The French Way of Building in Rome: S. Agostino and SS. Trinità dei Monti

Abstract

In Renaissance Rome several churches were built which deliberately adopted a German or French architectural style and which therefore shed interesting light on the tension between the Gothic tradition and the new all’antica manner. This article first discusses the examples of S. Maria dell’Anima and S. Agostino to illuminate this phenomenon, and then focuses on the SS. Trinità dei Monti, which in 1520-1521 was explicitly described as having been “made in the French manner”. Here it is argued that this qualification referred not only to the fact that the church had been built using stones imported especially from France, but also, and more specifically, to its Gothic parts, most notably the choir and the vault (including a star vault similar to that of the Cathedral of Amiens), which here were combined in a striking manner with the all’antica articulation of the lower walls of the nave.