Sts. JOACHIM AND ANNE AT THE MONTI NEIGHBORHOOD

SS. GIOACCHINO E ANNA AI MONTI
Largo Visconti Venosta/Via Giovanni Lanza

1770/78 Giovanni Francesco Fiori (1709/84) the Roman architect who had already built the adjacent MONASTERY 1749/60 for the Old Maids of S. Francesco di Paola also known as Paolotte

During the enlargement of the chancel in 1793 a silver wedding trousseau was found dating back to the late Roman Empire. It was called Treasury of Secundo and Proiecta and now it is in the British Museum

Now the church is entrusted to the Centro Oratori Romani (Headquarters of the Roman Oratories)
In the monastery there is the Command of the Carabinieri Corps

MAIN ALTAR
“Mary with Sts. Joachim and Anne” by an anonymous eighteenth-century artist with the figure of Mary added by the purist Pio Bottoni (1883/1936)

LEFT ALTAR
Dating back to the eighteenth-century inlaid with precious marble

St. JOACHIM

S. GIOACCHINO

Via Pompeo Magno/angolo Piazza dei Quiriti

1891/98 Raffaele Ingami (1838/1908) for the priestly jubilee of Pope Leo XIII Pecci (1878/1903)

Dedicated to the father of the Virgin Mary who was called Joachim just like Leo XIII

“The overabundance and at the same time the extreme refinement of the decoration, the innovative structural choices, although strictly concealed, and the particularity of the friezes in cast iron for the facing of the decorations, more frequently used in contemporary architecture north of the Alps, were bitterly criticized by contemporaries as manifestations of the most extreme and frenetic eclecticism (Angeli)” (Raffaella Catini - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

“It should be noted the attempt to use (and not always in a bad way) those teachings of the baroque art that had been abandoned only a few years before. The taste for the double domes, for the richness and variety of ornaments, anti-academic for the most part, won't perhaps grant this church a place of respect in the treaties of art history, but will justify a little attention from both the Romanists who want to know every hidden corner of their city, and those who want to delve into the world a bit mysterious of art during the transition between the last century and the current one, that is to say, one of the most ambiguous and difficult periods” (Luciano Zeppegno)

The church is oriented towards south - southeast and is designed to let in the sunlight from the rose window of the façade to shine on the Eucharistic throne on the altar exactly every 22 December, the day of the winter solstice

Among the artists who worked in the church:

Eugenio Cisterna (1862/1933), Silvio Galimberti (1869/1956), Giovanni Gagliardi (1838/1924) a nephew of Pietro Gagliardi, Attilio Palombi (c. 1860/1913), Cesare Cappabianca (active at the beginning of XX century)

FAÇADE

Mosaic “Adoration of Reparation of the Catholic world with allegorical figures representing the five continents” by Virginio Monti (1852/1942)

DOME

Skeleton in iron and aluminum cover

CENTRAL NAVE

In the spandrels of the arches carved medallions with “Apostles” by the Sicilian Michele Tripisciano (1860/1913) who sculpted the Monument to Gioacchino Belli in Piazza Mastai and worked for S. Andrea della Valle with Virginio Monti

 FOURTEEN CHAPELS

Representatives of fourteen Catholic nations who donated funds for the construction of the church:

Brazil, Portugal, Bavaria, Poland, Canada, England, USA, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Ireland and Argentina

TO THE RIGHT OF THE APSE

The largest chapel dedicated to Spain in 1908 by Carlo Busiri Vici (1856/1925)