SYRIAN SANCTUARY

SANTUARIO SIRIACO
Via Dandolo 47

It had three phases of construction:

1)       First century AD

2)       Second half of the second century AD for the rich Syrian merchant Marcus Antonius Gaionas

3)       The last one, maybe after a fire, in the fourth century AD

It was discovered in 1906 during the works for the construction of a building in medieval style called CASTELLETTO inserted in the area of Villa Sciarra owned at the time by the American diplomat George Wurts

It is a unique building for the plan and for the technique of construction employed, consisting mainly of walls in blocks of tufa
Two opposing sides separated by a central courtyard evidently intended to accommodate the faithful, on the south side of which the entrance to the temple opened

SECTOR TO THE WEST OF THE COURTYARD
Better preserved and most probably intented for the worship
Hall with an apse at the bottom, preceded by a sort of vestibule flanked by two long narrow rooms
In this room a “marble statue” representing Jupiter without attributes was found (maybe Hadad the Jupiter of Heliopolis, the chief god of the Heliopolitan triad or Osiris) sitting on a throne

SECTOR TO THE EAST OF THE COURTYARD
Diamond-shaped room with a triangular altar in the center, preceded by a small room with an apse and flanked by two more rooms with a pentagonal plan
In this area of the temple probably reserved for priests and practices of initiation was found the most important piece of the entire excavation:

A “Bronze statuette” 50 cm (20 inches) high, (now in the Museo delle Terme) representing a male character mummy-looking, whose body is wrapped in the coils of a snake
The small idol, probably to be identified with Osiris, was buried inside the triangular altar, apparently in connection with a ritual of death and symbolic resurrection

St. CALLISTUS PALACE

PALAZZO DI S. CALLISTO

Piazza S. Maria in Trastevere 24

Built at the end of the fourteenth century as home of the cardinals of S. Maria in Trastevere

Restorations 1434 and 1505

Rebuilt 1618 by Orazio Torriani (about 1601/about 1657) for the Benedictines Friars

Restored again in the years 1854 and 1937

It was built on the site of the martyrdom of St. Callistus:

According to Christian tradition, he was found where the adjacent Church of St. Callistus is now, during the persecutions of Alexander Severus (222/235), he was thrown from a window and then drowned in a well, still preserved in the garden of the convent

The palace is one of the properties of the Vatican with extraterritorial status, meaning the state of being exempt from the jurisdiction of local law

It is now home to the following Catholic organizations that are part of or are directly linked with the Holy See:

Pontifical Council for the Laity

Pontifical Council for the Family

Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis

Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace

International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services

EXAMINATIONS PALACE

PALAZZO DEGLI ESAMI

Via Induno 4

1912 Edmondo Del Bufalo (1883/1968)

Art Nouveau style building intended for exams for government executives

In 2002 began the renovation that lasted about three years but have not finished. The scaffolding remained until 2012, but there is mystery about the intended use

Maybe it will eventually be the headquarters of the Italian secret services formerly SISDE and, since 2007, AISI

The aura of secrecy that has surrounded this building for ten years has fueled controversy on the waste of public money and the evident inefficiency and alleged criminal activities of those who manage the public administration in Italy

HOSPITAL AND CHURCH OF Sts. MARY AND GALLICANUS

OSPEDALE E CHIESA DEI SS. MARIA E GALLICANO

Via di S. Gallicano 25a

1724/29 Filippo Raguzzini (1680/1771) for Benedict XIII Orsini (1724/30) for patients suffering from skin diseases

The hospital was one of the best in Europe in those days and in the first half of 1900s it had an important role in the fight against syphilis

Now it is a modern INSTITUTE OF DERMATOLOGY

The FAÇADE is 160 m (525 feet) long and 9 m (29.5 feet) high

“A model of urban design and, for those times, a rare example of rational hospital architecture” (Giulio Carlo Argan)

St. Gallicanus was consul under Constantine and, after moving to Ostia, he devoted himself to the care of the sick. He suffered martyrdom under Julian the Apostate (361/363)

TWO WARDS

One for male and one for female, separated by the church

ROOM FOR BOYS

1754 Costantino Fiaschetti for Benedict XIV Lambertini (1740/58)

ANATOMY THEATRE

1826 for Leo XII Sermattei (1823/29). Two semicircles with a dome

Stucco frieze “Legend of the serpent of Aesculapius and the Tiber Island and portraits of famous doctors” by Ignazio Sarti (1791/1854)

APOTHECARY 1929

CHURCH

It was consecrated in 1726

It has inner side windows to allow the sick to attend Mass

Altarpiece “St. Gallicanus recommends three sick people to the Virgin Mary” and two lunettes by the great Roman painter Marco Benefial (1684/1764)

“After 1723 he had another difficult period, during which the painter bent again to enter into an agreement of “partnership”, with Filippo Evangelisti, a mediocre pupil of Benedetto Luti, under whose name went many paintings which were completely by Benefial instead, for example, St. Gallicanus and the Sick in the church of St. Gallicanus in Rome, clearly inspired by Correggio and the Carraccis” (Evelina Borea - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

MONUMENT TO GIUSEPPE GIOACHINO BELLI

MONUMENTO A GIUSEPPE GIOACHINO BELLI

Piazza Giuseppe Gioachino Belli

1913 by the Sicilian Michele Tripisciano (1860/1913) on the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791/1863) the greatest Roman dialect poet

The stick in Belli's left hand was made of iron, fixed with cement and painted black, because the original wooden stick was regularly stolen

MONUMENT TO CICERUACCHIO

MONUMENTO A CICERUACCHIO

Passeggiata del Gianicolo

1907 Ettore Ximenes (1855/1926)

Shown in the moment of his execution in 1849 with his son Lorenzo. The original location of the monument was Lungotevere Arnoldo da Brescia

In 1959 it was moved slightly in Lungotevere in Augusta for the construction of the tunnels along the River Tiber and finally, in 2011, it was placed in the Promenade of the Janiculum Hill

The hero Ciceruacchio from Trastevere district, whose real name was Angelo Brunetti, was shot along with his two children at Ca' Tiepolo during the long march of Giuseppe Garibaldi in the direction of Venice, after the fall of the Roman Republic

Ciceruacchio's other son Luigi was excluded from the monument primarily because he was an embarrassing character: he was suspected of being the perpetrator of the assassination of Pellegrino Rossi, the Interior Minister of the papal government, stabbed in 1848 in Palace of the Chancellery

HOUSE OF THE LICTOR'S YOUTH IN TRASTEVERE

CASA DELLA GIOVENTÙ DEL LITTORIO A TRASTEVERE

Largo Ascianghi/Via Induno

1933/35 early masterpiece by Luigi Moretti (1907/73) in part arbitrarily changed after the war, especially with the walls built arbitrarily to close the former open gyms over the three floors 

Restored in 2007

Also known as CASA DEL BALILLA (House of the Fascist Kid)

Single building block with three gyms on three floors and an articulated sequence of functional spaces that seamlessly maintain their unity

More than 2,000 could have used the services of the building at the same time

The paintings by Mario Mafai (1902/65) and the reliefs by Mario Barbieri have almost completely disappeared

"Seminal work at the beginning of the career of the architect, masterful solution to a complex architectural program in an urban situation of limited size" (Cristiana Marcosano Dell'Erba)

"It is barely recognizable now, in this messy series of construction, the building with the elegant volumetric articulation and the refined transparencies designed by Moretti" (Piero Ostilio Rossi)