An old legend, now rooted in the collective imagination, has long conditioned the first impact with the exuberant architecture of Sant’Agnese in Agone, a very ancient Roman church built on the site where the young Agnes suffered martyrdom.

It all stems from the presence of a bulky opposite, Gianlorenzo Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers, the absolute protagonist of the urban scene in Piazza Navona, and from the fascination of the rivalry, real or presumed, between two giants of Baroque Rome, Bernini and Borromini.