St. MARY MEDIATRIX

S. MARIA MEDIATRICE

Via di S. Maria Mediatrice 53 - Aurelio

1942/50 Giovanni Muzio (1893/1982) who was also the architect of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth

It was built on the Gelsomino (Jasmine) Hill, a southwest extension of the Vatican Hill

Behind the church was also built the CURIA DEI MINORI FRANCESCANI (Headquarters of the Minor Friars) a building in the shape of the letter C facing the garden

It is one of the finest examples of sacred architecture of the postwar period characterized by a sober external monumentality and a striking internal decorative richness

“Dissociating from the late nineteenth-century eclecticism, from Art Nouveau and from the emerging rationalism, Giovanni Muzio's research comes close to the artistic currents of metaphysical painting and the so called 'Novecento' (Twentieth Century) style” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

“The church is located at the top of the composition created by Muzio, preceded by a large treed area, bordered by lower buildings with which it seems to reach out towards the city. The masses of brick-coated walls are barely marked by divisions that do not affect the grandeur. The dome with octagonal base rises with pyramidal shape; the entrance is made out of an arch framed by a double row of columns of Carrara marble” (Raffaella Catini - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

“Stations of the Cross” by Domenico Mastroianni (1876/1962)

RIGHT ALTAR

Bronze relief “St. Francis stigmatized” by Ivan Mestrovic (1883/1962)

MOSAIC IN THE DOME

“Virgin Mary Queen enthroned between saints, prophets, angels and symbols of the Evangelists” by Giorgio Quaroni (1907 /60), Adriano Alessandrini and Ugo Chyurlia

PRESBYTERY

Huge fresco “The Apotheosis of the Franciscan Order” by Gisberto Ceracchini (1889/1982)

“In Rome he attended a drawing school for blue-collar workers, but he should be regarded, in fact, as self-taught. His works appeared in exhibitions of the 'Novecento' (Twentieth Century) style, and in the most important exhibitions of Italian art. (...) From his first exhibited work (Discord, 1921) to the last ones, Ceracchini, widely criticized, did not change the substance of his style that arises on the revaluation of the taste for the so called 'primitive' (early renaissance) painters, which took place at the beginning of the twentieth century, and for those formal features (design and color) historically characteristic of that period. His language, somewhat naive, was a 'sermo rusticus' (rustic vocabulary), which does not mean at all uneducated or instinctive” (Virgilio Guzzi - Enciclopedia Treccani)

Painting “Elizabeth of Hungary” and “Blessed Giovanni Forest” by Francesco Avenali

LEFT ALTAR

Marble relief “Our Lady Mediatrix” by Francesco Nagni (1897/1977)

PIUS PALACE

PALAZZO PIO

Via della Conciliazione 2

1942 Marcello Piacentini (1881/1960) and Attilio Spaccarelli (1890/1975) in collaboration with Gino Cipriani

Built at the same time of the “twin” INA PALACE on the opposite side of the road

It is partly used by Vatican Radio and partly leased to the RAI (the Italian national broadcast service) to host radio and television studios

AUDITORIO PIO

1947/51 Marcello Piacentini and Giorgio Calza Bini (1908/99), formerly rented for decades to the Academy of St. Cecilia. The greatest interpreters of classical music of the whole world have performed here

Windows on the stairs by Giorgio Quaroni (1907/60)

FOUNTAIN

1957. In front of Largo Giovanni XXIII

EUR PALACE

PALAZZO DELL'ENTE EUR

Viale della Civiltà del Lavoro 23

1937/38 Gaetano Minnucci (1896/1980) for the offices of the autonomous institution E42 later known as ENTE EUR

The first building to be constructed in the EUR district and the one of the few to be finished before the war

“The way to think about architecture of Minnucci, as recalled by his partner Cigni (...), was logical-sequential, 'you might say scientific, in the sense that nothing was to be entrusted to fantasy, without accurate and binding technical and functional research. That's why I believe that he never had a precise point of reference, even in his long cultural involvement I think he has never been fully and critically aligned. (...) Ready to implement whatever new and concrete manifested itself in architecture, he always rejected ideas not demonstrable with facts” (Alessandra Capanna - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

OUTSIDE

Bronze statue of “Genius of sport”, originally “Genius of fascism” by Italo Griselli (1880/1958) and “Two groups of statues” by Mirko (Mirko Basaldella) (1910/69)

In front of the portico three bodies of water decorated with “Eighteen mosaic panels” by Gino Severini (1883/1966), Giulio Rosso (1897/1976) and Giovanni Guerrini (1887/1972)

IN THE ENTRANCE ROOM

Bas-relief “History of Rome through its buildings” by Publio Morbiducci (1889/1963)

INSIDE

Fresco “Foundation of Rome” by Giorgio Quaroni (1907/60)

PONTIFICAL NORTH AMERICAN COLLEGE

COLLEGIO AMERICANO DEL NORD

Via del Gianicolo 14

About 1955 by Enrico Pietro Galeazzi (1896/1986) over part of the area of the former Villa Gabrielli

In the REFECTORY there is a wall with a distemper painting by Giorgio Quaroni (1907/60)

CHAPEL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY

Also by Enrico Pietro Galeazzi

On the façade "Assumption of Mary" by Francesco Nagni (1897/1977)

Over the entrance sculpture "Stories of S. Cecilia" by Pericle Fazzini (1913/87)

Reliefs "Stations of the Cross" by Giovanni Prini (1877/1958)

In the church there are also works by Giacomo Persichetti, Giorgio Quaroni (1907/60), Guido Greganti (1897/1986), Pio Eroli (1903/80), Nello Ena, Elio Eroli and others