Chiesa di S. Maria di Aracoeli (original) (raw)

S. Maria in Aracoeli (Vasi at work in the Grand View of Rome)

Links to this page can be found in Book 7, Day 1, Map B3, View C8 and Rione Campitelli.

The page covers: [The plate by Giuseppe Vasi](#The Plate) Today's view [S. Maria in Aracoeli](#S. Maria in Aracoeli) Convento di S. Maria in Aracoeli S. Biagio in Mercatello

#### The Plate (No. 130 - ii)

In 1753 Giuseppe Vasi did not include S. Maria in Aracoeli in Book 3, which covered the main churches of Rome. He did it in 1756 in Book 7 which was dedicated to the monasteries; a perhaps unforeseen effect of this decision was that he had to show the church from its rear side in order to include the entrance to the monastery in the view. He therefore missed the opportunity to show the steps leading to S. Maria in Aracoeli alongside those leading to [Piazza del Campidoglio](Vasi80.htm#The Plate) (you may wish to see them in an etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi - it opens in another window). The view is taken from the green dot in the 1748 map below. In the description below the plate Vasi made reference to: 1) Entrance to the Monastery; 2) S. Maria in Aracoeli; 3) Fa�ade of the church; 4) Part of Palazzo Nuovo. 4) is shown in another page. The small map shows also 5) S. Rita da Cascia/S. Biagio in Mercatello.

#### Today

## The view in March 2010; the inset shows an enlargement of one of the two coats of arms of the Savelli which identify the family chapel inside the church where Pope Honorius IV is buried in a very interesting monument

The church and the entrance to the monastery have not been modified; only the steps leading to them are steeper than they were in the XVIIIth century.

#### S. Maria in Aracoeli

## (left) 1564 side entrance and above it the first storeys of a bell tower which was never completed; (right) late XIIIth century mosaic by Jacopo Torriti (see his large mosaic at S. Maria Maggiore)

S. Maria in Aracoeli stands on Arx, the northern peak of Campidoglio, the hill which was the religious centre of Ancient Rome. In the VIIIth century Greek monks founded a small church near the site of a temple to Juno; in 1249 Pope Innocent IV assigned it to the Franciscans who built an entirely new church; at that time the access to the hill was from Foro Romano and the fa�ade of the previous church was oriented eastwards. The Franciscans changed the orientation towards what was the centre of Rome at that time, but the actual entrance was located on the side of the building; they started to build a bell tower, but they never completed it because in 1260 it was decided that bell towers were a luxury inconsistent with the rules of the Order.

## Florence - Galleria Palatina: Bonifazio de' Pitati (1487-1553) the Sybil shows the Virgin Mary and Jesus to Emperor Augustus

Wee went to the Church that stands upon the Capitol Hill where is an Order of Franciscan Friers, and where one mounts up unto it by 124 large steps, all of marble. It is a very large and stately Church, and adorned with many Rich Chappels and Altars. All the floore of it being paved with Marble. At the upper end of the Church, close by the High Altar, is a place where they say one of the Sybils appeared to Augustus Cesar, and shewed him the Virgin Mary and Our Saviour in her Armes when he had an intent to be deified for a god, upon which sight was layd by that vane desire. Francis Mortoft - Journal of his travels in France and Italy in 1659 According to a medieval account Emperor Augustus had a vision of the Virgin Mary while he was making sacrifices at an altar on the site of the future location of the church and this explains its name (Ara Coeli means Altar of Heaven).

## Reliquary of St. Helena (XIIth century)

Pope Anastasius IV (1153-1154) decided to be buried in the porphyry sarcophagus of St. Helena which he removed from the empress' mausoleum known as Tor Pignattara. He donated the relics of Helena to S. Maria in Aracoeli as a gift to the people of Rome, because the hill of Campidoglio was the seat of the Comune di Roma which had been proclaimed in 1143. The Pope placed the relics in a carved and gilded sandalwood box which was most likely made in Sicily where at the time the arts flourished.

## (left) Fa�ade seen from a terrace of [Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II](Vasi65.htm#Monument to Victor Emmanuel); (centre) relief portraying St. Matthew; (right) detail of the central portal at sunset

A plaque at the side of the main portal indicates that the construction of the steep steps which lead to the fa�ade began in October 1348. According to the traditional account they were built at the initiative of Cola di Rienzo; in 1564 the Mattei bore the cost of new portals; they lived in a group of palaces not far from the church and their funerary chapel was inside it. The decoration of the portals has many references to the Mattei: not only their heraldic symbols (eagle and diagonal band), but also the choice of portraying St. Matthew in one of the two smaller portals. The Renaissance and baroque additions to the fa�ade were removed in the XIXth century (you may wish to see the building as it appeared in a 1588 Guide to Rome). A clock was relocated to the tower of Palazzo Senatorio in 1806.

## View of Rome from the front of the church (you may wish to see a page on the Domes of Rome)

Because of its central and high location and of its size S. Maria in Aracoeli, after its change of orientation, became the Duomo of Rome, in the sense that Romans regarded it as the main church of the city and they preferred to hold important ceremonies there, rather than in one of [the rather remote seven basilicas](SistoV1.html#Sette Chiese) which attracted the pilgrims. Some book illustrations of the XIXth and early XXth century by Bartolomeo Pinelli and Alberto Pisa show how popular the church was among the lower classes. November 6th 1644. Here the feast of our Blessed Saviour's nativity being yearly celebrated with divers pageants, they began to make the preparation. (..) January 6th. Was the ceremony of our Saviour's baptism at Ara Celi was a great procession, del Bambino, as they call it, where were all the magistrates, and a wonderful concourse of people. John Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence It is from the front of the building that the Bambino, a wooden statue of Infant Jesus, blesses the City of Rome on January 6. Its statue is placed in an elaborate crib on Christmas Night.

## (left) Interior; (right) main altar (1565). The inscription is the first verse of a Marian hymn: "Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia"

To build up the (..) Ara Coeli at a distant and undeterminate period (..) they dug among a quantity of ruins, which makes this church strangely furnished, hybrid and curious. Different in module, the columns do not present three capitals that are alike. (..) The Temple of the Ara Coeli is a veritable museum. It would take too long to enumerate all. Francis Wey - Rome. Descriptions et souvenirs - Paris 1872. 1903 English edition by unknown translator. Roughly speaking S. Maria in Aracoeli has the layout of a basilica with columns from ancient Roman temples, a floor of the XIIIth century, a ceiling of 1571-1578 and many Renaissance and Baroque monuments and chapels.

## Museo di Palazzo Venezia: 1372 altar with the portraits and names of the donors which decorated a chapel of the church

Most of the medieval chapels and altars were replaced by new ones; some of their decorative elements were moved to the convent and eventually were acquired by the Italian State.

## Details of the [Cosmati floor](Glossar2.html#Cosmati work)

The floor of the church is among the finest Cosmati works in Rome. It is remarkable that notwithstanding many modifications to the decoration of the church, overall the floor was not touched (this occurred in other Roman churches, e.g. S. Giovanni in Laterano and S. Maria Maggiore). The design of these floors does not include any references to human beings, animals and even flowers and trees, which is unusual considering that Italian art has always been keen on depicting something real. They resemble carpets, in a way similar to the real ones which embellish mosques, but their origin can be traced back to Roman opus sectile (marble inlays).

## Musei Capitolini: decoration from one of the two ambos (oblong pulpits) of S. Maria in Aracoeli which included an ancient circular relief depicting episodes of the life of Achilles. The enlargement shows the fight between Achilles and Hector and the former dragging the body of the latter around the walls of Troy

The Cosmati decoration of the church was not limited to the floor, but it included other parts/elements of the church, which are mainly lost with the exception of two ambos. A detail of one of them shows that in the XIIIth century ancient works of art were beginning to be admired, after many centuries of neglect and despise for everything which was associated with paganism.

## (left) Gravestone of Matteo Scriniano (d. 1313), a relative of the Savelli family (see another gravestone of the Savelli at S. Sabina); (right) marble inlay gravestone of Cardinal Girolamo Mattei (d. 1603)

The church is richly paved, but the decorative strips are reduced to patches by the profusion of sculptured tombstones; those of the fourteenth century , which abound in relief, are so numerous, that in going through the church one is caught at every step. F. Wey The floor of the church is particularly rich in tombstones, not only in the chapels, but also in the naves and along the walls; they offer very interesting examples of the different patterns which prevailed through the centuries. You may wish to see that of Pietro Lante di Pisa, Senator of Rome in 1380-1381.

## (left) Benozzo Gozzoli: St. Anthony of Padua between two donors; (centre/right) XVth century Madonna and donor (School of Lorenzo da Viterbo) which was painted on a column

S. Maria in Aracoeli has more than twenty chapels which were much sought after, especially during the XVIth century when the restorations of the basilicas and the construction of new large churches were yet to come. The owners of a chapel often redecorated it and dedicated it to another saint. In 1572 the Paluzzi Albertoni commissioned Giacomo della Porta to redesign their family chapel, but to retain a fresco which Benozzo Gozzoli, a Florentine painter best known for his frescoes at Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence (it opens in another window), had made in ca 1450. At that time the church must have been so fully painted that even the columns had frescoes.

## Cappella Bufalini: Glory of St. Bernardine of Siena by il Pinturicchio (ca 1486), see another of his paintings at S. Maria del Popolo

The decoration of this chapel was most likely suggested by the Franciscan monks of Aracoeli to the Bufalini. St. Bernardine, a famous preacher and a leader of the Franciscans was canonised in 1450, only six years after his death at L'Aquila where a grand church is dedicated to him. The Bufalini were from Citt� di Castello, a town not far from Perugia and they commissioned Pinturicchio, a young painter from Perugia, to decorate the chapel. The frescoes were so praised that eventually Pinturicchio was asked to work at Appartamento Borgia in Palazzo Apostolico and at Libreria Piccolomini at Siena.

## (left) Monument to Cardinal Louis d'Albret (d. 1465) by Andrea Bregno; (right) Monument to Cecchino Bracci, perhaps designed by Michelangelo, who wrote several epitaphs in his memory (Cecchino Bracci died at the age of 16 in 1544)

The monument to Cardinal d'Albret is one of the first Roman works by Andrea Bregno, a sculptor from Lombardy, of whom we know very little before his arrival to Rome in 1465. He became the leading sculptor and architect in the city during the last part of the century. In the monument to Cardinal d'Albret he introduced major changes to the traditional gisant pattern by replacing the Gothic canopy with a novel one, which was based on the study of ancient buildings. We know that young Michelangelo greatly admired the works by Bregno. He too introduced novelties in the design of funerary monuments and in particular a type of sarcophagus which had no precedents in antiquity and influenced many later monuments, including those by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (e.g. the Monument to Pope Urban VIII).

## Ceiling by Flaminio Bolongier (who designed also those of S. Giovanni in Laterano and of Sala dei Trionfi at Palazzo dei Conservatori). Its rich decoration is unusual in a Franciscan church

The proximity of S. Maria in Aracoeli to Palazzo Senatorio which was the seat of municipal power, made it "The Church of the City of Rome". In 1571 Marcantonio II Colonna, the commander of the papal fleet at the Battle of Lepanto, attended a Mass of Thanksgiving at S. Maria in Aracoeli during which he offered a silver column with a statue of the Virgin Mary. The victory was celebrated by [Pope Pius V](Storia22.html#Pius V) by commissioning a richly gilded wooden ceiling (the image used as background for this page shows the section with the coat of arms of the Pope). Another detail of the ceiling can be seen in the historical section of this website.

## (left) Stucco Fames holding an inscription celebrating [Pope Urban VIII](Storia24.html#Urban VIII); (right) stained glass portraying three bees, the heraldic symbol of the pope

A gigantic stucco decoration was designed on the rear fa�ade of the church by Bernini in 1634. He turned the main window into the heraldic symbol of the Pope. This use of stained glass is very unusual in Rome. The stucco decoration was paid for by the City of Rome and the inscription details a series of initiatives taken by the Pope which were not specifically related to S. Maria in Aracoeli. This work by Bernini is the icon of the What's New page of this website. Many years later he designed a similar stucco decoration for S. Andrea al Quirinale and he made use of stained glass in the apse of S. Pietro.

## (left) Wooden pulpit with the coat of arms of Pope Urban VIII, perhaps designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini; (centre) panel depicting Jesus while delivering a speech in the Temple of Jerusalem; (right) late XVIIth century fresco portraying a saint of the Order of St. Clare, sister of St. Francis of Assisi

S. Maria in Aracoeli was not greatly impacted by changes after the second half of the XVIth century and it contains only a limited number of works of art of the following periods. Some statues of the popes which were at Palazzo Senatorio were moved to S. Maria in Aracoeli after 1870, e.g. the statue of Pope Gregory XIII by Pietro Paolo Olivieri.

## (left) Cappella Alcantara: relief by Michel Maille (1684); (right) ephemeral monument to Fran�ois de Vend�me, Duc de Beaufort by Bernini (1669). Fran�ois de Vend�me, a distant relative of King Louis XIV of France, was killed in the defence of Candia

#### Convento di S. Maria in Aracoeli

## (left) Loggia leading to the monastery; (right) steps towards Piazza del Campidoglio

The elegant loggia which gives access to the monastery was built in the XVIth century by Pope Paul III as the entrance to his [summer residence which included a large tower](Vasi65.htm#The Plate). In 1585 [Pope Sixtus V](Storia23.html#Sixtus V) assigned the tower and the adjoining buildings to the Franciscans, who used it as Curia Generalizia (headquarters) of the Order. In 1886 the monastery was entirely demolished to make room for Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II, but a much smaller monastery was rebuilt in the XIXth century, so that a few Franciscans continue to live near the church. The base of the column with the cross bears the coat of arms of the City of Rome and the date 1703; because in January and February of that year earthquakes struck Rome it is likely that the column was erected to thank the Virgin Mary for their limited impact on S. Maria in Aracoeli and the palaces of the City of Rome (they however caused major damage to Colosseo).

## The lost cloister in two illustrations from "Rome, its Churches, Monuments, Art and Antiquities" which was based on the book by Francis Wey

You enter by a charming doorway. I recall wide corridors with ogival (Gothic) vaults tinted by pale gleams of light (..); as well as a cloister in two tiers, austere, of fine style, which has an air of a Thebaid (a region of Egypt to which many Christian hermits retired), three paces away from the Capitol and its museums. The convent, at the time of the Jubilee of 1450, when St. Bernardin of Sienna was canonised, received in general chapter three thousand brethren from the houses founded by this blessed patron. F. Wey A fine Renaissance water well head which was in the cloister ended up in the gardens of Villa Borghese.

## A view of the loggia with the Roman Forum in the background (see the trees in the moonlight)

#### S. Biagio in Mercatello

## (left) Former bell tower; (right) fresco of a funerary chapel

In the 1930s the enlargement of the street at the foot of the hill led to dismantling S. Rita da Cascia, a small church to the left of the steps of S. Maria in Aracoeli. The [church was eventually reassembled near Monastero di Tor de' Specchi](Vasi30.htm#S. Rita da Cascia). It was then discovered that some structures of the building belonged to an earlier church, known as S. Biagio in Mercatello (mercatello being a reference to a nearby fruit market). This church in turn was built using some walls of a Roman insula, a sort of five storey apartment block. A niche and the tiny bell tower of S. Biagio, as well as the walls of the insula, are now part of a small archaeological area.

## Walls of the "insula"

Next plate in Book 7: [S. Paolo alla Regola](Vasi131.htm#The Plate). Next step in Day 1 itinerary: [Palazzi del Campidoglio](Vasi80.htm#The Plate). Next step in your tour of Rione Campitelli: [Palazzi del Campidoglio](Vasi80.htm#The Plate).

Excerpts from Giuseppe Vasi 1761 Itinerary related to this page:

###### [Scala e Chiesa di S. Maria in Araceli](#S. Maria in Aracoeli)

##### Molto cospicua, e celebre � la chiesa, che siamo per osservare; perci� non mancher� di accennare tutti i suoi pregi. I marmi della altissima scalinata furono presi dalle rovine del magnifico tempio di Quirino, come diremo a suo luogo; ed il sito della chiesa, si crede da' pi�, essere quello, ove stava il famoso tempio di Giove Capitolino, di cui furono facilmente le molte colonne di granito egizio, che reggono la nave di mezzo, tanto pi�, che l'antica denominazione della chiesa ce lo suggerisce, e l'istoria ce lo dimostra quasi ad evidenza, Poich� essendo il nostro Divino Redentore nato in tempo di Ottaviano Augusto; questi avutane cognizione, secondo alcuni, da' libri Sibillini, eresse in quel tempio un' altare col titolo di ARA PRIMOGENITI DEI: e secondoch� riferisce Dione, e Svetonio, essendo in quel tempo il Campidoglio pi� volte percosso da' fulmini, Augusto volle ricorrere all'oracolo di Apollo Delfico, il quale per divina disposizione rispose co' seguenti versi:

' Me Puer hebreus, Divos Deus ipse gubernans, Cedere fede jubet, tristemque redire sub Orcum ; Aris ergo de hinc tacitus abscedito nostris.'

dalla cui risposta intimorito l'Imperatore inalz� nel tempio l'altare col suddetto titolo, e si crede che fosse eretto, ove ora vediamo nella crociata di questa chiesa l'altare isolato, che da Anacleto Antipapa nell'an. 1130. fu ornato con 4. colonne di porfido, e poi nel 1603. dal Vescovo Cavalliense gli fu fatta la cupola con 8. colonne di marmo. Era quella gran chiesa una delle 20. Badie privilegiate di Roma, e la possedettero per molto tempo i Monaci di s. Benedetto: ma Innocenzo IV. nell'anno 1253. la conced� ai Frati di s. Francesco, i quali poi nel 1445. dividendosi tra Conventuali, ed Osservanti, Eugenio IV. la conced� a quest' ultimi. Il Card. Oliviero Caraffa la ristaur� l'anno 1464. e dipoi il Popolo Romano vi fece il nobilissimo soffitto dorato, per ringraziamento alla ss. Vergine della vittoria conseguita l'anno 1572. ai 20. di Ottobre dall' armata Cristiana contro i Turchi, perch� in questa sogliono pigliar possesso i nuovi Conservatori del Popolo Romano. Sono in questa chiesa varj depositi, e memorie antiche, e moltissime cappelle ornate di marmi, di sculture, e di pitture antiche, e moderne, fra le quali sono due quadri del Cav. Benesiani nella cappella di s. Margherita da Cortona, due del Muziano, due di Pasqualino, ed una Madonna nel coro de' frati, che si crede opera di Raffaelle da Urbino, gli altri si tralasciano per non pi� infastidire il Lettore; ma non gi� voglio omettere di indicare le pitture a fresco, che sono nel claustro di qualche merito, e l'iscrizione della terza colonna vicino alla porta della chiesa, in cui si legge A CUBICULO AUGUSTORUM.