150 Churches in Paris and elsewhere

We are in the South West of France, somewhat nearer culturally to Toulouse than to Bordeaux, in what is now the suburbs of Agen (From the Quatre feux go straight on, going away from the gravier, and after the market, take that road going past the Ecole Normale). This was actually the church which my wife attended when she was a child, and at one time my Mother-in-law Teresa Antoinetta sang in the choir. This was some time after the first church on the site had been built, at the very beginning of the 17th century. In the 16th century the village was already a place of pilgrimage in honour of the virgin Mary, after the 1510 discovery of a wooden statue of her with allegedly special powers. The present basilica was completed in the 1850s, but bits of the earlier chapel are still there. Nicely coloured pillars and stained glass.

  186, Rome, Chiesa del Gesú No other city can compare to Rome for visiting churches. Churches you stumble on accidentally here would be national treasures in most cities. I am told that after Rome, the best cities for churches are Venice, Istanbul, Seville, and Paris. I’ve been in Rome for a month and am on my forty sixth church visit. Most of these will take many months to turn up on this blog, but a few of those which just blow you away are being moved up the queue. Like this one, Church of Jesus, or to be more precise, Church of the Holy Name of Jesus and Jesuit mother church. Building was started in 1568. Amazing ceiling, with visual tricks including mixing actually sculpted decoration with trompe l’oeil optical illusions. I love the way the images spill out of the section they normally stay in, and I hope the photos show that. The ceiling show “the Triumph of the name of Jesus”. Majestic square pulpit. It is less a place for a quiet sermon and more of a marble-and-gold megaph...