Archive for the 'Heritage' Category

Commissioned by Pope Pius IX (1846-78), Roman architect Virginio Vespignani built the Confessio (1861-64) in front of the Papal Altar. Vespignani used some 70 different types of marble, mostly from extractions that occurred concurrently in Rome and Ostia.
The Confessio recalls the importance of Saint Mary Major as the Bethlehem of the West and as Rome’s Basilica [...]

2 Comments CherryPie on Nov 3rd 2024

For many centuries, the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major was called Saint Mary of the Manger or The Bethlehem of the West, owing to preservation in the Basilica, sine the 7th Century, of the precious relic of the Manger of the Child Jesus (today at the relquary crypt below the Main Altar. Originally, it [...]

4 Comments CherryPie on Nov 2nd 2024

Located in the Rione Colonna, San Lorenzo in Lucina is one of the oldest churches in Rome. The building stands on a domus, probably owned by Lucina, a wealthy Roman matron who allegedly founded an “ecclesia domestica”, a place for worship inside a private house.
A second theory connects the name of the basilica to an [...]

11 Comments CherryPie on Sep 26th 2024

6 Comments CherryPie on Sep 25th 2024

Spanish Steps, staircase in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna that climbs the steep slope between the plaza and the church of Trinità dei Monti above. It consists of 135 steps and was built between 1723 and 1725. Though it was funded with a bequest left by a French diplomat, it was named for the Bourbon Spanish Embassy to the Holy See [...]

6 Comments CherryPie on Sep 24th 2024

Represented on the valves of a huge shell, with the erect torso and scaly legs of a sea monster, the Triton stands imposingly with his head bent back in an effort to blow into the large buccina (or twisted shell) that he supports with his arms raised upwards and from which the water that irrigates [...]

4 Comments CherryPie on Sep 19th 2024

Its original location was on the corner of Palazzo Soderini, between Piazza Barberini and Via Sistina. In one of the rooms on the ground floor of the building, Bernini had in fact designed a “booty” for water, that is, a system to collect the return water from the Triton fountain, which he had designed a [...]

10 Comments CherryPie on Sep 18th 2024

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