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Chiesa di Santa Maria del Priorato

Historic site · Ripa, Italy

The church of the Sovereign Order of Malta on the Aventine, with a single-order facade of four fluted pilasters with rich capitals and a portal under an oculus and triangular tympanum. Latin-cross interior with side niches and an apse under a stuccoed vault. No source states its opening hours, so none are given here.

History

In 1761 Giovanni Battista Piranesi dedicated his treatise Della Magnificenza ed Architettura dei Romani to the Rezzonico; in 1764 Cardinal Giovanni Battista Rezzonico, formerly Grand Prior of the Order, commissioned him to renew the church, the villa gardens and the piazza in front. In 1765 Piranesi recast it in the neoclassical manner as a funerary chamber honouring the Grand Priors and Grand Masters of the Order, mixing Egyptian, Etruscan and Roman iconography: sarcophagus, serpent, skull, inverted torches, with the crowned double-headed eagle of the Rezzonico arms. A restoration in 2017 recovered the original colour, white stuccoes and a soft ochre, by removing dust, deposits and candle soot.

Visit

Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta 4, Roma RM

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