The Church of Santa Maria del Carmelo in Traspontina (Saint Mary of Carmel Across the Bridge) is a Roman Catholic

titular church In the Catholic Church, a titular church () is a Churches in Rome, church in Rome that is assigned to a member of the Holy orders in the Catholic Church, clergy who is created a Cardinal (Catholic Church), cardinal. These are Catholic churches in ...

in Rome, run by the

Carmelites The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (; abbreviated OCarm), known as the Carmelites or sometimes by synecdoche known simply as Carmel, is a mendicant order in the Catholic Church for both men and women. Histo ...

. The bridge referred to is the Ponte Sant'Angelo. The church is on the Via della Conciliazione, the primary road of the Roman Rione of Borgo.

Pope Sixtus V Pope Sixtus V (; 13 December 1521 – 27 August 1590), born Felice Piergentile, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 April 1585 to his death, in August 1590. As a youth, he joined the Franciscan order, where h ...

designated the church as a cardinalatial '' titulus'' on 13 April 1587. The current cardinal of Santa Maria in Traspontina is the former Archbishop of Quebec, Marc Ouellet, who is also the Prefect Emeritus of the

Dicastery for Bishops The Dicastery for Bishops, formerly named Congregation for Bishops (), is the congregation (Roman Curia), department of the Roman Curia of the Catholic Church that oversees the selection of most new bishops. Its proposals require pope, papal app ...

of the

Roman Curia The Roman Curia () comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution of which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes use ...

. He was Cardinal Priest from 2003 to 2018, and continued there when co-opted to suburbicarian rank. It is the national church for Danish Catholics.

History

The first church named Santa Maria in Traspontina, which lay much nearer to the Tiber than today's church, was demolished during the pontificate of Pius IV (1559–1565) to clear the line of fire for the

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during th ...

s of the Castel Sant' Angelo, who wished to practice shooting on the

Janiculum The Janiculum (; ), occasionally known as the Janiculan Hill, is a hill in western Rome, Italy. Although it is the second-tallest hill (the tallest being Monte Mario) in the contemporary city of Rome, the Janiculum does not figure among the pro ...

, which would have been blocked behind the church."Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina", Turismo Roma, Major Events, Sport, Tourism and Fashion Department
/ref> Designs by Giovanni Sallustio Peruzzi (with contributions by Ottaviano Nonni and Francesco Peparelli) for a replacement church were in place by 1566, though the papal artillery officers insisted that its dome be as low as possible to avoid a recurrence of the previous problem — for this reason this is the only church in Rome whose dome does not lie on a

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...

. The new church was erected along the North side of Borgo Nuovo, which was at that time - and until its destruction in 1937 - the main road of Borgo. The inscriptions found in Santa Maria in Traspontina, a valuable source illustrating the history of the church, have been collected and published by Vincenzo Forcella. On 21 October 2019 Alexander Tschugguel and an accomplice stole five statues, reportedly of

Inca The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

fertility goddess Pachamama, from the church and threw them into the

Tiber The Tiber ( ; ; ) is the List of rivers of Italy, 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 R ...

. The statues were on display in one of the church's side chapels as part of an educational installment about Amazonian culture during the Amazon Synod. Santuario di Santa Maria in Traspontina - interno

Santuario di Santa Maria in Traspontina - interno

Architecture

The façade is built in travertine blocks. The campanile (1637) was designed by Peparelli."Santa Maria del Carmelo in Traspontina", Churches of Rome
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Interior

The main altar (1674) was designed by Carlo Fontana, and has a copy of a medieval icon lost during the period of the Roman Republic (1798-1799). The statues (1695) around the altar are by Alessandro Rondoni, Giacomo Antonio Lavaggi, Vincenzo Felici, and Michel Maille. The ceiling of the left crossing (1697) was frescoed by Biagio Puccini; the crossing to the right, has an ''Apparition of the Trinity and 3 saints'' (1639) by

Giovanni Domenico Cerrini Giovanni Domenico Cerrini (1609–1681), also called ''Gian Domenico Cerrini'' or ''il Cavalier Perugino'', was a painter of the Baroque period, born in Perugia Perugia ( , ; ; ) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by t ...

. The choir is located behind the main altar, separate from the name. It has paintings (1760) by Angelo Papi.

Chapels

* Chapel of the Pietà: The first chapel on the left was built by Baldassare Peruzzi. On either side of the altar are two angels in wood sculptured by Ercole Ferrata. This chapel is also the baptistery. * Chapel of the Prophet Elijah: Second on the left, has an altarpiece depicting ''Santa Elia with St Anthony Abbot and the blessed Francesco Lippi'' painted by Giacinto Calandrucci. * Chapel of SS Peter and Paul: Third on the left, contains the two columns to which Peter and Paul were said to have been bound prior to their martyrdom in the

circus of Nero The so-called Circus of Nero or Circus of Caligula was a circus (building), circus in ancient Rome, located mostly in the present-day Vatican City. It was first built under Caligula. History The ''Ager Vaticanus'', the alluvial plain outs ...

nearby. It has a ''Flagellation of Saints Peter and Paul'' by Giovanni Battista Ricci. * Chapel of St. Teresa of Avila: Fourth on the left, has an altarpiece, the ''Ecstasy of Santa Teresa'' (1698) by Antonio Gherardi. Transpontina Hl Knut

* Chapel of St Angelus of Jerusalem: Fifth chapel on the left, has an altarpiece by Ricci of ''Preaching by San Angelo Martire'' (1612) and stories of the saint. * Chapel of St Andrew Corsini: left transept; in 1684 a painting by Maria de Dominici in honor of St. Andrew was hung in this chapel.Gaze, Delia et al. ''Dictionary of Women Artists'', Taylor & Francis, 1997, p. 462
* Chapel of St Barbara:The first on the right, is dedicated to the patron saint of gunners. The chapel was established through donations from the confraternity of bombardiers of Castel Sant'Angelo. This chapel has an altarpiece of ''Santa Barbara'' (c. 1597) by Cavalier d'Arpino, with frescoed scenes (1610–20) from the life of the saint by Cesare Rossetti. * Chapel of St Knud: Second on the right, was established as a Danish chapel in Rome. The altarpiece is the ''Extasis of S. Canuto'' (1686) by Daniel Seiter, with frescoed ceiling and lunettes by Alessandro Francesi depicting ''The Glory of St Knud'', with angels carry the saint in triumph to Heaven. King Christian X of Denmark and Queen Alexandrina visited the church in 1920. * Chapel of Our Lady of Carmel Third on the right, * Chapel of the Holy Cross: Fourth on the right, has a ''Madonna & St. John Evangelist'' (1587) by Cesare Conti with frescoes of the Passion (1649) by

Bernardino Gagliardi Bernardino Gagliardi ( Città di Castello, 1609 - Perugia, 1660) was an Italian Baroque painter, generally producing frescos for churches. He joined the Academy of St Luke, becoming its president in 1655. Biography He initially trained with a p ...

. * Chapel of St. Alberto Avogadro: Fifth on the right, the frescoed stories were by Niccolò Circignani. * Chapel of St Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi: right transept

Cardinal-priests

* Juan Hurtado de Mendoza, 1589–92 * Francisco de Toledo, 1593–96 * Lorenzo Priuli, 1596–1600 * Erminio Valenti, 1604–1618 * Alessandro Ludovisi, 1618-21 * Ludovico Ludovisi, 1621–23 * Federico Baldissera Bartolomeo Cornaro, 1626–27 * Cesare Monti, 1634–50 * Giacomo Corradi, 1652–66 * Giannicolò Conti, 1666–91 * Giuseppe Sacripante, 1696–1721 * Luis Antonio Belluga y Moncada, 1721–26 * Giuseppe Accoramboni, 1728–1740 * Marcello Crescenzi, 1743–68 * Guido Calcagnini, 1776–1807 * Francesco Saverio Castiglione, 1816–21 * Anne Louis Henri de La Fare, 1823–29 * Placido Maria Tadini, 1835–47 * Giuseppe Cosenza, 1850–63 * Gustav Adolf von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfuerst, 1866–79 * Gaetano Alimonda, 1879–91 * Fulco Luigi Ruffo-Scilla, 1891–95 * Camillo Mazzella, 1896–97 * José María Martín de Herrera y de la Iglesia, 1898–1922 * Giovanni Nasalli Rocca di Corneliano, 1923–52 * Giacomo Lercaro, 1953–76 * Gerald Emmett Carter, 1979–2003 * Marc Armand Ouellet, 2003–''present''

References

Books

External links

website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maria Traspontina Renaissance architecture in Rome Maria Traspontina Carmelite churches in Italy 16th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Churches of Rome (rione Borgo)