Barocco Style
barocco style
A picturesque, exalted, architectural style which prevailed in ecclesiastical architecture for nearly two centuries, and which is associated mainly with Michelangelo, its creator, and with the architects Bernini and Borromini. It is an interpretation of joy, the characteristic of which is imagination, picturesqueness, immensity, and harmony between building and environment, with a suggestion of movement, symbolism, and color. It employs curves, towers, and characteristic cupolas , often accompanied by two subordinate towers. Copper caps, sometimes turnip-shaped, are also used, together with stairways symbolic of penitential progress, just as the interiors are flooded, symbolically, with light. Barocco has been often misrepresented by fanciers of other architectural styles.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Barocco Style
(Fr. baroque).
A debased application to architecture of Renaissance features. The term is also employed to denote a bad taste in design and ornament generally. Carlo Maderna (1556-1639), Bernini (1598-1680), and Borromini (1599-1667), were among the more famous who practiced this form of art. Among the most prominent examples are the churches of Santa Maria della Vittoria by Maderna, and Santa Agnese, by Borromini, both at Rome. Naples particularly is full of baroque churches, a few of which, like the Gesù Nuovo, are dignified and creditable designs. The domical church of Santa Maria della Salute, at Venice, by Longhena, is a majestic edifice in excellent style, and here and there other churches offer exceptions to the then prevalent baseness of architecture. The three Venetian churches, San Barnaba (1749), San Basso (1670), and San Moise, are examples of three different types of the baroque. This style prevailed in church architecture for nearly two centuries. See RENAISSANCE.
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THOMAS H. POOLE Transcribed by the Cloistered Dominican Nuns, Monastery of the Infant Jesus, Lufkin, Texas Dedicated to the glory of God and the salvation of souls
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York