St. ROCH

S. ROCCO
Largo S. Rocco/Piazza Augusto Imperatore 6

Eleventh century as S. Martino di Posterula
Rebuilt in the years 1499/1503 for Alexander VI Borgia (1492/1503) for the Confraternity of St. Roch, established precisely in 1499

It was dedicated to the French hermit St. Roch of Montpellier (about 1346-50/about 1376-79), protector of plague victims
In those same years a hospital and a chapel were also built adjacent to the church, eventually destroyed in 1938

It was transformed in the years 1644/80 by Giovanni Antonio De Rossi (1616/95)

FAÇADE
1834 neoclassical masterpiece by Giuseppe Valadier (1762/1839), a tribute to façade of S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice by the great architect Andrea Palladio (1508/80)

“He was the best architect of his time, but he did not have ideological assumptions or social programs. He had too much taste and sense of proportion not to understand that Rome is, basically, a Baroque city. Everywhere, in numerous and timely interventions, he grasped with finesse the tone the Rome of his time, papal and bourgeoisie. His ideal was balance, a syntactically well-articulated discourse, without emphasis and without vulgarity. This is demonstrated by what is perhaps his masterpiece, the façade of St. Roch, where he combined to perfection, fitting the pieces into each other, the central section all developed in height and the two lowered wings all developed in width” (Giulio Carlo Argan)

The two “Angels holding candles” on the façade were placed here in 1984

On the right side of the church was placed in 1821 the Hydrometer of Ripetta, a bas-relief column that measures the height of the flooding of the Tiber
The worst flooding reported here is the one in 1598 with a record of 4 m (13 feet) above the current level of road

In the attached obstetrician hospital, now no longer extant, were accepted pregnant women who wanted to remain anonymous: they entered veiled, their beds were separated by curtains and were identified by numbers
They were therefore described as the celate di S. Rocco (concealed of St. Roch). Their children ended up in an orphanage

The hospital was abolished in the late nineteenth century but this activity continued in the Ospedale S. Giovanni (St. John's Hospital)

VAULT OF THE CENTRAL NAVE
“Christ, St. Peter and other saints” by Achille Scaccioni (active 1858/65)

DOME
Painted by Vincenzo Pasqualoni (1819/80), a pupil of Tommaso Minardi
Dome and vault were carried out in the artistic period defined purist
Above the entrance organ of 1721

COUNTER FAÇADE
“Tomb of the master builder Vitelli” (patron of the façade by Valadier) by Giuseppe De Fabris (1790/1860)

1^st RIGHT - CHAPEL OF St. FRANCIS OF PAOLA
Above the altar “Ecstasy of St. Francis of Paola” 1719 by Antonio Amorosi (1660/1738)

2^nd RIGHT - CHAPEL OF St. JOSEPH
Above the altar “St. Joseph” 1912 by Giovanni Gagliardi (1838/1924), grandson of Pietro Gagliardi

3^rd CHAPEL ON THE RIGHT
Above the altar “St. Julian and St. Nicholas” by an unknown artist influenced by Carlo Maratta

TO THE RIGHT OF THE PRESBYTERY - CHAPEL OF OUR LADY OF GRACE
1655 masterpiece by Giovanni Antonio De Rossi for Urban VIII Barberini (1623/44) with influences Borromini

“The visitor can detect a likeness with the space of San Carlino by Borromini (the inspiration is evident even if this chapel is much smaller): the side walls constrict and dilate, the intricate design is repeated on the perimeter of the frame that has a strong overhang” (Rosanna Barbiellini Amidei)

In the dome “Assumption” by Giovanni Antonio Carosi (about 1600/about 1656)

ALTAR OF THE CRUCIFIX
Paintings by Ernesto Ballarini (1845/1922)

MAIN ALTAR
“St. Roch in glory with the Redeemer” 1674 by Giacinto Brandi (1621/91)
On the sides “St. Roch visit the plagued” and “St. Martin gives his cloak to the poor” 1885 by Cesare Mariani (1826/1901)

3^rd LEFT - CHAPEL OF St. ANTHONY OF PADUA
Above the altar “St. Anthony of Padua” about 1650 by Gregorio Preti (active in the seventeenth century), brother of Mattia Preti
Frescoes “Stories of St. Anthony” by the Genoese Francesco Rosa (active since 1674/d. 1687)

2^nd LEFT - CHAPEL OF THE NATIVITY
Above the altar “Nativity” second decade of the 1500s by Baldassare Peruzzi (1481/1536) badly damaged also by a restoration of the eighteenth century by Giovanni Odazzi

1^st CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
Above the altar “St. Vincent Ferrer” 1721 by Antonio Gregolini (1675/1736)

SACRISTY
In the ceiling “Our Lady appears to St. Roch” maybe by Francesco Cozza (1605/82)
“Virgin Mary with Sts. Anthony Abbot and St. Roch and the Plague Victims” about 1660/65, first Roman masterpiece by G.B. Gaulli aka Baciccio (1639/1709)
“In the painting by Gaulli dominates the neo-venetian lesson of Nicolas Poussin. The vivid color range, the representation of 'feelings', even the poses of the characters, refer to prototypes common in the works by Poussin and Andrea Sacchi of the third decade of the century, as if the painter was trying independently to draw directly to the sources of Carlo Maratta” (Rosanna Barbiellini Amidei)

MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS

MAUSOLEO DI AUGUSTO

Piazza Augusto Imperatore

Begun in 29 BC at the behest of Augustus (27 BC/14 AD) as a tomb for himself and for his family

The diameter is about 87 m (285 feet) and it was probably 30 m (100 feet) high

At the top maybe there was a bronze statue of Augustus, a copy of which may be the '"Augustus of Prima Porta" in the Vatican Museums

It was not a burial mound of Etruscan origin, but a complex structure in superimposed layers derived from Hellenistic funerary monuments like the tomb of Alexander the Great in Alexandria that Augustus had visited the year before or the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus itself, built in 351 BC for Mausolus, who gave his name to this type of monumental tombs

Here were buried, in chronological order:

Marcellus, Agrippa, Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar (sons of Agrippa and Julia, the daughter of Augustus, who was not buried here because she was deemed unworthy for her sexual behavior too promiscuous), Augustus himself, Drusus Minor, Augustus' wife Livia, Agrippina Maggiore mother of Caligula and the emperors Tiberius (14/37), maybe Caligula (37/41), Claudius (41/54) and Nerva (96/98)

For a short time the mausoleum housed the ashes of Vespasian (69/79) and after over a century since the last deposition it was reopened to house the ashes of Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus (193/211)

The door that opened to the south was preceded by TWO OBELISKS Roman imitation of the Egyptian ones, now in Piazza del Quirinale and Piazza Esquilino

On two pillars at the side of the entrance there were brass plates with the official autobiography of Augustus, the RES GESTAE, known from a copy found in Ankara, Turkey

On the paving slabs there are graffiti used to work the marble blocks of the Pantheon

In the twelfth century it was turned into a DEFENSIVE STRONGHOLD OF THE COLONNA FAMILY (Agosta) stormed in 1241 by the Conti family

It passed later to the Orsini family, and in 1550 to the Soderini family, who transformed it into a hanging garden, after the upper part had collapsed

The Mausoleum then became a vineyard, an arena for bull fights, an arena for shows during the day under the name of ANFITEATRO UMBERTO (Humbert Amphitheater) until 1888, a warehouse, a workshop of the sculptor Enrico Chiaradia (1851/1901) who modeled here the equestrian statue of Victor Emmanuel II for the Victor Emmanuel Monument, an auditorium for classical music with the name of AUGUSTEO for the orchestra and choir of the Academy of St. Cecilia from 1905 to 1936, when the mausoleum was restored to its original structure

In the years 1934/40 the old neighborhood around it was dismantled

It seems incredible the difference between the amount of money spent for the nearby Ara Pacis, which is not even located in its original site, and the lack of funds, resulting in total abandonment, suffered by the Tomb of Augustus and of the Roman emperors