Casa Professa

Casa Professa

The landscape is impressive for those who know and want to read. From the door and from the very first steps, the attentive visitor knows that he is not entering the Church of Jesus (called the Professed House in Palermo) as an ordinary church. Everything here from the very first steps is allegory and symbols.

When you open the door, you are speechless; the breathtaking spectacle of the walls is unexpected, not a single inch not overlooked by the sumptuous decoration, mostly carved and chiseled.

For those who are more reluctant to be seduced, let us concentrate on the first symbolic approach, in the external/internal continuity of the Temple :

On the exterior façade, the Mother with the child in her arms announces, inside and behind her, the same child, standing alone, inside the temple, as she placed him on the sacred axis of the main nave. Christ the Child wrapped in a thousand rays, a dazzling glory.

Diametrically opposed to the child, on the other side of the nave, and placed at the same level, always along the sacred axis, Christ in the triumph of the Trinity. He sits with his cross beside the Father while the dove of the Holy Spirit flies among them.

Nothing special in appearance. But analysis reveals the simplicity/complexity of the message: The Mother, placed outside, belongs to all, to the urbs, and keeps the House, the little child lovingly close to her. The urbi et orbi vocation of this Virgin is the first mention of the very vocation of the Jesuit Church, open to all so that they may be guided interiorly towards certain mysteries which the temple will reveal step by step.

The child inside, without the Mother, offers only his nakedness dressed in Light.

That Light, which the profane eye has already confused with the sun, is not the sun. To appreciate it, the visitor must know that the entrance to the Casa Professa is to the north.

And from the North, no astrological sun can ever illuminate it. The light that surrounds the Child is therefore symbolic, it is His light, the Light that is attached to him, inseparable.
The path imposed by the alignment of the main nave leads from North to South. For the architects of 1600’s, a different position was not conceivable, and therefore a more classical orientation towards the East was totally impossible.

This important factor for the decoration of the church obviously had to be taken into consideration. All the more so as we are in Sicily where the tradition of the theophany of light in sacred architecture is strong, dating back to the Greek and Phoenician cultures.

If the alignment of a temple in West/East (Decumanus axis) allows to animate all the symbolisms in a context going from sunset to sunrise, those oriented rather on the Cardo North/South axis lead from darkness to solar noon.

At the Casa Professa, the little child enters the church in all its glory of Light, not created but intrinsic to the nature of God, an increated Light, so to speak. And this Light reaches its peak in the South, with the allegory of the Holy Trinity, the true goal of the journey along the sacred axis of the church. In this precise position, the Light IN GOD at its Christian apex embraces the physical position of the sun as a celestial body at its apogee, noon full South, a dazzling union between the Divine and His Creation, between God and Humanity.

The path does not stop here of course, but I stop here to let you think of the wealth that awaits you at each finely chiseled pilaster.

Everything in the Casa Professa is part of a vision scrupulously served by the elite of artists - mostly Jesuit Fathers - between 1600 and 1800, with an incredible continuity of intention and style in spite of such a long period .

The landscape is impressive for those who know and want to read. From the door and from the very first steps, the attentive visitor knows that he is not entering the Church of Jesus (called the Professed House in Palermo) as an ordinary church. Everything here from the very first steps is allegory and symbols.

When you open the door, you are speechless; the breathtaking spectacle of the walls is unexpected, not a single inch not overlooked by the sumptuous decoration, mostly carved and chiseled.

For those who are more reluctant to be seduced, let us concentrate on the first symbolic approach, in the external/internal continuity of the Temple :

On the exterior façade, the Mother with the child in her arms announces, inside and behind her, the same child, standing alone, inside the temple, as she placed him on the sacred axis of the main nave. Christ the Child wrapped in a thousand rays, a dazzling glory.

Diametrically opposed to the child, on the other side of the nave, and placed at the same level, always along the sacred axis, Christ in the triumph of the Trinity. He sits with his cross beside the Father while the dove of the Holy Spirit flies among them.

Nothing special in appearance. But analysis reveals the simplicity/complexity of the message: The Mother, placed outside, belongs to all, to the urbs, and keeps the House, the little child lovingly close to her. The urbi et orbi vocation of this Virgin is the first mention of the very vocation of the Jesuit Church, open to all so that they may be guided interiorly towards certain mysteries which the temple will reveal step by step.

The child inside, without the Mother, offers only his nakedness dressed in Light.

That Light, which the profane eye has already confused with the sun, is not the sun. To appreciate it, the visitor must know that the entrance to the Casa Professa is to the north.

And from the North, no astrological sun can ever illuminate it. The light that surrounds the Child is therefore symbolic, it is His light, the Light that is attached to him, inseparable.
The path imposed by the alignment of the main nave leads from North to South. For the architects of 1600’s, a different position was not conceivable, and therefore a more classical orientation towards the East was totally impossible.

This important factor for the decoration of the church obviously had to be taken into consideration. All the more so as we are in Sicily where the tradition of the theophany of light in sacred architecture is strong, dating back to the Greek and Phoenician cultures.

If the alignment of a temple in West/East (Decumanus axis) allows to animate all the symbolisms in a context going from sunset to sunrise, those oriented rather on the Cardo North/South axis lead from darkness to solar noon.

At the Casa Professa, the little child enters the church in all its glory of Light, not created but intrinsic to the nature of God, an increated Light, so to speak. And this Light reaches its peak in the South, with the allegory of the Holy Trinity, the true goal of the journey along the sacred axis of the church. In this precise position, the Light IN GOD at its Christian apex embraces the physical position of the sun as a celestial body at its apogee, noon full South, a dazzling union between the Divine and His Creation, between God and Humanity.

The path does not stop here of course, but I stop here to let you think of the wealth that awaits you at each finely chiseled pilaster.

Everything in the Casa Professa is part of a vision scrupulously served by the elite of artists - mostly Jesuit Fathers - between 1600 and 1800, with an incredible continuity of intention and style in spite of such a long period .

The landscape is impressive for those who know and want to read. From the door and from the very first steps, the attentive visitor knows that he is not entering the Church of Jesus (called the Professed House in Palermo) as an ordinary church. Everything here from the very first steps is allegory and symbols.

When you open the door, you are speechless; the breathtaking spectacle of the walls is unexpected, not a single inch not overlooked by the sumptuous decoration, mostly carved and chiseled.

For those who are more reluctant to be seduced, let us concentrate on the first symbolic approach, in the external/internal continuity of the Temple :

On the outer facade, the Mother with the child in her arms announces behind her the same child, standing and alone, inside the temple, as she placed on the sacred axis of the main nave. Christ child wrapped in a thousand rays, a dazzling glory.

Diametrically opposed to the child, on the other side of the nave, and placed at the same level, always along the sacred axis, Christ in the triumph of the Trinity. He sits with his cross beside the Father while the dove of the Holy Spirit flies among them.

Nothing special in appearance. But analysis reveals the simplicity/complexity of the message: The Mother, placed outside, belongs to all, to the urbs, and keeps the House, the little child lovingly close to her. The urbi et orbi vocation of this Virgin is the first mention of the very vocation of the Jesuit Church, open to all so that they may be guided interiorly towards certain mysteries which the temple will reveal step by step.

The child inside, without the Mother, offers only his nakedness dressed in Light.

That Light, which the profane eye has already confused with the sun, is not the sun. To appreciate it, the visitor must know that the entrance to the Casa Professa is to the north.

And from the North, no astrological sun can ever illuminate it. The light that surrounds the Child is therefore symbolic, it is His light, the Light that is attached to him, inseparable.
The path imposed by the alignment of the main nave leads from North to South. For the architects of 1600’s, a different position was not conceivable, and therefore a more classical orientation towards the East was totally impossible.

This important factor for the decoration of the church obviously had to be taken into consideration. All the more so as we are in Sicily where the tradition of the theophany of light in sacred architecture is strong, dating back to the Greek and Phoenician cultures.

If the alignment of a temple in West/East (Decumanus axis) allows to animate all the symbolisms in a context going from sunset to sunrise, those oriented rather on the Cardo North/South axis lead from darkness to solar noon.

At the Casa Professa, the little child enters the church in all its glory of Light, not created but intrinsic to the nature of God, an increated Light, so to speak. And this Light reaches its peak in the South, with the allegory of the Holy Trinity, the true goal of the journey along the sacred axis of the church. In this precise position, the Light IN GOD at its Christian apex embraces the physical position of the sun as a celestial body at its apogee, noon full South, a dazzling union between the Divine and His Creation, between God and Humanity.

The path does not stop here of course, but I stop here to let you think of the wealth that awaits you at each finely chiseled pilaster.

Everything in the Casa Professa is part of a vision scrupulously served by the elite of artists - mostly Jesuit Fathers - between 1600 and 1800, with an incredible continuity of intention and style in spite of such a long period .