Basilica of Santi Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso, Rome אדריכלות ישראלית Architecture of Israel #137 May 2024 | 74 | roughly united both parts - each of the functions can still be identified). In the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Apse was used for worshiping the Holy Cradle, but it did not really work, and already in the Byzantine period the clergy gave up on this idea, replacing it with a simple Basilica at the expense of the importance given to the Cradle. In the Church of the Annunciation, in Nazareth, a two-level solution was invented to maintain the syntactic principle via a large hole in the floor, allowing the parishioners to see the lower floor, the place where the angels proclaimed that Miriam was pregnant. Returning to the story of Lunghi...after he designed the Basilica, he was informed that the heart of Carlo Borromeo, the Cardinal and Archbiship of Milan, who had just died, must be placed in the church. Then, in the 17th century, he encountered an architectural problem; that is, how does a church designed for prayer also accommodate worship of the Holy Heart? And this is where the syntactic solution of the Ambulatory was actually developed. The solution was adopted later in Milan's Duomo cathedral - giving the credit to the local Milanese in Rome. Thus, in terms of the socio-spatial aspect, the main nave serves the general public, while both smaller ones are intended for those with a higher social status. This syntactic phenomenon became very common during the Baroque period, when architecture and all other art industries aspired to excite the masses through size, color, expensive finishing materials, formal wealth, spectacular murals and fresco work (mainly small angels) in every corner of the church. The side naves constitute mediation spaces that further enhance the syntactic remoteness of the high status of the private Capellas through the Ambulatory's curved space that conceals the location of Saint Carlo’s Heart behind the Apse, similar to the Jewish Dvir in every Synagogue that respects itself. This would have been quite a proper syntactic manoeuvre had it not been that at this point of the construction, Onorio Lunghi passed away when there was still no front facade, the interior design had not yet been completed and it had not yet been decided what the church ceiling would look like. Onorio's son, Martino Lunghi, continued the construction but was politely released after a while and Pietro Berrettini, one of the four best Baroque architects in Rome (the others were Bernini, Borromini and Ronaldo) took over. The new and well-known architect crowned the building with a huge dome with a huge presence in Rome's skyline, but he also passed away before the work was completed, leaving two important tasks still remaining - the interior and front facade designs. At this point, the remaining budget was insufficient, and in order to complete the construction, creative solutions were required; Instead of cladding the walls in marble as is customary in Baroque churches, the builders simply painted the walls in the forms of two particularly beautiful marbles, one with gray and white stripes and the other, pink with brown capillaries. This special combination gives the giant Basilica a light character, provided one does not examine it too closely. The Fresco on the ceiling in the Apse was painted by Giacomo Brandi, one of the best and most fertile Fresco painters in Baroque Rome. Giacomo represented the saints Ambrogio and Carlo on the church wall of the Apse, with Carlo (alone) rising to heaven in the Apse ceiling, and the angels' rebellion appearing on the barrel vault of the central deck. The front facade, on the other hand, was less successful, since the Archbiship, who oversaw the construction of the church entrusted the design to two inexperienced monks - Mario da Canepina and Menicucci Furono, who designed a "nervous" and disgraceful front that is not worthy of the impressive Cathedral which was finally completed in 1685, seventy-three years after construction began. The dome above the central nave פנים הכיפה מעל האולם המרכזי
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