical parts, rearranged for drama.
• Radiant ovalAn oval glory with rays in the tympanum. Ovals and rays replace the calm circles of the Renaissance.
• Flaming urnsVases with flames on the corners and the apex, breaking the skyline.

How to spot it from the street

1. Columns and pilasters bunch toward the centre
2. Curving or bowed walls
3. Big scrolls (volutes) and broken pediments
4. Statues, cartouches and dramatic shadow

Where it came from

Baroque was born in Counter-Reformation Rome, where the Church wanted buildings that moved people. Giacomo della Porta's front of Il Gesù set the pattern of a wide lower storey joined to a narrow upper one by giant scrolls. Carlo Maderno's Santa Susanna (1603) piled up columns toward the door, and Bernini and Borromini made façades curve and ripple.

Read a Baroque front from the edges to the centre: flat pilasters, then half-columns, then full columns, as if the wall were swelling toward you. Cornices break forward over every column, pediments split and nest, and light and shadow do much of the work.