CHIESA DI SAN LUIGI DEI FRANCESI
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Church of the French in Rome whose interior is decorated by the Dominiquin and Caravaggio.
Begun by Julius de Medici, the future Clement VII, in 1512, the church was completed in 1589 with funds from the kings of France Henry II, Henry III and Catherine de Medici. It became the church of the French in Rome. The façade, still close to the Renaissance, is decorated with the salamander, emblem of François I, as well as statues of Charlemagne and Saint Louis. The interior was greatly enriched in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but above all it gives us the opportunity to look at two artists who were contemporaries but so dissimilar: the Dominiquin and Caravaggio. In the side chapel of the right nave, the former is responsible for a Legend of Saint Cecilia in a perfectly Mannerist style. In the last chapel of the left side aisle, the Contarelli Chapel, the latter painted a triptych of St. Matthew(St. Matthew and the Angel, The Martyrdom of St. Matthew, The Vocation of St. Matthew - 1599-1602) as a manifesto of his painting, which would later be called Baroque. This was Caravaggio's first public commission in Rome. It marked a turning point in his career, confirming his genius and revealing his unique aesthetic, based in particular on the play of light now recognized as typical of the Caravaggesque school. For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that the ceiling of the church painted by Natoire represents the Glory of Saint Louis, and that the Cardinal de Bernis and the Countess de Beaumont, a woman of letters at the end of the 18th century, are buried in the church.
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