Giovanni Battista Gaulli: The Triumph of the Sacred Name of Jesus (1676–1679)

(Church of the Gesù, Rome, Italy)

This is a piece by the Italian master Giovanni Battista Gaulli (1639-1709), also known as 'il Baciccio' or 'Baciccia'. This painting is a ceiling decoration which was commissioned for the nave of the Church of the Gesù in Rome. The entire scene is insprired by a quote in the New Testament, in the Epistle of Paul and Timothy to the Philippians: 


Central in the painting is a glowing IHS (a Christogram which consists of the first 3 letters of the Greek name of Jesus -  Iota, Eta en Sigma). The glowing IHS is surrounded by a host of angels, saints and patron who bathe in the holy light. At the bottom is a group of souls of the damned - they are blinded by the divine light and are plunged into darkness, excluded from the vision of heaven that opens the ceiling to the sky above. Painting from 1676-1679.