Saturday, February 9, 2019

St. JOHN OF THE MALLOW PLANT

S. GIOVANNI DELLA MALVA
Known since 1123 as Sancti Iohannis Prope Portam Septimianam
Restored in 1475 for Sixtus IV Della Rovere (1471/84)
Demolished in 1818 as it was in ruins and rebuilt in the years 1845/51 by Giacomo Monaldi (1819/1905) for the Dukes Grazioli
It is dedicated to the IMMACULATE VIRGIN MARY, St. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND St. JOHN THE EVANGELIST as stated in a plaque inside the church
The current name, attested only from 1367, can either be derived from the mallow plant that used to grow nearby or from the corruption of the name Mica Aurea (golden sand), a name which in medieval times was given to the part of Janiculum Hill still known as Montorio
Furthermore, in some catalogs of Roman churches it is called Sancti Iohannis in Mica Aurea
“According to the practice of the time, the design of the Monaldi radically changed the original shape of the building: the longitudinal plan became a Greek cross, surmounted by a hemispherical dome 'with no drum and set on three perimetrical steps with function of containing pressure' (De Tomasso). (...) The language of Monaldi, fully drawing on the architecture of the sixteenth century, it is most often marked by a great stylistic sobriety. Definitely more daring and overloaded, in tune with the tastes of the period, are the decorations of the interior, that Monaldi used to treat with care in every detail” (Raffaella Catini - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)
MAIN ALTAR
“Virgin Mary between Sts. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist” by an anonymous seventeenth-century artist

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