CHURCH OF SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER, Interior - Ai Voice

The interior of the Church of Saint Francis Xavier features a single nave, designed with a multi-level visual structure that creates both depth and grandeur.

On the first level, you can see loggias known as matronea. In early Christian churches, these upper galleries were traditionally reserved for women, but here they serve a purely decorative and theatrical purpose, enhancing the vertical rhythm of the space.

Above them runs the clerestory, a high band of wall with windows positioned above the main arches. This architectural feature allows natural light to filter gracefully into the nave, illuminating the interior in a soft, harmonious glow.

At the far end, opposite the entrance, stands a large pipe organ built in 1888 by the Gebrüder Mayer, a renowned organ-building company from Germany’s Black Forest region.

The floor is decorated with an elegant checkerboard pattern made of pink granite from Val di Fiemme and white marble from Pila, while the walls and columns are adorned with pilasters crafted using an intricate “commesso” technique, which combines fragments of different-colored marbles to create a rich visual texture....