Chiesa del Nome di Dio

The Chiesa del Nome di Dio in Pesaro preserves an unusually complete painted interior by Gian Giacomo Pandolfi, a local painter and member of the confraternity that built the church. Its ceiling and walls present a unified programme of religious subjects, civic figures and works of charity.

Why it matters

The church belongs to the Confraternita del Nome di Dio, a lay brotherhood whose charitable work included providing burial for the city's poor. The building dates to the sixteenth century. Beginning in 1617, Pandolfi covered the interior with a painted cycle that survives largely intact, making the church a record of the confraternity's devotional life and its artistic milieu.

What to notice

The ceiling's central panel depicts the Trionfo del Nome di Dio, flanked by allegories of the Ducal and Pontifical courts. The Immaculate Conception appears toward the altar and the Inferno toward the entrance. Portraits include Francesco Maria II della Rovere wearing the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece beside his son Federico Ubaldo. The walls were painted between 1634 and 1636 in collaboration with Nicola Sabbatini. Their three horizontal bands include monochrome scenes of the Works of Mercy and a children's procession, large canvases of Sibyls, Old Testament deliverances and miracles of Saints Peter and Paul, and monochrome Doctors of the Church and Evangelists. Near the organ, built by Antonio Paci in 1631, is a presumed self-portrait of Pandolfi.

Context and history

The façade was renewed in 1763 in Istrian stone to a design by Gian Andrea Lazzarini and restored again in 1912. The high altar once held Federico Barocci's Circoncisione, taken to Paris during the Napoleonic spoliations; a copy by Carlo Paolucci now occupies its place. Side altars include a Crucifixion and a Madonna with Saints by Teodoro Ghisi. The sacristy preserves further works by Pandolfi, the confraternity's monogram and nineteen seventeenth-century panels of the Passion.