Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza reopens in Rome after ten years

In Rome, Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza reopened on 28 October 2026 after ten years closed to the public. Set in the city centre, the church is now freely accessible on weekdays, following a lengthy restoration that has made Borromini’s Baroque masterpiece readable again.

For artists, the reopening is a reminder that a building can be a work of composition in its own right. In Borromini’s hands, form is not just ornament: it sets curves, axes and volumes in tension, and changes the visitor’s sense of space with every step.

Painters and draughtspeople will also find a rich lesson in looking here. Light, line and scale create a carefully controlled visual experience, one that constantly shifts between detail and whole, much like an architectural sketch or a perspective study.

The reopening also offers a chance to return to an architecture that is meant to be seen as much as walked through. In a city crowded with images, Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza shows how a building can reveal the craft behind it through the way it organises the gaze.