Page 125 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Rome

PIAZZA NA VONA  123

4 Sant’Agnese
in Agone
Piazza Navona. Map 4 E4 & 11 C3.
Tel 06-6819 2134. @ 46, 62, 64, 70,
81, 87, 116, 492, 628. Open 9:30am–
12:30pm, 3:30–7pm Tue–Fri, 9am–
1pm & 4–8pm Sun. 5 7
This church is believed to have
been founded on the site of the
brothel where, in AD 304, the
young St. Agnes was exposed
naked to force her to renounce
her faith. A marble relief in the
crypt shows the miraculous
growth of her hair, which fell
around her body to protect her
modesty. She was martyred on
this site and is buried in the
catacombs that bear her name
on Via Nomentana (see p266).
Today’s church was
commissioned by Pope
Innocent X in 1652. The first
architects were father and son
Girolamo and Carlo Rainaldi,
but they were replaced by
Borromini in 1653. He stuck
more or less to the Carlo Saraceni’s Miracle of St. Benno and the Keys of Meissen Cathedral
Rainaldi plan except
for the concave facade Santa Maria dell’Anima. It stands Rovere (reigned 1471–84)
designed to to the right of Giulio Romano’s placated the Virgin by ordering
emphasize the damaged altarpiece and is Baccio Pontelli to build her a
dome. A statue redolent of the pagan church if she would bring the
of St. Agnes on Renaissance spirit the war with Turkey to an end.
the facade is pope had so con- Peace was restored and the
said to be demned during his church was named Santa Maria
reassuring the brief, rather gloomy della Pace (St. Mary of Peace).
Fontana dei reign, when patronage The cloister was added by
Quattro Fiumi’s of the arts ground to Bramante in 1504. As in his
statue of the Plate a halt. Santa Maria famous Tempietto (see p223),
River that the dell’Anima is the he scrupulously followed
church is stable. German church in Rome Classical rules of proportion
and some of its paintings, and achieved a monumental
Statue of St. Agnes such as the Miracle of St. effect in a relatively small space.
on facade of Sant’ Benno by Carlo Saraceni Pietro da Cortona may have
Agnese in Agone (1618), illustrate events had Bramante’s Tempietto
connected with the in mind when he added the
5 Santa Maria history of Germany. church’s charming semicircular
portico in 1656. The interior, a
dell’Anima short nave ending under an
6 Santa Maria
Via Santa Maria dell’Anima 66. della Pace octagonal cupola, houses
Map 4 E4 & 11 C2. Tel 06-682 8181. Raphael’s famous frescoes of
@ 46, 62, 64, 70, 81, 87, 116, 492, 628. Vicolo dell’Arco della Pace 5. four Sybils, and four Prophets by
Open 9am–12:45pm & 3–7pm daily. Map 4 E3 & 11 C2. @ 46, 62, 64, 70, his pupil Timoteo Viti, painted
5 7 81, 87, 116, 492, 628. Open 9–11:45am for the banker Agostino Chigi
Mon, Wed & Sat. 5 7 2 steps. in 1514. Baldassarre Peruzzi also
Pope Adrian VI (reigned 1522–3), Exhibitions, concerts. did some work in the church
son of a shipbuilder from Utrecht, (fresco in the first chapel on
was the last non-Italian pope A drunken soldier allegedly the left), as did the architect
before John Paul II. He would pierced the breast of a painted Antonio da Sangallo the
have disapproved of his superb Madonna on this site, causing Younger, who designed the
tomb by Baldassarre Peruzzi in it to bleed. Pope Sixtus IV della second chapel on the right.

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