Baroque architecture is a highly decorative and theatrical style which appeared in Italy in the late 16th century and gradually spread across Europe.

[2][3] Baroque architects took the basic elements of Renaissance architecture, including domes and colonnades, and made them higher, grander, more decorated, and more dramatic.

The interior effects were often achieved with the use of quadratura (i.e. trompe-l'œil painting combined with sculpture): the eye is drawn upward, giving the illusion that one is looking into the heavens.

[5] The High Baroque (1625–1675) produced major works in Rome by Pietro da Cortona, including the (Church of Santi Luca e Martina) (1635–50); by Francesco Borromini (San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1634–1646)); and by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (The colonnade of St. Peter's Square) (1656–57).

The Late Baroque in France, under Louis XIV, was more ordered and classical; examples included the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles and the dome of Les Invalides.

To achieve this, it used a combination of contrast, movement, trompe-l'œil and other dramatic and theatrical effects, such as quadratura—the use of painted ceilings that gave the illusion that one was looking up directly at the sky.

The new style was particularly favored by the new religious orders, including the Theatines and the Jesuits, who built new churches designed to attract and inspire a wide popular audience.

[8] Other influential early examples in Rome included the Church of the Gesù by Giacomo della Porta (consecrated 1584), with the first Baroque façade and a highly ornate interior, and Santa Susanna (1603), by Carlo Maderno.

[citation needed] The first example of early Baroque in Central Europe was the Corpus Christi Church, Nesvizh in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, built by the Jesuits on the Roman model between 1586 and 1593 in Nieśwież (after 1945 Niasvizh in Belarus).

One of the finest monuments of the early Baroque is the Barberini Palace (1626–1629), the residence of the family of Urban VIII, begun by Carlo Maderno, and completed and decorated by Bernini and Francesco Borromini.

The outside of the Pope's family residence, was relatively restrained, but the interiors, and especially the immense fresco on the ceiling of the salon, the Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power painted by Pietro da Cortona, are considered masterpieces of Baroque art and decoration.

[16] Curving façades and the illusion of movement were a speciality of Francesco Borromini, most notably in San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1634–1646), one of the landmarks of the high Baroque.

[17] Another important monument of the period was the Church of Santi Luca e Martina in Rome by Pietro da Cortona (1635–50), in the form of a Greek cross with an elegant dome.

On his return to France, he designed the Pavillon de l’Horloge of the Louvre Palace (beginning 1626), and, more importantly, the Sorbonne Chapel, the first church dome in Paris.

The Baroque grandeur of Versailles, particularly the façade facing the garden and the Hall of Mirrors by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, became models for other palaces across Europe.

[26][27] Christopher Wren was the leading figure of the late Baroque in England, with his reconstruction of St. Paul's Cathedral (1675–1711) inspired by the model of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, his plan for Greenwich Hospital (begun 1695), and Hampton Court Palace (1690–96).

Other British figures of the late Baroque included Inigo Jones for Wilton House (1632–1647 and two pupils of Wren, John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor, for Castle Howard (1699–1712) and Blenheim Palace (1705–1724).

[33][34] Notable architects who built buildings in a Late Baroque style in Lithuania are Johann Christoph Glaubitz, Thomas Zebrowski, Pietro Perti (cooperated with painters Michelangelo Palloni, Giovanni Maria Galli), Giambattista Frediani, Pietro Puttini, Carlo Puttini, Jan Zaor, G. Lenkiewicz, Abraham Würtzner, Jan Valentinus Tobias Dyderszteyn, P. I. Hofer, Paolo Fontana [it], etc.

In Austria, the leading figure was Fischer von Erlach, who built the Karlskirche, the largest church of Vienna, to glorify the Habsburg emperors.

Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt used grand stairways and ellipses to achieve his effects at the upper and lower Belvedere Palace in Vienna (1714–1722).

In The Abbey of Melk, Jakob Prandtauer used an abundance of polychrome marble and stucco, statuary and ceiling paintings to achieve harmonious and highly theatrical effects.

[41] Political and economic crises in the 17th century largely delayed the arrival of the Baroque in Spain until the late period, though the Jesuits strongly promoted it.