Architecture for Music: Sonorous Spaces in Sacred Buildings in Renaissance and Baroque Rome

Architectural spaces are usually considered only in their visual and three-dimensional character. However, the proper experience of space is multisensory. Sonority is undoubtedly the non-visual characteristic that most affects architecture, influencing its three-dimensional shape, and the size and distribution of its individual parts. Early Modern sacred architecture is a case in point. Focusing on Rome, and the development of architecture in relation to musical practices, this article demonstrates how architectural forms evolved through a process that ranged from provisional installations to the design of entirely new churches and oratories. In the Baroque period, these religious structures were conceived as synesthetic spaces of sonority and architecture, in which vision, hearing and liturgical acts merged in an expressive unity.