Modulazioni sulla spazialità centrica nelle chiese barocche dei Padri della Missione

The essay analyzes the typological and spatial characteristics of the churches built between 1650 and 1750 by the Lazarists; a congregation of secular priests founded in France in 1625 by Saint Vincent de Paul, for the purpose of preaching missions to the poor people and evangelizing foreign countries notably in Asia and South America Referencing back to the author’s doctoral studies, the essay takes into account subsequent reasonings, based on unpublished documents and drawings. The article focuses on a selection of Lazarist churches in Italy in particular in Turin, Genoa and Naples; and one located in the convent Bastia in Corsica. The findings of the study indicate a predominantly private use of these churches, thus mostly enclosed within the convents and occasionally accessible to the faithful on some religious festivities. Consequently, the churches didn’t need spacious naves, but a rather larger presbyteries for the religious community. This functional requirement is probably the reason of some architectural features such as the widespread use of the centric plan, sometimes elongated or more often multiplied in complex modular compositions. This leitmotiv – despite some stylistic differences due to the buildings’ different locations and architects– allows us to hypothesize instructions set by the leaders of the religious order: both to the priests skilled in architecture and to the “external” designers. The buildings are analyzed as a whole, in order to be framed in the wider panorama of the post-Tridentine architecture to identify the relationship between the practical-spiritual needs and the architectural forms.