St. BRIDGET

S. BRIGIDA

Piazza Farnese 96

The building with the original church was donated in 1373, year of the death of S. Bridget, who had lived in it, by the noblewoman Francesca Papazzurri to the Swedish Monastery of Vadstena first seat of the Order of the Most Holy Savior or Brigidini, founded by St. Bridget in 1370

Francesca Papazzurri had met Bridget Birgersdotter, later St. Bridget, in Assisi during a pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee of the year 1350

Adjoining the building was a hospital for the Swedes

Church rebuilt in the first half of the seventeenth century by Francesco Peparelli (active about 1626/d. 1641)

Complete restoration with new FAÇADE 1704/05 and reconstruction of the vault by Pietro Giacomo Patriarca (?/1715), collaborator of Carlo Fontana and master mason of St. Peter's Basilica, commissioned by Pope Clement XI Albani (1700/20) to whom the church had been entrusted when he was a cardinal

The original color of the façade was light blue and white, soft colors very common in Rome in the early eighteenth century

STATUES ON THE FAÇADE

“St. Bridget” on the left and her daughter “St. Catherine” on the right 1705 by Andrea Fucigna (about 1660/1711)

Restoration 1780 for Pius VI Braschi (1775/99) who had a distant Swedish ancestry

Restoration 1894 by Raffaele Ingami (1838/1908) who designed the BELL TOWER

It is the Swedish national church

VAULT

“Glory of St. Bridget” and “Evangelists” 1709/11 by Biagio Puccini (1673/1721), a pupil of Antonio Gherardi

“The paintings were executed with a special technique over dry plaster, similar to tempera, which allowed Puccini to get soft shades of yellow and white and therefore very effective lighting effects. The depiction is surrounded by emblems taken from the Iconologia by Cesare Ripa, a well-known handbook of symbols used by artists in the seventeenth century: there are different allegorical figures that emphasize the tenacious struggle of Bridget against heresy and her apotheosis to heaven” (Sofia Barchiesi)

ON THE WALLS

Six paintings with “Stories of St. Bridget”:

On the right

“Madonna and St. Bridget” and “Madonna crowns St. Bridget”

In the presbytery

“St. Bridget in ecstasy and Madonna” and “Christ Appearing to St. Bridget”

On the left

“Mystical communion of St. Bridget” and “Christ and St. Bridget” 1702/05 also by Biagio Puccini

COUNTER FAÇADE

Wooden choir 1705 with “Angels” painted in 1894 by Eugenio Cisterna (1862/1933)

RIGHT ALTAR

“Madonna and Child” about 1694, copy of a lost original by Annibale Carracci

To the right of the altar “Funeral Monument of Nils Bielke” 1768 by Pietro Camporese the Elder (1726/81), sculpted by Tommaso Righi (1727/1802)

Nils Bielke was a Swede who converted to Catholicism and died in exile in Rome

MAIN ALTAR

1894 in polychrome marbles. “Wooden crucifix” of modern Tyrolean school

LEFT ALTAR

Diptych “St. Bridget and her daughter St. Catherine of Sweden” 1894 by Eugenio Cisterna

ROOMS OF St. BRIDGET

Stained glass by the company Zettler

Relief “Face of St. Bridget” 1664 by Domenico Guidi (1625/1701)

ORATORIO OF St. BRIDGET

Tempera paintings on the wall “Stories of St. Bridget” 1856/63 by Edoardo Brandon

ORATORIO Of St. CATHERINE

Two large paintings: “Translation of the body of St. Bridget from Roma to Vastena” 1894 and “St. Catherine stops the flooding of the Tiber” 1895 by Attilio Palombi (about 1860/1913)