Sant'Andrea della Valle

Sant'Andrea della Valle
The Baroque façade of Sant'Andrea della Valle.
Basic information
Location	Rome, Italy
Geographic coordinates	41°53′45″N 12°28′28″E / 41.89583°N 12.47444°E / 41.89583; 12.47444Coordinates: 41°53′45″N 12°28′28″E / 41.89583°N 12.47444°E / 41.89583; 12.47444
Affiliation	Roman Catholic
Province	Diocese of Rome
Country	Italy
Leadership	Dieudonné Nzapalainga, CSSR
Architectural description
Architectural type	Church
Architectural style	Baroque
Groundbreaking	1590
Completed	1650

Sant'Andrea della Valle is a basilica church in the rione of Sant'Eustachio of the city of Rome, Italy. The basilica is the general seat for the religious order of the Theatines. It is located on Piazza Vidoni at the intersection of Corso Vittorio Emanuele (facing facade) and Corso Rinascimento.

A church was initially planned when Donna Costanza Piccolomini d'Aragona, duchess of Amalfi and descendant of the family of Pope Pius II, bequeathed her palace and the adjacent church of San Sebastiano in central Rome to the Theatine order for construction of a new church. Since Amalfi's patron was Saint Andrew, the church was planned in his honor. Work initially started around 1590 under the designs of Giacomo della Porta and Pier Paolo Olivieri, and under the patronage of Cardinal Gesualdo. With the previous patron's death, direction of the church passed to Cardinal Alessandro Peretti di Montalto, nephew of Pope Sixtus V. Work restarted by 1608, financed by what was then an enormous endowment of over 150,000 gold scudi, and with a more grandiose plan designed mainly by Carlo Maderno. The interior of the church was completed by 1650, with some changes added by Francesco Grimaldi.

The fresco decoration of Sant'Andrea's dome was one of the largest commissions of its day. The work was disputed by two Carracci pupils, Giovanni Lanfranco and Domenichino. In 1608, Lanfranco had been chosen by Cardinal Alessandro, but the Ludovisi papacy of Pope Gregory XV favored the Bolognese Domenichino. In the end, both artists were employed, and Lanfranco's lavish dome decoration (completed 1627) set the model for such decorations for the following decades. This dome was for a long time the third largest dome in Rome, after the Basilica of St Peter and the Pantheon.