By Anne Leader
Baroque architect Francesco Borromini died on 2 August 1667, just shy of his sixty-eighth birthday. Renowned for his inventive architectural design and rivalry with Gianlorenzo Bernini, Borromini’s Roman churches epitomize the High Baroque with their spectacular, theatrical, and organic designs, like those for San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane and Sant’Ivo. Other important projects include the Oratory of S. Filippo Neri, the Lateran Basilica, the Palazzo Barberini, and Sant’Agnese in Agone (after 1652) opposite Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain (1651) in Piazza Navona. Some sources give his date of death as August 3.
Reference: Peter Stein. “Borromini, Francesco.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press.
Sant’Ivo, Rome, exterior
Portrait of Borromini by an unknown artist
Sant’Ivo, Rome, interior of cupola
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome, exterior and interior dome
Sant’Agnese, Rome