S. MARIA IN ARACOELI
It was
built on the section of Capitoline Hill known as ARX, above the TEMPLE
OF CAPITOLINE ISIS, next to the TEMPLE
OF JUNO MONETA and over a Benedictine monastery of the seventh
century
It owes its
name to the legend of the fourteenth century about the vision that Augustus had
of the Virgin Mary
The Emperor
would have had the vision from his room through a hole in a column (the third
on the left) of a beautiful woman with a child in her arms, and he would have
also heard a voice saying: “This is the altar of the son of God”
It was the
Virgin Mary and legend has it that for this reason he decided not to assume
control of Rome explicitly
It was
originally much smaller and made out only of the current transept facing south
It was
rebuilt in its present size in the years 1285/87 maybe by Arnolfo di Cambio (about 1245/1302) for the Franciscan
friars and consecrated incomplete in 1291
Restorations
in the years 1467/72, 1564 and 1689
Made out of
125 steps. Built in 1348 by Lorenzo di Simone Andreozzi,
as the inscription on the left of the door mentions, at the expense of the
Roman people as a votive offering after the plague of that year
It was
built with marble taken from ancient buildings, maybe the Temple of Quirinus
Maybe it
was inaugurated by Cola di Rienzo
The FAÇADE dates back to the thirteenth
century
PORTAL 1564 for Alessandro Mattei
On the
ground, in front of the portal, tombstones including “Tomb of Flavio
Biondo (1392/1463)” historian and humanist, the first one ever to use the term Middle Ages
and one of the first to be interested in antiquarian studies, forerunners of
archeology
In 1806 the
clock on the façade, which since 1412 was the main public clock in Rome, was
taken off and was moved to the front of the Senatorial Palace
It is the main
church of the Franciscans in Rome being a minor basilica with a cardinal
title
1572/80 Flaminio Bolanger with gilding and paintings by Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta (1521/80) and Cesare Trapassi for St. Pius V Ghislieri (1566/72)
The entire
ceiling was built as a votive offering in thanksgiving for the Christian
victory at the Battle of Lepanto against the Muslims
Thirteenth
century by members of the Cosmati family. It
incorporates fragments of the floor of the ninth century
“Celebratory
inscription” of the Roman Senate for Urban VIII Barberini (1623/44) 1634/36 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680), maybe executed by
his brother Luigi Bernini (1612/81)
TO THE LEFT
OF THE PORTAL
On the wall
very worn out “Tombstone of
Giovanni Crivelli” archdeacon of Aquileia d. 1432 by Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi aka Donatello (1386/1466) placed here in 1881
TO THE
RIGHT OF THE PORTAL
Two by Giuseppe Passeri (1654/1714), favorite pupil of Carlo
Maratta: “Death of the Virgin Mary” and “Assumption”
The last
two frescoes on the left are of the years 1801/03 by Father
Atanasio da Coriano, filling the space
of the organ destroyed by the French during the occupation of Rome in 1798
Inscription
A cubicle Augustorum and hole
4th
COLUMN ON THE LEFT
AT THE FOOT
OF THE 5th COLUMN ON THE LEFT
“Tombstone
of Aldus magister et Murator” mysterious builder of the church of the
end of the thirteenth century
AT THE END
OF THE NAVE
Leaning
against one of the pillars “Altar of St. John of Capistrano” 1682 by Francesco Guidotti
St. John of
Capistrano drove the Turks from Belgrade in 1456 at the cost of his life, by
collecting tens of thousands of volunteers and participating in the attack
RIGHT NAVE
Frescoes “Stories
of St. Bernardino” who had lived in the monastery:
At the
center “Symbol of St. Bernardino” which cost him accusations of heresy and
three trials
All works
carried out in the years 1482/84 by Bernardino di Betto aka Pinturicchio (1454/1513) for Niccolò Bufalini from
Città di Castello in order to celebrate the reestablished peace between his
family and the Baglioni of Perugia thanks to the mediation of St. Bernardino of
Siena
“In vain
with previous artists, or with other art schools, we would look for (...) a
larger and more harmonious ceremony than the Funeral of St. Bernardino, the
background of a town square as noble as this and where one would feel more
comfortable to breathe at ease” (Bernard Berenson)
Restored
for the first time in the years 1818/29 by Vincenzo
Camuccini (1771/1844)
On the altar “Pietà” about 1570 by Marco Pino aka Marco da Siena (about 1525/87)
“This chapel
met with greater favor among his contemporaries than the other chapel painted
by Roncalli in Aracoeli with stories of St. Paul. The decorative division was
enhanced and the nagging heaviness of the frescoes of the other chapel was
mitigated” (Hermann Voss)
Painting on
slate “St. Jerome Penitent” about 1572 by Giovanni De Vecchi (about 1537/1615) discovered after
an altarpiece by Franz Von Rohden was stolen
Paintings 1875 by Ludovico
Seitz (1844/1908), which replaced the worn out decorations by De Vecchi
Altar
consisting of “Three fragments of a parapet” of the third century AD
On the
right wall “Transfiguration” about 1573/75 by Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta (1521/80) a pupil of
Perino del Vaga, for the Armentieri family
In the
lunettes “Agony in the Garden” and “Flagellation” by artists
of the Roman school of the eighteenth century
5th
RIGHT - CHAPEL OF St. MATTHEW or MATTEI CHAPEL
1564/65 Jacopo Del Duca (about 1520/1604)
On the
right “Funerary memorial of Carlo Teodoro Antici” 1852 by Alessandro Massimiliano Laboureur (1796-1800/1861),
son of Francesco Massimiliano Laboureur
Carlo
Teodoro Antici married in 1803 the last descendant of the Matteis and added his
name to that of the ancient Roman family
6th
RIGHT - CHAPEL OF St. PETER OF ALCANTARA
1675/86 G.B. Contini (1641/1723)
St. Peter
of Alcantara is the patron saint of Brazil
In the
vault stuccos by Francesco
Cavallini (active 1672/1703) and paintings by Marco
Antonio Napolitano
“Maille was
strictly adhering to the style of his master Ercole Ferrata. The convincing
spirituality of the figures and the free transition between sculpture and space
make this a legitimate descendant of the Cornaro Chapel by Bernini” (Rudolf
Wittkower)
7th
RIGHT - CHAPEL OF Sts. LORENZO AND DIEGO
Frescoes on
vault and lunettes “Life of St. Diego” by Avanzino
Nucci (1552/1629)
“Color
triumphs: the intense blue of the background becomes clearer within the clypeus
and brings out the deep blue hues, the pearls and the mantle of the Madonna. In
virtue of its peculiar combination of color tones, the work gets a unique
volumetric thickness” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)
In the
inner side fragments of frescoes of the end of the thirteenth
century by an anonymous artist follower of Pietro
Cavallini
On the
right “Tomb of Cecchino
Bracci”
by Francesco Amadori (known since 1530/d. 1555),
designed by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475/1564)
Cecchino
Bracci died 15 years old: he was maybe loved by the great master, judging by
what he wrote in a poem: Cecchino... to whom I brought grace in bed, whom I
embraced, and in whom my soul continues to live
Frescoes of the
thirteenth century including “Virgin Mary and Child between the two St. Johns” by an unknown Roman painter from the circle of Pietro Cavallini
found during the restorations of the years 2000/03
“The
discovery may even confirm the intuition of Federico Zeri, according to whom
the frescoes of Assisi are neither by Giotto nor by any Florentine painter but,
if not by Cavallini himself, by members of a Roman school headed by the latter
and by Torriti, earlier than the Tuscan school (if not even superior
considering it would have been responsible for the cycle of Assisi), extreme
thesis, this one, which would imply a review of the origins of Italian painting”
(Laura Russo)
Stuccos by Francesco
Cavallini (active 1672/1703)
1727 Filippo Raguzzini (1680/1771)
Architecture
and painting by Antonio Gherardi (1638/1702)
“Two ambos” about 1200 by Lorenzo di Cosma and his son Jacopo
On the
altars on either side “Putti holding scrolls” by Giovanni
De Vecchi
In the
spandrels of the arch gigantic “Augustus” and “Sybil” about 1686 by Giuseppe Passeri (1654/1714)
Pius IV had
the previous apse demolished with the masterpiece “Apparition of the Virgin Mary
to Augustus” by Pietro de' Cerroni aka Pietro Cavallini (about 1240/about
1325). It was considered his best work in Rome, according to Giorgio Vasari
“While the
general layout and the composition of the two stories, as well as the oval
format, are again totally influenced by Zuccari, the clear and lively colors
are rather reminiscent of Barocci, who must have held Trometta in high esteem”
(Hermann Voss)
Originally
there was the “Madonna of Foligno” by Raphael
(now in the Vatican Museums) which was removed at the behest of Pius IV Medici
(1559/65) and it was replaced with the “Icon of Our Lady” maybe of the eleventh
century, formerly in the Chapel of St. Elena
“In Rome, he
set up music for the Lent services of the Confraternity of the Crucifix in S.
Marcello (1578/1584), characterized by a humanistic spirit somehow in
contradiction with the Roman musical forms of the time. In 1589 in Florence,
once appointed superintendent of the arts at the Medici court, he found himself
working among the humanists, poets and musicians of the Camerata Fiorentina.
(...) In 1590 he produced - first of any modern musicians - a representative
music consistently 'monodic' with his pastoral fables The Satyr and The Despair
of Filenus, now lost. (...) However, at that point, the monody representative
of the Florentine Camerata had definitely started, and Cavalieri in Rome
(1597/1600) could resume, under the most favorable conditions, his work of
renewal. In February 1600, the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in S. Maria in
Vallicella staged his Rappresentazione di Anima et di Corpo, a sort of
spiritual melodrama, not devoid of references to the medieval 'Devotions' (...)
where a different representative style was created, about eight months before
this style would be established definitively in Florence with Euridice by
Jacopo Peri” (Enciclopedia Treccani)
CHAPEL OF
St. HELENA
1605 small temple above the altar built by Augustus
after the prophecy of the Sibyl, with the tomb of St. Helena, mother of
Constantine
Inserted in
the wall “Tombstone of Catherine of Bosnia” d. 1478, Franciscan tertiary who
died in 1478 in Rome, where she had fled after the victory of the Turks
On the left
LEFT NAVE
Restored in
1613 by Onorio Longhi (1568/1619)
Seventeenth-century
frescoes with “Life of the Virgin
Mary”
and “Virtue” by Marzio Colantonio Ganassini (active
in Rome at the beginning of the seventeenth century)
“Tombstone
and epitaph of Felice De Fredis” the noble of low lineage who fell in 1506 in a
pit of his own vineyard on Opium Hill and found the sculptural group of the Laocoon
His wife
ordered this writing on the tomb: He
deserved immortality for his virtues and for having found the divine, almost
alive statue of Laocoon that you can admire in the Vatican
8th
LEFT - CHAPEL OF St. MARGARET OF CORTONA
“The canvas
is one of the masterpieces of Benefial which sums up all the brilliance of his
invention inspired by the Emilian Classicism, in particular the emotional
lyricism of Guercino and also fed by acquaintances of the Francophile taste of
Benedetto Luti, Bianchi and later Subleyras. The male nude is an absolute first
for the studies on this topic by Batoni and Corvi and the figure of Margaret,
theatrical and rigorous, combines perfectly historical description with
religious fervor” (Anna Lo Bianco)
“It is
important to emphasize the link of his painting with the element of the truth
of the narrative as well as the truth of the image (sources report that he had
somebody reading texts relevant to the subjects he was painting). (...) In the
Death of St. Margaret prevails the description of the poverty of the interior
with the detail, which is frequent in his paintings, of the herring bone tiles
on the floor. (...) The two paintings for the Aracoeli church are some of the
best works of Benefial, representing very clearly the less academic aspects in
his painting style” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)
6th
LEFT - CHAPEL OF THE ASCENSION or FRANGIPANE ORSINI
Above the
altar “Ascension” about 1584 by Girolamo Muziano (1532/92)
On the
walls “Virtues” and on the lunettes “St. Paul establishing a congregation of
Christians” and “Ascension” about 1582/84 by Nicolò
Martinelli aka il Trometta (about 1540/1611)
On the
altar “St. Paul” about 1584 by Girolamo Muziano
“His first
work of importance (...). Both paintings have a great momentum in the
composition, with strong bodies, rather massive and with energetic movements,
with a sumptuous and rhythmically felt representation of the drapery. (...) The
decapitation, structured in an even more impressive and effective way than the
Preaching, has an effect even too heavy in its colors, like all works of
Roncalli (even more so with his paintings on wood), and it is also very damaged
by the fact that the colors over time were darkened” (Hermann Voss)
“Holy
Family appears to the Blessed Caterina Sforza” 1730 by Francesco
Trevisani (1656/1746)
On the left
“Blessed Andrea Conti heals a possessed woman” about 1724 by Francesco Bertosi (active 1690/1740), a pupil of
Trevisani
1572. It
was modified at the end of the nineteenth century by the construction works for
the Victor Emmanuel Monument
1572. It
was modified at the end of the nineteenth century by the construction works for
the Victor Emmanuel Monument
Since 1833
the nativity scene with wooden statues of the eighteenth and nineteenth century
in this chapel is famous all over the world
1st
LEFT - SERLUPI CHAPEL or CHAPEL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
WALL AT THE
END OF THE NAVE
According
to the somewhat improbable tradition St. John del Prado was scourged, stabbed,
hit by arrows, burned, stoned and clubbed at the same time!
SACRISTY
“Holy
Family known as the Madonna of the she-cat” copy maybe by Avanzino Nucci (1552/1629) from the original of about
1523 by Giulio Pippi aka Giulio Romano (1499/1546), now in the Museo di
Capodimonte in Naples
“St.
Dominic” maybe by Simon Vouet (1590/1649)
