One of the first anamorphosis at Trinità dei Monti
The church of La Trinità dei Monti on top of the Spanish steps is famous for its unequal position overlooking the centre of Rome. It is one of the most memorable sights of the eternal city, which is particularly enchanting at sunset. However, behind the spectacular facade, the church’s convent also holds some of the most unusual art treasures in Rome.
One of them is the 17th century hand-painted astrolabe, an ancient instrument used to show the position of the sun and stars in the sky. Even if it was meant as a purely mathematical tool to measure time, the workmanship is such that it has artistic qualities.
Its author, the French monk Emanuel Maignon who lived in the convent, spent years completing it in the late 1630s. With the help of assistants, he drew by hand and with minute precision each single line to represent the constellations’ position in the sky. A spot of sunlight shining through a narrow hole in the wall and reflected on the astrolabe serves to indicate the time of the day and the date. It is believed that Maignon may have been in contact with Galileo Galilei, who was a source of inspiration for him, as the renowned astronomer was under house arrest in the convent during the same period. Galileo was condemned in 1633 by Pope Urban VIII, his former ally, for supporting the theory of a heliocentric system based on the rotation of the earth around the sun, and not the opposite. As he was already an old man, he was allowed to serve his sentence in home confinement rather than in prison.
Next to the astrolabe room is another surprising work: the so-called anamorphosis, a wall fresco representing the life of St Francis of Paola (1416–1507), the founder of the 16th century Order of the Minims to which the convent used to belong. The particularity of the painting is that it is based on a strong optical illusion, whereby the subject matter changes according to the viewer’s position. Standing in front of it, the viewer sees a landscape scene with small sailing boats crossing a lake, while at a certain angle, the full size figure of St Francis starts appearing.
According to a legend, St Francis was refused a passage while trying to cross the strait of Messina from Calabria (where he was from) to Sicily, so he laid his cloak on the water and managed to successfully sail across the way. His order particularly flourished in France until the French Revolution, which explains why the Trinita dei Monti church and convent have traditionally been French property and is currently run by the French order of the Fraternités monastiques de Jérusalem. The Convent is open to visits on Tuesday and Saturday morning.
