florida state university college of visual arts, theatre and dance ...

Jesus. 6 Along with the gift of land were funds to build a chapel. The cardinal, a descendent of
St. Louis, placed only one restriction on his donation—that the Jesuit building must be dedicated
to France’s holy king to whom no Parisian church was then dedicated. In 1584 having outgrown
the original chapel, the fathers began to build a second one, also dedicated to St. Louis and which
like its predecessor was a simple rectangular structure set parallel to the rue Saint-Antoine. 7
The construction of the third church, which started in 1627, resulted from the continued
growth of the order’s maison professe. Louis XIII, having most likely heard about the fathers’
decision to build a new church from his confessor Jean Arnoux, himself a member of the house,
resolved to assist the Jesuits’ endeavors. In 1619 the king gave the congregation the place de
Birague, a public space between the existing chapel and the rue Saint-Antoine. 8 He then donated
the area encompassing a section of the remnants of the thirteenth-century city wall built by King
Philip Augustus (1180-1223), which paralleled the congregation’s property to the east. 9 The land
provided the Society with enough space to begin plans to expand its religious complex. From
1618 to 1629 the Jesuits contributed to the royal gifts and further enlarged their territory by
purchasing several properties adjacent to the land the already possessed. 10
Louis XIII continued to assist the congregation, providing funds for the construction of
the new church. Beginning in 1627 he allotted annually two thousand livres of revenue from the
royal abbey of Notre-Dame-de-la-Couronne in Angoumois to the fathers of the maison
professe. 11 Between 1627 and 1629, the king gave the Jesuits additional money to help with
construction, making him at the time the largest contributor to Saint-Louis-des-Jésuites. 12
The building’s first architect was Etienne Martellange, a French-born member of the
Society of Jesus who was known for his study of medieval and Renaissance churches in
France. 13 Setting the structure perpendicular to the rue Saint-Antoine, Martellange designed a
building consisting of a single nave of four bays bordered by communicating side chapels, a
slightly projecting transept, a choir of one bay, and a semicircular apse (fig. 31). 14 The choir is
flanked on both sides by an additional chapel with the sacristy located beyond the chapel on the
left. Two years into construction, Martellange was replaced by the Jesuit architect François
Derand, who in addition to developing plans for the dome designed a new façade. 15
Martellange’s design for the front of the church, preserved on the reverse of one of the
foundation medals, is characterized by its central bay, which is made up of a colossal, threestorey,
recessed arcade under a triangular pediment (fig. 32). Derand’s façade eliminated the
87