Aventine (figs. 81-97). The last is Piranesi's only surviving work for the Rezzonicos.

Originally the Knights had had a church dedicated to St. Basil in the Forum of Au
gustus. In 1 568 they moved to the old church of Sta. Maria on the Aventine and
built a priory beside it. A painting of the Madonna decorated the high altar until
Piranesi replaced it with a statue of St. Basil. Thus the church is variously called Sta.
Maria Aventina, Sta. Maria del Priorato or even San Basilio al Monte Aventino.
Few tourists have entered the church, for it is almost always shut, but many have
gone to the adjoining garden gate to peep at the dome of St. Peter's through the
keyhole.
In 1764-1765 Piranesi strengthened the foundations and the vaults, redecorated
the interior, added a new façade and designed a setting for the church. The interior
is all frosty white plaster as clean of color as a classical statue (fig. 97). The decoration
derives from Borromini's nave in St. John Lateran which Piranesi had studied
thoroughly when he designed the apse to go with it (fig. 98). He had also studied the
marvellous indirect illumination that Bernini devised for his statues, so that in Sta.
Maria Aventina a hidden window floods the apse with light to make the altar stand
out dark against the glow behind (fig. 93). The figure of St. Basil himself spreads out
his arms like Bernini's St. Longinus. Since the altar figure appears to make a differ
ent gesture in Piranesi's early sketch (fig. 81), it may have been designed by Tom-
maso Righi who modeled all the stucco sculpture in the church. But the really orig
inal element in the altar is Piranesi's notion of stacking one rich Roman sarco
phagus on top of another (fig. 92). The vault displays the symbols of the Knights of
Malta: their patron St. John the Baptist, the shirt of humility worn in memory of
the Baptist's clothing of camel's hair, and the galleys, rudder and shields for their

glory in fighting (figs. 94, 95).

sea

The church façade (fig. 86) originally rose above the present pediment to a high
attic with three big urns, which was removed in 1 850, a year after it had been dam
aged in the French bombardment of Rome. Thus the original façade was not squar
ish, but tall. Antique detail appears in new contexts, for the round window is made
to look like the medallion in the middle of a sarcophagus, swords interrupt the pilas
ters, and the capitals are composed of castles and chimaeras. Piranesi also designed
the approaches to the church. He decorated the wall of the priory garden with three
tablets carved with pan pipes and tragic masks that suggest the lyric melancholy of
the cypress avenue within and the bitter boxwood of the cemetery. The carvings
stand out sharp edged like metal cut-outs against shadows incised with a burin. Pi
ranesi had already etched ancient Roman reliefs of masks and shields and scabbards
for modern artists to adapt. Here he showed how to dramatize the ancient motifs
for modern effects. , я