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Therefore, we construed this evidence as indicative of walls extending 25 feet
above grade [ground level] - a great height for an early church in colonial
British America - but it was a Jesuit Church! From surviving roof tile, we knew
plain tile had clad the roof that dictated a roof slope of 'true pitch' or approxi-
mately 47º. Archival reference to 'pyramids [obelisks] at the base of all four
gables in the specifications for both the 1670s capitol building at St. Mary's and
at St. Ann's Church (Anglican) in Annapolis in the 1690s, gave us a strong hint
that this common feature on significant Baroque period buildings may well have
first made an appearance at the Chapel. Pyramids, obelisks or finials are almost
always associated with parapet gables (where the walls project up beyond the
roof plane); hence, we assumed the cruciform plan presented parapet gables
to the four cardinal points of the compass surmounted by obelisks. Thomas M.
Lucas S.J., an eminent historian of Jesuit architecture from the University of
San Francisco, who served as a consultant on the project, remarked that the
Jesuits in Maryland (educated in Flanders and Rome) would surely have known
the works of Serlio and Vignola. These Renaissance architects wrote influen-
tial topics setting forth the principle orders of Classical Roman architecture.
Vignola was the original designer of the Gesu, the Jesuits' principal church
in Rome (1560s). Realizing that a temple fronted façade, composed of pilasters
surmounted by an entablature - all arranged according to classical precepts -
had in all likelihood been adopted by the Jesuits (Fig. 53), we gradually arrived
Figure 53
Drawing of the front
west elevation of
St. Mary's Chapel.
(Courtesy of Mesick,
Cohen, Wilson and
Baker Architects)
