Santa Maria sopra Minerva
Basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva | ||
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Groundbreaking | 1280 | |
Completed | 1370 | |
Specifications | ||
Length | 101 m (331 ft) | |
Width | 41 m (135 ft) | |
Nave width | 15 m (49 ft) | |
Administration | ||
Province | Diocese of Rome | |
Clergy | ||
Cardinal protector | António Marto |
Santa Maria sopra Minerva is one of the major
The church is located in Piazza della Minerva one block east the Pantheon in the Pigna rione of Rome within the ancient district known as the Campus Martius. The present church and disposition of surrounding structures is visible in a detail from the Nolli Map of 1748.
While many other medieval churches in Rome have been given
The church and adjoining convent served at various times throughout its history as the Dominican Order's headquarters. Today the headquarters have been re-established in their original location at the Roman convent of Santa Sabina. The titulus of Sanctae Mariae supra Minervam was conferred upon Cardinal António Marto, on 28 June 2018.
History
In Roman times there were three temples in what is now the area surrounding the basilica and former convent buildings: the
The ruined temple is likely to have lasted until the reign of
In 1255 Pope Alexander IV established a community of converted women on the site. A decade later this community was transferred to the Roman Church of San Pancrazio thereby allowing the Dominicans to establish a convent of friars and a studium conventuale there. The Friars were on site beginning in 1266 but took official possession of the Church in 1275. Aldobrandino Cavalcanti (1279), vicarius Urbis or vicar for Pope Gregory X, and an associate of Thomas Aquinas ratified the donation of Santa Maria sopra Minerva to the Dominicans of Santa Sabina by the sisters of S. Maria in Campo Marzio.[6] The ensemble of buildings that formed around the church and convent came to be known as the insula sapientae or insula dominicana (island of wisdom or Dominican island).[7]
The Dominicans began building the present
In 1453 church interior construction was finally completed when Cardinal Juan Torquemada ordered that the main nave be covered by a vault that reduced the overall projected height of the church.[2] In the same year of 1453 Count Francesco Orsini sponsored the construction of the façade at his own expense. However work on the façade remained incomplete until 1725 when it was finally finished by order of Pope Benedict XIII.[7]
In 1431, the Church and the adjacent Convent of the Dominicans was the site of a Papal conclave. The city of Rome was in an uproar upon the death of Pope Martin V (Colonna), whose family had dominated Roman political life for fifteen years, and enriched themselves on the wealth of the Church. There was fighting in the streets on a daily basis, and the Plaza in front of the Minerva, because of the configuration of streets, houses, church and monastery, could easily be fortified and defended.[8] The Sacristy of the Church served as the meeting hall for the fourteen cardinals (out of nineteen) who attended the Conclave, which began on 1 March 1431. The dormitory of the monks in the Convent to the immediate north of the Church, served as the living quarters for the cardinals and their refectory and kitchen. On 3 March they elected Cardinal Gabriele Condulmaro, who took the name Eugenius IV.[9] A second Conclave was held at the Minerva, on 4–6 March 1447, following the death of Pope Eugenius, once again in the midst of disturbances involving the Orsini supporters of Pope Eugenius and his enemies the Colonna. Eighteen cardinals (out of a total of twenty-six) were present and elected Cardinal Tommaso Parentucelli da Sarzana as Pope Nicholas V.[10]
The Minerva has been a
In the 16th century Giuliano da Sangallo made changes in the choir area, and in 1600 Carlo Maderno enlarged the apse, added Baroque decorations and created the present façade with its pilastered tripartite division in Renaissance style.[2] Marks on this façade dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries indicate various flood levels of the Tiber 65 feet (20 metres).
Between 1848 and 1855 Girolamo Bianchedi directed an important program of restoration when most of the Baroque additions were removed and the blank walls were covered with neo-gothic frescos giving the interior the
The basilica's stained glass windows are mostly from the 19th century. In 1909, the great organ was constructed by the firm of Carlo Vegezzi Bossi. The organ was restored in 1999.[12]
The inscriptions found in S. Maria sopra Minerva have been collected and published by Vincenzo Forcella.[13]
Convent and Studium
In 1288 the theology component of the provincial curriculum for the education of the friars was relocated from the studium provinciale at the Roman basilica of Santa Sabina to the studium conventuale at Santa Maria sopra Minerva which was redesignated as a studium particularis theologiae.[14] At various times in its history this studium served as a studium generale for the Roman province of the Order.
College of Saint Thomas
The late 16th century saw the studium at Santa Maria sopra Minerva undergo transformation. Thomas Aquinas, who had been canonized in 1323 by Pope
Offices of the Inquisition
On 14 September 1628, by papal decree, the convent of Minerva was designated as the seat of the
In the late 18th and early 19th century the suppression of religious orders hampered the mission of the Order and the College of St. Thomas. During the French occupation of Rome from 1797 to 1814 the college declined and even briefly closed its doors from 1810 to 1815.[17] The Order gained control of the convent once again in 1815, only for it to be expropriated by the Italian government in 1870.
In 1873 the Collegium Divi Thomæ de Urbe was forced to leave the Minerva for good, eventually being relocated at the convent of Saints Dominic and Sixtus in 1932 and being transformed into the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in 1963.
The Dominicans eventually were allowed to return to the Minerva and part of the convent.
Interior
Among several important works of art in the church are
Carafa Chapel
The
Cappella Capranica
The chapel is also known as the Chapel of the Rosary. The stucco ceiling was made in 1573 by Marcello Venusti. The chapel contains the tomb of Cardinal Domenico Capranica by Andrea Bregno.
Michelangelo's Cristo della Minerva
The
Cappella Aldobrandini
The
Cappella Raymond of Penyafort
The chapel dedicated to Raymond of Penyafort houses the tomb of Cardinal Juan Díaz de Coca, by Andrea Bregno. The ceiling fresco Jesus Christ as a Judge, between two angels is by Melozzo da Forlì.
Other major artworks
- Annunciation (1485), by Antoniazzo Romano - shows Cardinal Juan de Torquemada OP presenting girls who received a dowry by his Guild of the Annunciation to the Virgin.[19] The cardinal is buried nearby.
- The tombs of the Popes Clement VII by Baccio Bandinelli (1541) [18]
- Tomb of Urban VII
- Tomb of Fra Angelico, by Isaia da Pisa (1455)
- Tomb of Guillaume Durand the Elder, Bishop of Mende (1285-1296), the 13th-century canonist; signed by Giovanni di Cosma (1296)
- Memorial to Maria Raggi, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini(between 1647 and 1653)
- Tomb of Cardinal Domenico Pimentel by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1653)
- Tomb of Francesco Tornabuoni (1480), one of the best works by Mino da Fiesole
Burials
This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2023) |
Saint
The famous early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico died in the adjoining convent and was buried in the church. (He had painted a fresco cycle in the cloister on the initiative of Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, but those paintings have not survived.)
Before the construction of
The tombs of Popes
Cardinal Astorgio Agnensi has his tomb monument in the cloister.
List of cardinal-priests from Santa Maria sopra Minerva
- 1557–1566 Michele Ghisleri (later Pope Pius V)
- 1566–1589 Michele Bonelli
- 1589–1602 Girolamo Bernerio
- 1602–1608 François-Marie Thaurusi
- 1608–1616 Filippo Spinelli
- 1621–1639 Giulio Roma
- 1643–1654 Giambattista Altieri
- 1655–1679 Jean François Paul de Gondi
- 1679–1694 Philip Howard of Norfolk
- 1694–1699 José Saenz d'Aguirre
- 1701–1729 Louis Antoine de Noailles
- 1729–1730 Agustín Pipia
- 1730–1747 Philipp Ludwig von Sinzendorf
- 1747–1762 Daniele Delfino
- 1758–1770 Giuseppe Pozzobonelli
- 1770–1782 Scipione Borghese
- 1783–1787 Tommaso Maria Ghilini
- 1787–1800 Vincenzo Ranuzzi
- 1801–1814 Giulio Maria della Somaglia
- 1816–1822 Francesco Fontana
- 1823–1828 Francesco Bertazzoli
- 1829–1832 Benedetto Barberini
- 1832–1836 Giuseppe Maria Velzi
- 1838–1850 Antonio Francesco Orioli
- 1850–1854 Raffaele Fornari
- 1857–1860 Francesco Gaude
- 1861–1864 Gaetano Bedini
- 1868–1870 Matteo Eustachio Gonella
- 1875–1885 John McCloskey
- 1887–1894 Zeferino González y Díaz Tuñón
- 1895–1896 Egidio Mauri
- 1896–1909 Serafino Cretoni
- 1911–1918 John Murphy Farley
- 1919–1922 Teodoro Valfre di Bonzo
- 1922–1926 Stanislas Touchet
- 1926–1929 Giuseppe Gamba
- 1930–1938 Giulio Serafini
- 1939–1946 Eugène Tisserant
- 1946–1965 Clemente Micara
- 1967–1974 Antonio Samorè
- 1976–1977 Dino Staffa
- 1979–1998 Anastasio Ballestrero
- 2001–2017 Cormac Murphy-O'Connor
- 2018–present António Marto
Minerva's Pulcino
In front of the church there is one of the most curious monuments of Rome, the so-called Pulcino della Minerva. It is a statue designed by the Baroque era sculptor
The inspiration for the unusual composition came from Hypnerotomachia Poliphili ("Poliphilo's Dream of the Strife of Love"), an unusual 15th century novel probably by Francesco Colonna. The novel's main character meets an elephant made of stone carrying an obelisk, and the accompanying woodcut illustration[20] in the book is quite similar to Bernini's design for the base for the obelisk. The curious placement of the obelisk through the body of the elephant is identical.
The sturdy appearance of the structure earned it the popular nickname of "Porcino" ("Piggy") for a while. The name for the structure eventually changed to Pulcino, the Italian for a small or little "chick". This may have been a reference to the comparatively short height of the obelisk or, an obscure reference to the major charity of the Dominicans to assist young women needing dowries, who made a procession in the courtyard every year. The latter were once depicted in a local painting as three tiny figures with the Virgin Mary presenting purses to them.
Cultural references
The elephant and obelisk monument and the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva feature in the novel 'The Tomb of Alexander' by Sean Hemingway. In the novel it is claimed that a secret passageway beneath the church leads to a chamber beneath the elephant monument which contains the body of Alexander the Great, placed there in the 17th century by Pope Alexander VII. This is entirely a work of fiction and the theory is unproven.
Dali's painting 'Les Elephants' includes two elephants with long spindly legs that appear to be carrying obelisks; on closer inspection, the obelisks are floating. Dali also utilizes this motif in Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944) and The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946). See Monica Bowen's blog Alberti's Window.[21]
Gallery
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Tomb of Giovanni Vigevano by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1618–1620
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Memorial to Maria Raggiby Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1647–1653
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Tomb of Fra Angelico, by Isaia da Pisa, 1455
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Cristo della Minerva by Michelangelo, 1519–1520
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High Altar
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Vault
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Basilica interior
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Madonna and Child Giving Blessings by Benozzo Gozzoli, 1449
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Icon of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, crowned by the Vatican Chapter in 1640 as authorized by Pope Urban VIII
See also
- Roman Catholic Marian churches
References
Notes
Citations
- ^ a b c Grundmann & Fürst 1998, pp. 96–97
- ^ a b c "S. Maria sopra Minerva" (in Italian). Ministry of the Interior. Retrieved 2013-03-12.
- ^ "Official website of Santa Maria sopra Minerva" (in Italian). Retrieved 2009-03-15.
- ^ Platner, Samuel Ball (1929), "Obeliscus Isei Campensis", A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, Oxford, pp. 368–369
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Masetti 1855, p. 2
- ^ Bagliani, Agostino Paravicini. "Cavalcanti, Aldobrandino (Ildebrandinus)". Treccani.it- The Italian Encyclopedia (in Italian). Retrieved 2013-02-23.
- ^ a b "EUROPEAN HERITAGE DAYS 2012 - "ITALY TREASURE OF EUROPE"" (in Italian). Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism. 2012-09-29. Retrieved 2013-12-19.
- ^ Ferdinand Gregorovius, The History of Rome in the Middle Ages (translated from the fourth German edition by A. Hamilton) Volume 7 part 1 [Book XIII, Chapter 1] (London 1900) 22-26.
- ^ J. P. Adams, Sede Vacante and Conclave of 1431. Retrieved: 2016-03-13.
- ^ J. P. Adams, Sede Vacante and Conclave of 1447. Retrieved: 2016-03-13.
- ^ David M. Cheney, Catholic-Hierarchy: Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Retrieved: 2016-03-13.
- ^ The Vegezzi Bossi Organ at the Minerva. Retrieved: 2016-03-13.
- ^ V. Forcella, Inscrizioni delle chese e d' altre edifici di Roma, dal secolo XI fino al secolo XVI Volume I. Roma: Tipografia delle scienze mathematiche e fisiche, 1869, pp. 409-539.
- ISBN 9780888441324. Retrieved 2011-05-26.
- )
- ^ a b "Palazzo del Seminario (The Seminario Palace)". Chamber of Deputies. Retrieved 2013-12-19.
- ISBN 9781883734183. Retrieved 2011-04-24.
- ^ a b c "Antonio da Sangallo, the Younger | Design for a Freestanding Tomb Seen in Elevation and Plan".
- ^ "Annunciation", Feminae, University of Iowa
- ^ Media related to Elephant hypnerno at Wikimedia Commons (illustration from Hypnerotomachia Poliphili)
- ^ Bowen, Monica. Bernini’s Elephant, Another Myth, and Dali. Alberti’s Window. March 21st, 2016.
Bibliography
- Silvia Koci Montanari, Le Chiese papali a Roma: sulle tracce dei sepolcri dei Papi (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000), pp. 243 ff.
- Giancarlo Palmerio and Gabriella Villetti, Storia edilizia di S. Maria sopra Minerva in Roma, 1275-1870 (Roma: Viella, 1989).
- Gianfranco Spagnesi, Antonio da Sangallo il giovane: la vita e l'opera (Roma: Centro di studi per la storia dell'architettura, 1986), pp. 109–115 (tombs of Leo X and Clement VII).
- Grundmann, Stefan; Fürst, Ulrich (1998), The Architecture of Rome: an architectural history in 400 individual presentations, Stuttgart: Ed. Axel Menges, ISBN 3-930698-60-9
- Masetti, Pio Tommaso (1855), Memorie istoriche della chiesa di S. Maria sopra Minerva e de' suoi moderni restauri (in Italian), Rome: Tip. di B. Morini, OCLC 24239739
External links
- (in Italian) Santa Maria sopra Minerva: official site
- "Beggar's Rome" - A self-directed virtual tour of S. Maria sopra Minerva and other Roman churches
- June Hager, "Santa Maria sopra Minerva" Archived 2019-12-01 at the Wayback Machine
- Woodcut elephant that inspired Bernini Archived 2007-01-17 at the Wayback Machine
- Santa Maria sopra Minerva travel guide from Wikivoyage
- Media related to Santa Maria sopra Minerva at Wikimedia Commons
Preceded by Santa Maria del Popolo |
Landmarks of Rome Santa Maria sopra Minerva |
Succeeded by Santa Maria in Trastevere |