Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte
Historic site · Regola, Italy
The church of a confraternity founded in 1538 to give Christian burial to abandoned bodies recovered from the Tiber and the Roman Campagna. Its eighteenth-century façade carries festoons, pilasters, skulls and funerary emblems and two incised plaques, one a winged skeleton with the words Hodie mihi, cras tibi, the other Death seated with a winged hourglass watching a dying man. The crypt is open only by appointment with the Associazione Amici del Tevere, on 339 5852777 or 339 7448084.
History
Roma Capitale dates the building to the sixteenth century, while it.wikipedia's article on via Giulia gives 1575–76 and records a demolition in 1733 and a rebuilding in 1737 to a design by Ferdinando Fuga. Inside, under an oval dome, are frescoes by Giovanni Lanfranco of the hermits Antony Abbot, Paul of Thebes and Simeon Stylites, brought from Cardinal Farnese's hermitage, and a high altarpiece of Christ on the cross by Ciro Ferri. The crypt is what remains of the confraternity's cemetery, largely destroyed for the lungotevere in 1886. It was in use until the nineteenth century and took more than 8,000 bodies; bones and skulls are arranged into crosses, sculptures and chandeliers, and some skulls are inscribed with the year, the cause of death and the place of recovery.
Visit
Via Giulia 262, 00186 Roma RM
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