Triumph of the Name of Jesus

Triumph of the Name of Jesus is a ceiling fresco with stucco molding painted by Giovanni Battista Gaulli between 1661 and 1679 for the nave ceiling of the Church of the Gesù in Rome. It depicts the Adoration of the Name of Jesus, a theme drawn from Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, and is encircled by a carved inscription reading, in Latin, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven, on earth and under the earth. The composition shows saved souls ascending toward a blaze of light marked by the Christogram IHS while the damned tumble from the frame into shadow, and Gaulli used illusionistic painting to blur the line between the flat ceiling and the sculpted stucco figures spilling from it, so that celestial beings appear to float directly above the viewer.