The church of the Gesu, first conceived in 1551 by Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits Society of Jesus, is located in the Piazza del Gesù in Rome, built on the same spot as the previous church Santa Maria della Strada, where Loyola had once prayed before an image of the Holy Virgin.

Michelangelo, at the request of the Spanish cardinal Bartolomeo de la Cueva, had offered, out of devotion, to design the church for free The endeavor is instead funded by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III, the pope who had authorized the founding of the Society of Jesus.

The main architects ultimately involved in the construction are Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, architect of the Farnese family, and Giacomo della Porta.

Vignola's Il Gesu, begun in Rome for the Jesuits in 1568, calls for a large, single-aisled church, with truncated transept arms and a large dome over the crossing, all leading to the altar set in a deep, wide apse.

In this design, in which he departs from oval format design of his earlier churches of Sant' Andrea in Via Flaminia and Sant'Anna dei Palafrenieri, can be seen the full development of a new style, later called the baroque, that departs from the classical rules.

His elimination of side aisles creates an uncluttered and airy interior.

Giacomo della Porta designs the facade.

The Gesù, active during the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent Catholic Reformation, is also to be the home of the Superior General of the Society of Jesus until the suppression of the order in 1773.

Officially named Chiesa del Santissimo Nome di Gesù all'Argentina (English: Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus), the church serves as model for innumerable Jesuit churches all over the world, especially in the Americas.

Sixtus has swiftly restored peace and safety, but his extreme measures in dealing with bandits create many enemies.

His financial policies, which are intended to strengthen the church's reserves, include the sale of offices, the creation of new monti (loans), the imposition of new taxes, and the regulation of prices.

Immense sums are spent on his huge building program, including the completion of St. Peter's dome, the rebuilding of the Lateran Palace and the Vatican, revision of street plans, and the general embellishment of Rome that will transform it from a medieval to a Baroque city.

Sixtus' greatness is founded on his achievements in reforming the central administration of the church.

By a bull of 1586, he defines the Sacred College of Cardinals, limiting its number to seventy.

A group of refugees from the Abbey of Farfa, after its burning by Saracen invaders in 898, had settled in Rome, remaining in the city even after their abbot Ratfredus (934-936) rebuilt the abbey.

By the end of the tenth century, the Abbey of Farfa owned Roman churches, houses, windmills and vineyards.

A bull of Holy Roman Emperor Otto III in 998 had confirmed the property of three churches: Santa Maria, San Benedetto and the oratorio of San Salvatore.

When they ceded their property to the Medici family in 1480, the church of Santa Maria, a Roman Catholic minor basilica and titular church in Rome, not far from Piazza Navona, entitled to the Virgin Mary, to St. Dionigi Areopagita and to St. Louis IX, king of France, had become the church of Saint Louis of the French.

Cardinal Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici commissioned Jean de Chenevière to build a church for the French community in 1518.

Building was halted when Rome was sacked in 1527.

Designed by Giacomo della Porta and built by Domenico Fontana between 1518 and 1589, the work on the Church of St. Louis of the French, or San Luigi dei Francesi, has been completed through the personal intervention of Catherine de' Medici, who had donated to it some possessions in the area.

Della Porta had made the façade as a piece of decorative work entirely independent of the body of the structure, a method that is to be much copied.