# Sant’Ivo reopens, with a late Cortona restored Canonical article: https://arthistory.news/news/sant-ivo-reopens-with-a-late-cortona-restored-ac943323-f88d-4519-a410-23688ce706cb By ArtHistory.News Published: 2026-10-29T07:25:07.321Z Above the rooftops of Rome, Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza’s spiralling lantern has long advertised a church that visitors could find frustratingly difficult to enter. Now the doors beneath it are open again. Borromini’s former university chapel reopened on 27 October after an extensive restoration, returning one of the city’s most inventive Baroque interiors to regular public view. The architecture will naturally draw most of the attention. But the work has also brought renewed visibility to a monumental painting: the altarpiece commissioned from Pietro da Cortona in 1660 and left unfinished at his death nine years later. Standing more than eight metres high, it depicts Christ among saints above, with Saint Ivo, patron of lawyers, defending the poor below. Its subject belongs to the building’s life as a place of learning as intimately as its scale belongs to Borromini’s interior. Cortona’s pupil Giovanni Ventura Borghesi eventually completed the canvas, which was installed in 1683. The distinction is worth preserving amid the understandable enthusiasm for the recovery of a late Cortona. This is a work whose execution extended beyond its inventor’s lifetime, with Borghesi following the master’s preparatory design to bring the commission to completion. Before treatment, deposits of dirt and dust and layers of oxidised varnish had substantially altered the painting’s appearance. The Soprintendenza’s project record lists €250,000 in funding for the altarpiece’s restoration. Within the larger campaign, it is an unusually substantial undertaking in its own right, and a reminder of how much painting can disappear from view even while remaining on its intended wall. Around it, the restoration has attended to something less immediately conspicuous than a great painted canvas: the varying whites of Borromini’s architecture. Daniela Porro, the superintendent responsible for the project, describes the intervention as a delicate exercise in recovering their warmer and cooler shades. Work extended across the church’s internal and external surfaces, including the cupolino, with its sky-coloured ground and golden rays. Roofs and drainage were also repaired to address water infiltration. The campaign was funded through the PNRR’s Caput Mundi programme. That attention to white goes to the heart of Sant’Ivo’s character. The interior’s complexity comes from the movement of its walls, the rise of its pilasters and the continuity between the intricate plan and the six-part dome. Concave and convex surfaces keep the eye moving; light makes their geometry legible. Against this pale setting, the great altarpiece introduces a concentrated field of figures and colour. Seeing the two together is essential to understanding the room. The reopening also rests on a practical arrangement that should make visiting considerably easier. The complex now houses Rome’s State Archive, and an agreement involving the archive, the Diocese of Rome and the Touring Club Italiano will provide regular weekday access. Volunteers from the Touring Club’s Aperti per Voi programme will welcome visitors to the courtyard and church. For a building so familiar from photographs and architectural histories, the opportunity to step inside without an exceptional appointment is a welcome change. Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, Corso del Rinascimento 40, Rome, is open Monday-Friday, 9.30am-1.30pm. Admission is free. ## Illustrations S. Ivo alla Sapienza [Image source](). ## Sources - [ArtHistory.News editor: ArtHistory.News editor]() ## Related records - [Francesco Borromini]() Please cite the canonical article URL above. Image credits and reproduction rights remain with their respective holders.