Santa Maria ai Monti.
The history of the small church of Santa Maria ai Monti is closely connected to a medieval Marian icon that is said to perform miracles. The icon had been painted as a fresco on the wall of a convent of Poor Clares. When these Poor Clares moved out in 1308, they left behind the fresco and the convent became a barn. In 1579 workmen were about to demolish this barn when they suddenly heard a voice that commanded them “not to hurt the child”. Thereupon the workmen discovered the fresco, which features the Madonna and Child. The fresco was carefully detached and henceforth venerated as an icon. It quickly proved to be miraculous. In 1580 Pope Gregorius XIII (1572-1585) therefore ordered the architect Giacomo della Porta (1532-1602) to build a small church where the icon could be kept. The architect died before the church was completed, so work was continued by Carlo Lombardi (ca. 1545-1619) and Flaminio Ponzio (1560-1613). In 1604 they finished the project. For well over two centuries the only purpose of the church was to house the icon. Only in 1824 did the Santa Maria ai Monti become parochial. It has been a titular church since 1960.
The Baroque façade of the church is not that special. It was mostly the inscription on the architrave that caught my eye:
BEATAE VIRGINI DEIPARAE MARIAE AD MONTES
Interior of the church.
Deipara is the Latin equivalent of the Greek word theotokos. Theotokos literally means “she whose child is God”, but it is usually translated as “mother of God”. The inscription can therefore be translated as: “For the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Mountains, Mother of God”. I must say I have not seen the word deipara very often: mater dei seems to be much more common. A second inscription, above the entrance, mentions Pope Gregorius XIII and the year 1580. The text also states that the church was built “ex ele[e]mosinis a populo collatis”[1], from the alms collected by the people. Santa Maria ai Monti is therefore an excellent example of crowdfunding.
In the beautiful, bright interior with a lot of yellow we first of all look for the venerated icon. We find it in an aedicule in the apse behind the high altar. Depicted are a Madonna and Child, seated on a throne and flanked by two standing saints. They are Saints Lawrence (left) and Stephanus (right). The latter is of course instantly recognisable by the rocks on his head. At the base of the throne two more smaller saints are kneeling, of whom the one on the right is definitely Saint Franciscus of Assisi. After all, the icon came from a convent of Poor Clares (i.e. female Franciscans). The saint on the left is difficult to identify, but he is in any case a monk. It is difficult to say how old the icon is, especially because it has been retouched and overpainted on multiple occasions. The best we can make of it is that it is medieval. However, the mosaic decoration above the icon is nineteenth-century.
Medieval icon in the church.
Many of the frescoes in the church were painted by Cristoforo Casolani, a painter whose years of birth and death are unfortunately unknown. Casolani decorated the barrel vault of the nave with a large fresco of the Ascension of Christ. The fresco is surrounded by scenes of the four Fathers of the Church, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine and Gregory the Great. On the counter-façade Casolani painted the prophets Daniel and Isaiah. The painter continued his work on the dome, where he provided the pendentives with frescoes of the four evangelists. Most frescoes on the inside of the dome, which feature stories from the lives of Jesus and Mary, are by Paolo Guidotti (ca. 1560-1629). Guidotti also painted God the Father in the lantern, but the dome fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin is by his colleague Baldassare Croce (1558-1628).
Frescoes by Cristoforo Casolani.
Dome with frescoes by Paolo Guidotti and Baldassare Croce.
Cristoforo Casolani was also responsible for the three frescoes in the conch of the apse. From right to left, and in chronological order, we see the Nativity of the Virgin, the Presentation in the Temple and the Marriage of the Virgin. The five frescoes on the walls of the apse are by another painter, i.e. Giacinto Gimignani (1606-1681).
Sources: Capitool travel guide Rome, 2009, p. 164 and Santa Maria ai Monti | Churches of Rome Wiki.
Note
[1] Is that not one “e” too many?