Baroque architecture, starting in the early 17th century in Italy,
took the humanist Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and
used it in a new rhetorical, theatrical, sculptural fashion,
expressing the triumph of absolutist church and state. New
architectural concerns for color, light and shade, sculptural
values and intensity characterize the Baroque. But whereas the
Renaissance drew on the wealth and power of the Italian courts, and
was a blend of secular and religious forces, the Baroque was,
initially at least, directly linked to the Counter- Reformation, a
movement within the Catholic Church to reform itself in response to
the Protestant Reformation. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) is
usually given as the beginning of the Counter-Reformation. The
Baroque played into the demand for an architecture that was on the
one hand more accessible to the emotions and, on the other hand, a
visible statement of the wealth and power of the Church. The new
style manifested itself in particular in the context of new
religious orders, like the Theatines and the Jesuits, which aimed
to improve popular piety.
