Piazzale Numa Pompilio 8
Built on the Titulus Crescentinae, founded by St. Anastasius I (399/401)
The dedication to the pope and martyr St. Sixtus II (257/258) appears for the first time in a document of the year 595, and according to the hagiographic and epigraphic tradition his relics are preserved here
It was rebuilt at the time of Innocent III Conti di Segni (1198/1216) and donated in 1219 to St. Dominic who founded here his first monastery for cloistered nuns in perfect seclusion
The monastery was built in 1222
Various restorations, the last one in the years 1725/27 by Filippo Raguzzini (1680/1771)
BELL TOWER of the beginning of the thirteenth century
On the left side “Portal in marble” 1478
INTERIOR
Restored by Filippo Raguzzini
APSE
Frescoes “Sts. Sixtus and Lawrence” and “Holy Trinity” of the sixteenth century
LEFT SIDE OF THE PRESBYTERY
Important cycle of frescoes of the thirteenth or fourteenth century with “Scenes from the New Testament and the Apocrypha, histories of St. Catherine, Pentecost”
More fourteenth-century frescoes in a small room to the right of the chancel and on the walls of a staircase to the right of the apse
CLOISTER
Thirty-two lunettes with “Stories of St. Dominic” 1725/28 by Andrea Casali (1705/84) from Lucca, a pupil of Sebastiano Conca and Francesco Trevisani
“Contemporaries of Andrea Casali appreciated his ability to animate the scenes with several characters and dramatic effects combined with the grace of 'arcadism', all lessons, these, learned from Conca and Trevisani (...). The same factors determined also his success in England, where he took themes and designs intended to create a fascinating and bright world, preferring the light tones and multiplying the female figures, while the repetition of motifs and the speed of execution altered his technique. The theatrical and superficial aspect of this conventional antiquity would ultimately emerge. Nevertheless, Casali was long regarded as a talented artist and his sociability contributed to his success” (Olivier Michel - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)
In the garden behind the church is the SEMENZAIO (seedbed), modern version of the native plants nursery established here by Pius IX Mastai-Ferretti (1846/78)
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