"Il santo della podestadessa": la chiesa di San Gaetano e i teatini a Brescia

Even though the Brescians were eager for the Theatines to establish a house in their town already in 1587, the order did not settle there until one century later. During this period, various locations had been proposed for the house, however it was not until the 1680s that the Theatines decided to purchase the church and monastery of Santa Maria della Purificazione, a complex recently abandoned by the Oratorians. In 1691 the Venetian Theatine Bernardo Contarini, with the help of the podestà of Brescia Giovanni Corner and his wife Laura, managed to overcome numerous bureaucratic and financial problems, and finally the new Theatine house was founded. This paper analyzes the role of the patrons, as well as the transformation of the church in the first half of the 18th century. Under the guidance of the Theatin Gian Domenico Gradenigo, a prominent figure in the Republic of Letters and in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the church underwent substantial restoration, such as the enlarge- ment of the presbytery, the addition of a new choir, a penitenzieria, and a large sacristy. Furthermore two new side chapels flanking the pre- existing ones were opened in the nave and the interior reconfigured with stucco, marble, and frescoes. The essay is based, on one hand, on an extensive bibliographic and archival analysis, which brought to light an unpublished 18th-century diary preserved in the Theatine archive in Rome, and on the other hand, on the study of the church's architecture. This analysis thus provides a new contribution to the understanding of Theatine architecture in the 18th century.