Piazza della Minerva is a

piazza A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, near the

Pantheon Pantheon may refer to: * Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building Arts and entertainment Comics *Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization * ''Pantheon'' (Lone S ...

. Its name derives from the existence of a temple built on the site by

Pompey Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of ...

dedicated to Minerva Calcidica, whose statue is now in the

Vatican Museums The Vatican Museums ( it, Musei Vaticani; la, Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of ...

Features

Facing this piazza are: *the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, centre of the square, already attested in the 8th century by the Anonymous of Einsiedeln by the name ''(ecclesia) "S. Mariae in Minervio"''. To the right of its facade are inscriptions built into the wall commemorating the flooding of the

River Tiber The Tiber ( ; it, Tevere ; la, Tiberis) is the third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by the Ri ...

between 1422 and 1598 - the area of the piazza is the lowest in Rome, and so was always the first to suffer in flooding. *A convent (or ''casa professa'') of the Dominicans, who held the nearby church from the 13th century. This expanded over time to Via del Seminario and to the

church of San Macuto San Macuto is a Catholic church located on Piazza di San Macuto in the Colonna rione of Rome, Italy. Located next to the Jesuit Collegio di San Roberto Bellarmino in the Palazzo Gabrielli-Borromeo, it is the only church in Italy dedicated to the ...

, in the space formerly occupied by three Roman temples - the aforementioned ''Minervium'', the '' Iseum'', and the ''

Serapeum A serapeum is a temple or other religious institution dedicated to the syncretic Greco-Egyptian deity Serapis, who combined aspects of Osiris and Apis in a humanized form that was accepted by the Ptolemaic Greeks of Alexandria. There were s ...

''.

Inquisition

From the 17th century, the convent became the base of the

Roman Inquisition The Roman Inquisition, formally the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, was a system of partisan tribunals developed by the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church, during the second half of the 16th century, respons ...

Holy Office The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) is the oldest among the departments of the Roman Curia. Its seat is the Palace of the Holy Office in Rome. It was founded to defend the Catholic Church from heresy and is the body responsible f ...

, and it housed the trial and recantation of

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He wa ...

. Little remains of the Dominican complex except its cloister: This had been largely rebuilt from the original building, and expropriated by the state in 1870 as the seat of the Ministry of Public Education and for a short time the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. The cloister now holds the library of the Italian Senate, dedicated to Giovanni Spadolini. *At the centre of the piazza, backing onto the Inquisition convent, is the 1667

Elephant and Obelisk ''Elephant and Obelisk'' is a statue of an elephant carrying an obelisk, designed by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It was unveiled in 1667 in the Piazza della Minerva in Rome, adjacent to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where ...

by Bernini. This obelisk was excavated in the cloister and came from the ''Iseum''. The elephant was known as "il pulcin della Minerva", or "porcino", from the Roman people's story that - uninspired by elephants - Bernini in fact sculpted a pig. *To the right of the church stands the 16th century ''Palazzo Fonseca'', since 1832 the site of one of the historic hotels of Rome, known as the ''Minerva'', whose guests have included Stendhal and

José de San Martín José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras (25 February 177817 August 1850), known simply as José de San Martín () or '' the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru'', was an Argentine general and the primary leader of the southern and centr ...

, remembered in plaques on the facade. *Opposite the church is the '' Palazzo dell'accademia ecclesiastica'' (the former Accademia dei nobili ecclesiastici), 14th century in origin but completely rebuilt in 1878. It is an academy that trains the diplomats of

Vatican City Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—' * german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ') * pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—' * pt, Cidade do Vati ...

External links

"Roma segreta"
*High-resolution 360° Panoramas and Images o
Piazza della Minerva, Art Atlas
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Piazza Della Minerva

Minerva Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Rom ...

Rome R. IX Pigna Minerva

Features

Inquisition

See also

External links