Some of my favourite views of Rome

3: San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane

When scootering through Rome there is one light I always hope will be red. It is strung over the junction between via delle Quattro Fontane and via del Quirinale in a manner which, even after over twenty years in Rome, I will never cease to find relentlessly exotic. The star of the show is the undulating facade of Borromini’s glorious San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, its erudite curves spilling over the almost inexistent pavement into waiting traffic with fabulously Baroque insouciance. A dance of the sublime and the everyday.

21 December 2023

The church, known by the affectionately diminutive name San Carlino, and perched on its awkward site on the ridge of the Quirinal was commissioned from Borromini by the Discalced Trinitarians and is one of the handful of his projects not to have been thwarted by the vicissitudes of economics and patronage.