Sts. CELSUS AND JULIAN

SS. CELSO E GIULIANO
Vicolo del Curato 12

Consecrated, according to tradition, by Celestine I (422/432) in the year 432 and dedicated to the two martyrs of the fourth century from Antioch

It is mentioned in the sources in 1008 as Ecclesia Sancti Celsi

It was rebuilt in the years 1509/35 to a design by Donato Bramante (1444/1514), which however, was not carried out entirely

Rebuilt again in the years 1733/43 by Carlo De Dominicis (1696/1758) for Clement XII Corsini (1730/40)

“There is no doubt that the masterpiece of De Dominicis is the church of Sts. Celso and Giuliano (...). Taking advantage of the opportunity to design a completely new structure, De Dominicis devised a transverse oval, with seven radiating chapels. The plan is only superficially similar to the transverse oval used three quarters of a century before by Bernini in S. Andrea al Quirinale: De Dominicis, increasing the size of the chapels corresponding to the transverse axis and the longitudinal or ritual axis, deliberately accentuates both these axises, resulting in a blend of oval plan and elongated Greek cross in a way similar to that often implemented by the architects of the late sixteenth century. On the other hand, the conservatism of the spacial concept is mostly displaced by the dynamic sensitivity of the tectonic structure and the happiness of ornamentation applied” (John Varriano - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

Restored 1868 by Andrea Busiri Vici (1818/1911)

1^st CHAPEL ON THE RIGHT
Marble urn of the eighteenth century with the relics of Sts. Artemisia and Januaria
Above the altar “S. Cornelius Pope among Sts. Artemisia and Januaria” 1737 by Giuseppe Lapis

2^nd CHAPEL ON THE RIGHT
Above the altar “Mary Magdalene” 1736 by Emanuele Alfani (active 1736/74)

3^rd CHAPEL ON THE RIGHT
Above the altar “Wooden crucifix” first half of the fifteenth century of the school of Lucca
Altar piece “Lady of Sorrows” of the eighteenth-century

MAIN ALTAR
“Christ in glory and Sts. Celsus, Julian, Marconilla (mother of Celsus) and Basilissa (wife of Julian)” 1736/38 one of the first Roman works by Pompeo Batoni (1708/87)
On the right “St. Celsus victorious over the pagan priests” 1735 by Francesco Caccianiga (1700/81)
On the left “St. Julian resurrecting the dead” 1736 by Giacomo Triga (1674/1746), a pupil of Benedetto Luti

3^rd CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
Decoration of the nineteenth-century in neo-Renaissance style
Above the altar “Our Lady of the Graces” copy of the end of the sixteenth century of a medieval painting

2^nd CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
Above the altar “Bishop Liborio” 1736 by Giuseppe Valeriano (1542/96)

1^st CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
Above the altar “Baptism of Christ” 1736/37 by Giuseppe Ranucci
This was the baptistery chapel until 1930 and a plaque commemorates the baptism which took place here of Eugenio Pacelli later to become Pope Pius XII (1939/58)

Sts. BARTHOLOMEW AND ALEXANDER OF THE PEOPLE FROM BERGAMO

SS. BARTOLOMEO E ALESSANDRO DEI BERGAMASCHI
Piazza Colonna

1562, renewed 1731 by Carlo De Dominicis (1696/1758)
Restored 1836/39 by Giuseppe Valadier (1762/1839)
Restored again 1902/04 by Giuseppe Sacconi (1854/1905)

“De Dominicis had a vivid imagination and cleverly used the decorative vocabulary of Borromini more than half a century after the death of the master. Along with his contemporary Federico Raguzzini he worked on the formulation of the basic themes of Roman rococo architecture, although in his later years he seems to have rejected these decorative ways in favor of the more classical taste which was then beginning to establish itself in Europe” (John Varriano - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

FAÇADE
1719 G.B. Contini (1641/1723)
Decorated with paintings, stucco and gold in the years 1902/04 by Emilio Retrosi

VAULT
“Virgin Mary and Sts. Bartholomew and Alexander” 1904 by Emilio Retrosi

2^nd CHAPEL ON THE RIGHT
“Saints from Bergamo refusing to worship idols” by Giovanni Antonio Valtellina

3^rd CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
Altar piece with six different paintings of saints including “S. Anne with the Virgin Mary in her arms” maybe by Marco Benefial (1684/1764)

2^nd CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
Altar piece “Beheading of St. John the Baptist” 1732 by Aureliano Milani (1675/1749)

1^st CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
Wooden sculpture “Christ at the Column” 1569 by Filippo Dal Borgo

SACRISTY
“Beheading of St. John the Baptist” by Girolamo Muziano (1532/92)
“Adoration of the Magi” about 1550 by an anonymous Mannerist artist

ORATORY
Two paintings with the same subject:
“Apparition of the Virgin Mary to Sts. Bartholomew and Alexander” about 1635 Giuseppe Puglia aka Bastaro (about 1600/36) and in 1574 by Durante Alberti (1538/1616)

St. SAVIOR AT THE BARRELLS

S. SALVATORE ALLE COPPELLE
Piazza delle Coppelle 72b

Mentioned for the first time by the sources in 1195

It is called alle coppelle (at the barrels) from the name of the wooden barrels with a capacity of about 5 liters (1.3 gallons) made in this area until the sixteenth century

From 1300s to 1500s it was also known as S. Salvatore de Pietate

Restored about 1738/43 by Carlo De Dominicis (1696/1758)

“In his first two decades of activity De Dominicis fully adhered to the Rococo style, but in 1743 it seems he underwent a change of inclination because the simple façade 'as a temple' of the small church of S. Salvatore alle Coppelle in its cold classicism is remarkably prophetic of the imminent neoclassical style. It's not to be excluded, on the other hand, the possibility that the appearance of the church was changed in a later but not documented restoration” (John Varriano - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

Restored again 1858/60 by Giacomo Monaldi (1819/1905) and in 1915 when the iconostasis was added

“The formal façade that we see today was the result of 'corrections' made ​​in the purist style in the general restoration of 1858/60, similar to what was done in those years at S. Maria dell'Umiltà (in both cases misleading art historians). Giacomo Monaldi (...) had built a few years before S. Giovanni della Malva in Trastevere, whose façade has a pattern almost identical to this one” (Federico Antonio Caiola)

BELL TOWER
About 1195, the period of Pope Celestine III Orsini (1191/98). The bell dates back to 1664

On the outside wall of the church there is perhaps the most ancient inscription in vernacular Italian: CHIA DEL S. SALVATORE DELLA PIETÀ ALER DELLE CVPELLE 1195. The font, however, appears modern and some scholars believe, with good arguments that it was made during the eighteenth-century restoration

On the outside wall of the church there is also a “Marble mail box” of 1749

It was used to post news of illness of guests in hotels and inns in Rome. The Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament and of the Divine Perseverance, which was approved in 1663, had its headquarters here and worked for two centuries precisely to help the sick pilgrims

Romanian National Church of Byzantine Catholic Rite since 1914

INTERIOR
Left wall of the entrance room “Funerary memory of Filippo Boschetti, lawyer of the Roman Rota (the highest appellate tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church)” 1740 maybe by Carlo De Dominicis

RIGHT NAVE
Fresco “Virgin Mary with Jesus on her lap” maybe by the school of Antonio Aquili aka Antoniazzo Romano (about 1435-40/1508), who had his own workshop and house in this area of ​​Rome

TEMPLON (Iconostasis)
Painted in 1915 by Alessandro Pigna (1862/1919)

“The iconostasis, which separates the nave from the chancel area was added after the assignment to the Romanian clergy, around 1915, and painted by Alessandro Pigna who illustrated the canonical subjects with academic expertise, enlivened by hints of Art Nouveau” (Antonio Federico Caiola)

LEFT NAVE - SPINOLA CHAPEL
“Tomb of Cardinal George Spinola, Bishop of Palestrina, D. 1739” 1744 masterpiece by Bernardino Ludovisi (about 1713/49)

St. AGATHA OF THE GOTHS

S. AGATA DEI GOTI

Via Mazzarino 16

It is mentioned in the sources for the first time in 467 when the Goth general Flavius Ricimer wanted it to be decorated with a mosaic in the apse which eventually collapsed in 1589

Maybe it was originally dedicated to the Savior

It was the only church in Rome dedicated to the worship for the Aryan Gothic community

In 592 it was consecrated to the Catholic rite and to St. Agatha of Sicily by Gregory I the Great (590/604)

According to the Acta Sanctorum (the main collection of literary sources relating to the saints of the Catholic Church, written in the seventeenth century), in fact, St. Agatha, a native of Catania, had freed the city from the Goths with a miracle

It was restored by S. Leo III (795/816) and S. Leo IV (847/855), who entrusted it to the Benedictines

It was restructured in the years 1633/35 by Domenico Castelli (1582/1657) for Cardinals Antonio and Francesco Barberini

It is also known as S. AGATA IN CAPITE SUBURRAE named after the nearby Suburra neighborhood or S. AGATA DE CABALLO from the ancient name of the Quirinal Hill

It hosted the Irish College for 90 years from 1836 to 1926 in the adjacent building in Via Mazzarino. It is currently officiated by Irish monks

FAÇADE

1729 Francesco Ferrari (active in Rome 1721/44)

ATRIUM

Inscriptions and sculptures from ancient and medieval including in the left arm “Head of a woman on column” maybe of the fifth century AD

At the center “Well” of the sixth century with the carved insignia of Cardinal Nicolò Ridolfi, nephew of Clement VII Medici (1523/34)

INTERIOR

It still has the plan of the fifth century with Goths particularities as the two arched windows in the apse now walled in, the dosserets above the capitals and the use of the Byzantine foot as unit of measurement

During the renovation of the seventeenth-century the arches were reduced from seven to five

COUNTER FAÇADE

Organ 1703 for Cardinal Carlo Bichi who was buried in the left aisle

Canvas “Fortress” on the left and “Humility” on the right by Paolo Gismondi aka Paolo Perugino (1612/85), a student from Perugia of Pietro da Cortona

CEILING

1633, coffered with golden bees, symbols of the Barberini family

ABOVE THE ARCHES

“Eight medallions of Irish saints” 1863 reminiscent of the period between 1836 and 1926 during which the church was run by Irish monks

UPPER SIDE WALLS

Six paintings with “History of St. Agatha” about 1633/36, recently restored, by Paolo Gismondi aka Paolo Perugino:

On the right

“Martyrdom of St. Agatha at the order of Quintianus”, “St. Agatha resisting the temptations of Aphrodisias and her daughters” and “St. Agatha rejects offers of jewelry from Aphrodisias and her daughters”

On the left

“St. Peter appears to St. Agatha locked up in jail”, “St. Agatha at the stake” and “St. Agatha on her deathbed surrounded by weeping women and angels”

ON THE RIGHT WALL

“Tomb of Cardinal Giovanni Marco y Catalan” d. 1841

END OF THE RIGHT AISLE - CHAPEL OF St. AGATHA

Statue in gilded wood “St. Agatha” 1681 by an anonymous seventeenth-century monk

Gilded wood reliquary with the relics of Greek martyrs from the Catacomb of S. Callisto transported here at the will of Leo IX (1049/54)

MAIN ALTAR

From the window of the altar it is possible to see the urn with other relics of Greek martyrs

“Cosmatesque Ciborium” XII/XIII century, reassembled in the years 1928/32 by Gustavo Giovannoni (1873/1947) who put philologically together the scattered pieces found in the church and in the garden

In the years 1931/33 the PRESBYTERY was painted simulating marble

APSE

“Glory of St. Agatha” about 1633/36 Paolo Gismondi aka Paolo Perugino who also painted the two allegorical figures in the spandrels in front of the arc: on the left “Faith” and on the right “Hope”

“These works gave some reputation to Gismondi, despite the pictorial language full of hesitations and quotes from Michelangelo to the Cavalier d'Arpino, although here he proves he is still a novice painter, and uncertain in terms of form, revealing, in his immature Cortona style, obvious limitations in the definition of the faces, in the drafts of color and in the construction of space” (Giovanna Mencarelli - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

END OF THE LEFT AISLE - CHAPEL OF THE VIRGIN MARY

1681 “St. Gaspar Bertoni” 1991 Aronne Del Vecchio (1910/98)

Frontal with three reliefs: “Adoration of the Shepherds” and small round reliefs “Annunciation” and “Assumption” in the first half of 1600s by an artist influenced by François Duquesnoy (1597/1643)

ON THE LEFT WALL

“Tomb in stucco of Cardinal Carlo Bichi” first half of 1700s by the Roman Carlo De Dominicis (1696/1758), his first public commission. The Cardinal had wanted and paid for the splendid organ in the counter-façade

“The free treatment of this monument, executed in stucco, does not suggest a sympathy of the artist for the classical idiom of the Academy of St. Luke. Indeed, in the years between 1725 and 1733 De Dominicis collaborated with the more anti-classical architect of his generation: Filippo Raguzzini, papal architect under Benedict XIII and leading exponent of the Rococo in Rome” (John Varriano - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)