Description
The Chiesa dello Spirito Santo, founded as the Jesuit church of Pistoia and dedicated to Saint Ignatius, is the great Baroque church of the town centre: a bare, stern façade outside, and inside an altar by Bernini and a canvas by Pietro da Cortona.
The interior follows the model of the Gesù in Rome: a single nave with interconnecting side chapels. At the far end, the high altar designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1668 frames the Apparition of Christ to Saint Ignatius, the large canvas painted by Pietro da Cortona in 1670.
In the Rospigliosi Chapel there's a canvas by Ludovico Gimignani showing the Virgin and Christ in glory, surrounded by a crowd of saints, from Saint Dominic to Saint Rosalia. In the Banchieri Chapel, the first on the left, Ottaviano Dandini painted the dead Christ with Jesuit saints.
Don't overlook the organs: halfway along the left wall, above a small marble choir loft, there's an instrument made in 1664 by Willem Hermans, in a finely carved gilded wooden case.
All this splendour has a family explanation. The church was built from 1647 at the wish of the Rospigliosi, to a design by the Jesuit Tommaso Ramignani, and the decoration was overseen by Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, who became pope as Clement IX: that's why Bernini and Cortona came to Pistoia.
The pope also ordered a second organ opposite Hermans's, but only the choir loft and the front were built. For three centuries it was a fake organ. Only in 2008 did the Lucca organ builder Glauco Ghilardi complete it, drawing on German Baroque organs.
Today's name comes from the priests of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, who took the Jesuits' place when the Society was suppressed in 1773. After a long consolidation project, the church reopened for worship in 1988.
The interior follows the model of the Gesù in Rome: a single nave with interconnecting side chapels. At the far end, the high altar designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1668 frames the Apparition of Christ to Saint Ignatius, the large canvas painted by Pietro da Cortona in 1670.
In the Rospigliosi Chapel there's a canvas by Ludovico Gimignani showing the Virgin and Christ in glory, surrounded by a crowd of saints, from Saint Dominic to Saint Rosalia. In the Banchieri Chapel, the first on the left, Ottaviano Dandini painted the dead Christ with Jesuit saints.
Don't overlook the organs: halfway along the left wall, above a small marble choir loft, there's an instrument made in 1664 by Willem Hermans, in a finely carved gilded wooden case.
All this splendour has a family explanation. The church was built from 1647 at the wish of the Rospigliosi, to a design by the Jesuit Tommaso Ramignani, and the decoration was overseen by Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, who became pope as Clement IX: that's why Bernini and Cortona came to Pistoia.
The pope also ordered a second organ opposite Hermans's, but only the choir loft and the front were built. For three centuries it was a fake organ. Only in 2008 did the Lucca organ builder Glauco Ghilardi complete it, drawing on German Baroque organs.
Today's name comes from the priests of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, who took the Jesuits' place when the Society was suppressed in 1773. After a long consolidation project, the church reopened for worship in 1988.