St. BASIL THE GREAT

S. BASILIO

Via di S. Basilio 51

Built in the years 1680/82

Expanded with the convent in 1692 by Francesco Carlo Bizzaccheri (1655/1721)

In 1874 the monastery became the property of the Italian State

It is dedicated to St. Basil who lived in Turkey between 329 and 379. He defended orthodoxy against the Arian heresy

 It is part of the Italo-Greek Catholic Church depending on the Abbey of Grottaferrata

It is a peculiar Catholic church that uses the Byzantine Rite. It is autonomous and its members are concentrated in Southern Italy and Sicily

NAVE

Paintings by anonymous artists of the seventeenth century:

On the right “Death of S. Joseph” and on the left “Virgin Mary and Child with Saints” where there is the representation of S. Nile offers the model of the Abbey of Grottaferrata, still run by the Basilian Monks

“Memory of Cardinal Basilios Bessarion (1403/72)”

“He contributed to the diffusion in Italy of the study of the Greek language and especially of the Platonic philosophy, and in defense of Plato (...) he wrote (...) against Thomistic Aristotelianism. (...) He translated into Latin the Metaphysics by Aristotle. He left letters, prayers, theological essays, rich in doctrine, supported by great balance of thought. He strove with great fervor, with writings and words, with extensive and skillful diplomacy, for a crusade to win back Constantinople, fallen into the hands of the Turks in 1453. In 1463 the alliance of Venice with Pope Pius II, obtained by Bessarion, seemed to make the crusade possible, but the death of the pope (1464) brought Bessarion to move away from the Curia and to continue alone diplomatic relations in Europe. His rich library of Greek manuscripts, donated to Venice (1468), was the first and most important collection of the Biblioteca Marciana” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

Huge “Iconostasis” of the end of 1800s from the church S. Lorenzolo ai Monti destroyed for the opening of Via dei Fori Imperiali

In all the churches with Italo-Greek Catholic rite the presbytery reserved for the clergy is separated from the rest of the church with a large iconostasis or barrier of dark wood adorned with sacred images

MAIN ALTAR

Canvas “St. Basil” by an anonymous artist of the seventeenth-century

NEIGHBORHOOD UNRRA-CASAS St. BASIL

QUARTIERE UNRRA-CASAS S. BASILIO

Via Tiburtina km 15/Via Muccia, Via Chiaravalle, Via Recanati

1955 Mario Fiorentino (1918/82)

Area of 8.5 hectares (21 acres) comprising of 180 apartments, each with a vegetable garden of about 150/200 m² (1,600/2,100 square feet), given to about 900 war refugees

The type of housing show an interesting Scandinavian influence

“The building types include row houses, simplex and duplex, which extend each one in an open space of their own. The reference to rural architecture is noticeable in both the construction technique, the adoption of a continuous masonry of the traditional type, and in the morphological details” (Giorgio Muratore)

It was built with funds from the United Nations intended to help the populations in distress for the war

UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) was an organization of the United Nations, based in Washington, established in 1943 to assist economically and civilly countries left badly damaged by World War II. It was discontinued in 1947. The funds came from countries that had not experienced devastation during the war

The new neighborhood replaced a rickety township built in the thirties of the twentieth century to accommodate families evicted from the city center during the fascist demolitions

It had been built with the so-called carpelite, a mixture of wood and lime

The houses of the village were so pretty much just sturdy huts and were known as Case Sette Lire (seven liras houses) or Casette Peter (Peter's small houses) from the name of the designer

“It may seem strange a decision to build in a city like Rome a neighborhood of such limited size (180 homes), but given the paucity of funding, it was decided anyway to build a small project that would somehow have an exemplary character. (...) Even today, in the vast outskirts of Rome, the 'Village St. Basil' succeeds in maintaining its particular character, a bit unreal, of a suburban residential area that the city's development hasn't virtually affected” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

Church of St. Basil the Great

1963 by Augusto Baccin (1914/98)

In the building of the parish there is an embedded ancient medieval tower