chiesa di San Francesco all'Immacolata

This church, a Franciscan foundation, is a study in structural deception. Its load-bearing masonry walls are reinforced with pilasters and architraved counter-pilasters, which support an internal false vault with lunettes across the nave, a clever trompe-l’oeil of architectural space. At the critical junctions between vestibule, nave, and presbytery, the pillars are of squared stone blocks, carrying the load-bearing arches with a pleasing honesty that contrasts with the faux vault above.

The adjoining rooms, including a former cloister, are roofed with cross-vaults resting on pillars or columns, now partially absorbed into later infill walls. The overall effect is of a building that has been tinkered with across centuries, its structural bones both revealed and obscured. It is less a pristine monument than a palimpsest of architectural solutions, each phase of construction and modification leaving its mark in stone and plaster.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.