Papacy during the Baroque

The baroque era is a time where the Catholic Church seek many different ways to approach the Protestant Reformation. The movement was referred as the Counter Reformation. Due to this push of integrating the Catholic faith into the community again and the Popes of this era were in charge to pervade the towns of Europe with many churches and many different pieces of art which represented the Catholic faith. To be able to appeal to the people and have the pieces of art inspire the sublime for the person in faith.

There is a total of  15 popes in the era between 1585 to 1689. There are many which created a lot off movement in the influence in baroque art. For example, Urban VIII which was a major patron of the art and architecture during his papacy.  After his death Bernini made a statue of Pope Urban VIII.

During Alexander VII papacy, he commissioned Pietro da Cortona to redesign and revisit the facilities of S. Maria della Pace.

Alexander VII also asked for Bernini to be apart of the design of the Piazza of St. Peters. He asked for Bernini to find a solution for the disharmony between the dome and facade.

Fountain of Pope Paul V at St. Peters

Below is the chronological list of the popes during the era, and there is links for the major popes and their stories.

Sixtus V (Felice Peretti of Ancona) 1585-1590.
Urban VII (Giambattista Castagna of Rome) 15 to 27 September, 1590.
Gregory XIV (Niccolo Spondrati) 5 December 1590 to 15 October 1591.
Innocent IX (Giovanni Antonio Facchinetti) 29 October 1591 to 30 December 1591.
Clement VIII (Ippolito Aldobrandini of Fano) 1592-1605.
Leo XI Alessandro Ottaviano de'Medici of Florence) 1-27 April, 1605.
Paul V (Camillo Borghese of Rome/Siena) 1605-1621.
Gregory XV (Alessandro Ludovisi of Bologna) 1621-1623
Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini of Florence) 1623-1644.
Innocent X (Giambattista Pamphili of Rome) 1644-1655.
Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi of Siena) 1655-1667.
Clement IX (Giulio Rospigliosi of Pistoia) 1667-1669.
Clement X (Emilio Altieri of Rome) 1670-1676.
Innocent XI (Benedetto Odescalchi of Como) 1676-1689.


Sources:
http://members.efn.org/~acd/bar/popes.html#Popeso
http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi121.htm
http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi27.htm