S. MARIA SOPRA MINERVA
The
original church was built in the eighth century above the TEMPLE OF MINERVA
FROM CHALCIDICE, on the site of the present church of S. Marta, and it was
destroyed after five centuries
It was
rebuilt from 1280 until mid-1300s for the Dominicans in this place, a short
distance from the original site, while retaining the same name
In the
early sixteenth century Giuliano Giamberti aka Giuliano
da Sangallo (1445/1516) modified the presbytery
In the
beginning of the seventeenth century Carlo Maderno
(1556/1629) enlarged the apse, coated the interior and modified the FAÇADE
1848/55
Father Girolamo Bianchedi restored the interior in Gothic
style
with Neo-Gothic frescoes and decorations by Bernardino
Riccardi, Carlo Gavardini (1811/69) and Tommaso Oreggia
The busts
of Dominican friars are by Pietro Gagliardi
(1809/90), Filippo Baldi and Raffaele Casnedi
In the
church there is a huge number of tombs of nobles and prelates especially Tuscan
ones, having this been the church of the Florentines before the construction of
S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini
Here is
buried the great painter and architect Antonio Gherardi (1638/1702)
In the
adjacent convent in the PALAZZO DELLA MINERVA
(Minerva's Palace) the ceremony of abjuration used to take place,
imposed to condemned heretics and schismatics by the court of the Holy
Inquisition
To the left
of the entrance, in the upper part, “Bust of Lesa Deti” mother of Pope Clement
VIII Aldobrandini (1592/1605) maybe by Ippolito Buzio (1578/1659)
On either
side of the entrance, to the left “Tomb of Diotisalvi Neroni” d. 1482 and, to
the right, “Tomb of G.B. Galletti” about 1554
1636 for
Cardinal Scipione Caffarelli Borghese (1577/1633)
Completely
renovated in 1724 by Filippo Raguzzini
(1680/1771)
Above “St. Dominic” by an unknown
artist of the seventeenth century
IN THE
PILLAR IN FRONT
IN THE
PILLAR IN FRONT
Side walls
with paintings “Adoration of the Shepherds” and “Resurrection” and lunettes
with “Sibyls” and “Prophets” by Battista Franco
(1498/1561)
ROOM
LEADING TO THE ORATORY
“Bust of
Francesco Neri” by Giulio Mazzoni (about
1525/after 1589)
Restored
1600 by Carlo Maderno (1556/1629)
“The
painting was meant to celebrate the charity role of the brotherhood and also to
remember the founder, the Dominican Cardinal Torquemada. The painter took leave
from his city with a painting of a strong archaic footprint but not without
openings to the refined elegance of Florentine painting of the end of the
century. Figures differ hierarchically, as it was used in the Middle Ages, and
the Cardinal and the three girls are inserted in the space between the angel
and the Virgin Mary, in their shrunken condition of human beings, but
nevertheless related to the supernatural event by the bag with money that the
Virgin Mary gives to one of the girls. With this work of extraordinary quality
and of remarkable formal results, Antoniazzo ends his work as a painter on
board and from now on his role would become increasingly marginal in the Roman
art scene” (Anna Cavallaro)
1600/11 Giacomo Della Porta (1533/1602) replaced upon his
death by Carlo Maderno (1556/1629) for Clement
VIII Aldobrandini (1592/1605)
“In the
glories of angels by Barocci, in his sentimental abandon to all the secondary
circumstances of biblical events, in his landscape painting, one recognizes, in
a genuine and spontaneous form, the religious sensibilities of the average
Italian, who, in order to portray and make understood extravagant concepts, cannot
do without the idea of supernatural in the stories of saints. (...) From a
political and cultural point of view it is the automatic reaction of the Roman
popular spirit to the advance of Germanism, because this is the way in which
the South understood instinctively the Reformation movement with its mystic of
the spirit” (Hermann Voss)
“Funerary
monuments of the Aldobrandini family” Silvestro and his wife Lesa Deti, father and mother of Clement VIII, work by Giacomo Della Porta and his collaborator Girolamo Rainaldi (1570/1655)
Statues on
the right “Prudence” by Ippolito Buzio and “Justice”
by Giovanni Antonio Parracca aka Valsoldo
(?/1642-46)
Statue on
the left “Charity” by Nicolas Cordier and “Religion”
by Camillo Mariani
“Angels”
high above the altar by Ambrogio Buonvicino
(about 1552/1622), on the right by Stefano Maderno
(1560/1636), on the left by Camillo Mariani
“Della Porta
and Maderno were nothing more than the first among equals in the coordination
of the work. Group works became the rule in the period from Sixtus V until the
end of the pontificate of Paul V, but the artists, though engaged in the same
work, followed often very different lines” (Rudolf Wittkower)
BETWEEN 6th
AND 7th CHAPEL
“Funerary
monument of Cardinal Francesco Bertazzoli” Bishop of Palestrina by Rinaldo Rinaldi (1793/1873)
On the
right “Tomb of Bishop Juan
Díaz de Coca” about 1473 by Andrea Bregno (1418/1503)
with fresco “Christ the Judge with Angels” by Antonio Aquili aka Antoniazzo Romano (about 1435-40/1508)
“A witness
to the original appearance of the majority of Roman funerary monuments of the
fifteenth century for its integrity is the tomb of the Castilian Bishop Juan
Díaz de Coca, where the fresco with the deceased bishop kneeling to the left of
the sarcophagus on which rests, on opposite side, the bishop's miter with
ribbons hanging in admirable perspective, is a unique insert by the Roman
painter within the tomb by Bregno. The painting, recently confirmed to have
been painted by Aquili, shows an early interest for landscapes - here rendered
with a middle hill sprinkled with sparse bushes - that will find more space in
the works of the eighties and nineties. Impressive is also the extraordinary
architecture in the upper part, open on a naturalistic blue sky painted on top
of the monument, according to perspective solutions already influenced by
Melozzo” (Anna Cavallaro)
LAST PILLAR
ON THE RIGHT
Entrance arch maybe by Mino da Fiesole (1429/84), Andrea del Verrocchio
(1435/88) and Giuliano
da Maiano
Frescoes:
“Since
Vasari's time, Lippi's Roman frescoes were considered a turning point in his
work and, without doubt, the evident antiquarian taste is the most obvious
aspect of this change. During his Roman years Lippi devoted himself assiduously
to the exploration and study of ancient monuments (...). Lippi retraced and
actualized what Donatello had experienced some fifty years before and his
antiquarian Roman experience was carried out into the scope of well-identified
Florentine tradition (Parlato, 1990). Such interest was linked to his ability
to build through the ancient ornamentation an emblematic repertoire referring
both to Carafa's family coat of arms and to 'comments' of the individual
scenes. (...) The search for unity between painting and architecture together
with the tight monumentality of composition is another innovative aspect of the
frescoes of S. Maria sopra Minerva. The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas is
designed with obvious theatrical gimmicks, even more manifest in the famous
preparatory drawing (London, British Museum), for example in suggesting a link
between the painted scene and the space of the chapel, prospectively amplified
in the turbulent Assumption of the Virgin” (Enrico Parlato - Dizionario Biografico
degli Italiani Treccani)
“The
individuality, the great value that Andrea del Castagno used to exalt in the
historical man, is reduced here to singularity, a freak of nature, even the
architecture here becomes a natural oddity” (Giulio Carlo Argan)
In the
vault “Sibyls” by Raffaellino del Garbo (about 1466/1524)
TO THE LEFT
OF THE CARAFA CHAPEL
In the
vault “Mysteries of the
Rosary”
1575 by Marcello Venusti (about 1512/79) and on
the right “Crown of Thorns” by Carlo Saraceni
(1579/1620)
The body of
St. Catherine of Siena was kept in this chapel from 1430 to 1855
In the
upper part ORGAN 1630 for Cardinal Scipione
Caffarelli Borghese (1577/1633) decorated by Paolo
Marucelli (1594/1649)
ON THE
RIGHT PILLAR
Inside
there is the body of St. Catherine of Siena from which various parts were
removed over the centuries to be worshiped as relics:
The head
and the thumb of the right hand are in the Basilica of St. Dominic in
Siena. The head was severed in 1381, the year after her death
In the
monastery of the church of S.
Maria del Rosario a Monte Mario is preserved the relic of the left
hand with the sign of the stigmata
The left
foot is preserved in the church of Sts. John and Paul in Venice
A rib
is the Sanctuary of St. Catherine in Astenet in Belgium
In the
niches at the sides of the sarcophagus “Four Cardinal
Virtues” painted in about 1858 by Francesco Podesti
(1800/95)
They were
designed by Antonio Cordini aka Antonio da Sangallo
the Younger (1483/1546) with prophets and
reliefs 1541 by Bartolomeo Bandinelli aka Baccio
Bandinelli (1488/1560)
It is the
first time that a pope is depicted seated, blessing and with the keys in his
hand
Tombstones
in the floor of the humanist Cardinal Pietro Bembo d. 1547 and Cardinal
Girolamo Casanate d. 1700, founder of the Casanatense Library
“Statue of the Risen
Christ”
1519 by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475/1564)
executed in Florence in 1521 and remodeled in Rome first by Pietro Urbani and later by Federico
Frizzi
The band of
gilded bronze is not original and it was applied to hide the nakedness. It was
also applied a “shoe” of metal in the right foot, to protect the marble that
used to be kissed by the faithful
“After the
great Greek sculpture, Michelangelo was the first to fully understand the identity
of the nudity and the first to apply it to the great art of figures. Before
him, nudity had been studied for scientific purposes, and just to help in
designing the robed figure. Michelangelo saw that it was an end in itself, and
an essential object of his art. For him, nudity and art were synonyms” (Bernard
Berenson)
On the right
“Tomb of Cardinal
Domenico Pimentel” about 1654 design by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680)
with statues executed by Ercole Ferrata (1610
/86) (Cardinal, Faith and Wisdom), Giovanni Antonio
Mari (Justice) and Ercole Antonio Raggi
(1624 /86) (Charity)
Giovanni
Francesco De Rossi
(active 1640/77) (“Prudence” and “Justice”), Filippo
Carcani (active 1670/91) (“Charity”), Michel
Maille aka Michele Maglia (active in
Rome in the second half of the seventeenth century) (“Religion”) and Francesco
Aprile (?/1685) (“Putti” in alto)
On the left
“Tomb of Cardinal
Michele Bonelli” nephew of St. Pius V Ghislieri (1566/72) carried out in 1611 from a
project by Giacomo Della Porta (1533/1602) with
statues sculpted in 1604:
“Cardinal Michele
Bonelli” by Giacomo Longhi Silla (known after
1568/d. 1619), on the right “Prudence” by Stefano
Maderno (1560/1636) and on the left “Religion” by Pompeo Ferrucci (about 1566/1637)
On the
floor
The
Dominican monk Fra Angelico died in a nearby convent. He is known as Beato
Angelico (Blessed Angelic) in Italian
He was
actually proclaimed blessed only by Pope John Paul II in 1984. However he was
described as “Beato” soon after his death both for the emotional devoutness of
his paintings, and for his human qualities
FRANGIPANE
CHAPEL
On the left
“Tomb of Giovanni
Arberini” of the fifteenth century with Roman sarcophagus maybe by Agostino di Duccio (1418/about 1481) or Mino da Fiesole (1429/84)
1725 Filippo Raguzzini (1680/1771)
“The pope is
bare-headed, bent on one knee and he is facing the altar: the model had been
anticipated 60 years earlier by Bernini in the tomb of Alexander VII, although
it had not been followed in any of the papal tombs later. But whereas the
kneeling pope by Bernini shows an unshaken faith, an attitude of prayer almost
impersonal and eternal, Bracci sculpted his Benedict XIII as a man of less strong
constitution, who seems to be aware of the tribulations of the human heart and
the fragility of the existence of man” (Rudolf Wittkower)
NEAR THE
LAST PILLAR ON THE LEFT
ALTAR OF
St. HYACINTH
ORGAN in the upper part 1613
6th
LEFT - CHAPEL OF St. PIUS V GHISLIERI (1566/72)
On the
right “St. Pius V” 1672 by Lazzaro
Baldi (about 1624/1703)
In the
vault frescoes by Michelangelo
Cerruti (1663/1748)
ON THE
PILLAR BETWEEN 5th AND 6th CHAPEL
“It is above
all the idea, the concept, to be new and brilliant. The tomb of Maria Raggi
contains a fabric with multiple layers of meanings. It looks like the cloth is
blown away to reveal the portrait of the dead woman. But the portrait is also
an appearance, carried aloft by putti and her soul must have been floating in
the sky. Bernini does conjure a visionary similarity and petrifies the
evanescent. He created such iconoclastic images not to shock, but to attract
the viewer to the deep meaning of his work. Portraits, memorials, devotional
images, heavenly revelations: Bernini blends these disparate genres into one:
no matter what mood we approach this tomb, one will eventually experience them
all in our real life” (Howard Hibbard)
“He himself,
who had been the most faithful heir of Michelangelo, translating into valuable
and approachable forms the troubled thoughts of the master, in the last years
of activity he was able to find his Lombard roots, keeping away, just like
Girolamo Muziano, from any theatricality to focus on results of absorbed
severity and intense naturalism. This St. James, so awkward and imposing not to
be able to find a comfortable accommodation in the niche behind him, seems as
if he just popped out of a painting by Moretto from Brescia, with that
good-natured air and those peasant clothes” (Vincenzo Farinella)
ON THE
OPPOSITE PILLAR
Above the
altar “Redeemer” maybe by Pietro Vannucci aka Pietro Perugino (about 1450/1523)
On the
right statue “St. Sebastian” maybe by Mino
da Fiesole (1429/84) or Michele Marini
2nd
LEFT - CHAPEL OF St. JOHN THE BAPTIST
Busts and
funerary monuments of the Naro family including “Orazio Naro and Maria Giulia
Cenci” and, behind pews, on the left “Cardinal Gregorio
Naro”
d. 1634 and on the right “G.B. Naro” by Giacomo
Antonio Fancelli (1619/71), the
sculptor of the Statue of the Nile River in the Fountain
of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, with his brother Cosimo Fancelli (1620/88)
“The stiff
and iconic portrait of G.B. Naro utterly fails to match the refined quality of
the modeling that characterizes the bust of the vigorous praying prelate,
Cardinal Gregorio Naro, completed in 1642 by Giacomo Antonio Fancelli, designed
by Gian Lorenzo Bernini” (Alfredo Marchionne Gunter)
ON THE LAST
PILLAR
Above the
altar “Christ between St. Catherine of Siena and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque”
1922 by Corrado Mezzana
NEAR THE
DOOR ON THE LEFT
In the
upper part “Tomb of Cardinal
Tebaldi” 1466 by Andrea Bregno (1418/1503) and
Giovanni Duknovich aka Giovanni Dalmata (about 1440/1510)
Vault
“Glory of
St. Dominic” maybe by Giuseppe Puglia aka il Bastaro (about 1600/36)
Walls
“Virgin
Mary and Child with Sts. Peter and Paul” by Marcello
Venusti (about 1512/79)
“Conclaves
in the sacristy of S. Maria sopra Minerva in 1431 with the election of Eugenius
IV Coldumer (1431/47) and in 1447 with the election of Nicholas V Parentucelli
(1447/55)” by G.B. Speranza (about 1600/40)
Altar
CLOISTER
1559 Guidetto Guidetti (about 1498/1564)
Frescoes
of the seventeenth century by Giuseppe Puglia aka il
Bastaro, Francesco Nappi (about 1565/1630) and others
