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Visits of Rome:
- Visit of Rome's Colosseum
- Visit the Roman Forum
- Visit Rome by night
- Rome shore excursion from Civitavecchia
- Visit Capitol Hill of Rome
- Visit Rome Vatican Museums
- Visit Rome Vatican's Sixtine Chapel
- Visit Rome's Trevi Fountain
- Visit Rome's Piazza Navona
- Visit Rome's Circus Maximus
- Visit Rome's Constantine Arch
- Visit Rome's Spanish Steps
- Visit St Peter Basilica in Rome
- Visit Rome's Trajan Forum
- Visit Rome Pantheon
- Visit the Mouth of Truth of Rome
- Private tour or big bus?
- Rome tourist information and advice
- Visit Venice Squares' Vittoriano in Rome
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Saint Mary above Minerva
The beautiful and large Basilica (church) of Saint Mary above Minerva (Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Italian, 1280-1370) was designed by the same Dominicans friars who built Santa Maria Novella in Florence. This is one of the minor basilicas of Rome and between the most important churches of the Dominican Order of the city. It raises in Piazza della Minerva, just behind the Pantheon, in the Campus Martius (Campo Marzio) quarter.
With its moderately acute arches supported by high cross-shaped pilasters which divide the naves, this church is a rare example of gothic architecture in Rome. The name "sopra Minerva" (above Minerva) refers to an ancient temple to Minerva Calcidica over which the church was built in the first century AD, called Minervium, another one dedicated to the Egyptian divinity Isis, called Isèum and the third one called Serapeum and dedicated to the other Egyptian god Serapis.
Under the high altar rests the body of Saint Catherine of Siena (Santa Caterina da Siena, 1347-1380) in a marble sarcophagus. The saint dedicated a great part of her energy bringing back the papacy from Avignon. After Pope Gregory XI returned the papacy to Rome, St.Catherine retired to the convent adjacent to the church where she lived her last days. Actually she is the saint patron of Italy like saint Francis of Assisi and her feast is April 29.
To the left of the altar is the famous statue of Christ Carrying the Cross, sculpted by Michelangelo and his assistants between 1514 and 1521. In the left transept is the stone monument of Brother John from Fiesole (Frà Giovanni da Fiesole), one of the greatest painters of the 15th century in Italy, better known as Beato Angelico. In the chorus are the tombs of the two Medici Popes of the Renaissance, Leo X (1513-1521) and Clement VII (1523-1534) by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.
The Egyptian Obelisk of Minerva once stood in front of the ancient Temple of Isis, brought to Rome by the emperor Diocletian at the end of the 3rd century AD. It was found in the garden of the cloister stuck to the church and was erected in the piazza with the same name by Pope Alexander VII in 1667. Bernini mounted it on the back of an elephant that was sculpted by Ercole Ferrata, one of his best assistants.
The city of Rome itself has 634 churches and a big part of its history is connected to the popes and the rich cardinals who spent their money to sponsor important art works in the churches of Rome.
The religious itineraries of Rome start discovering the origins of Christianity with the Catacombs and ends with the comprehension of the modern role of the pope and the church of Rome.
Before going to visit the Roman Forum and after having discovered the Pantheon, our walks can not miss the visit to this jewel of the medieval Rome.
Rome is the most complete city in the world as you have decided to combine ancient Rome and religious tours because the development of the city through the ages shows that those two aspects are connected by the passage from the pagan gods to the God we pray today.