Santa Maria sopra Minerva in inglese, Storia dell'arte moderna a Roma e nel Lazio

Santa Maria sopra Minerva

In the Minerva's square, there is a singular elephant who carries the obelisk, it was called "Minerva's chick" for the dimension. It was commissioned by Pope Alessandro VII in 1666 to Bernini, a project he elaborated in 1658 for Cardinal Francesco Barberini and was suggested by Athanasius Kircher. This "Elephant obeliscoforo" was a singular theme, resumed by Francesco Colonna's "Hypnerotomachia Polyphili" and refers to divine knowledge. Sculptured by Ercole Ferrata, the monument was allocated to Minerva's square. The obelisk was shown in 1665 from the Isides' temple's ruins near Marzio's square.

The Dominican friars had selected this densely populated area for their priory about 1280 to be closer to the urban population to whom they directed their preaching. By the fifteenth century, the priory had grown to be one of the most important liturgical sites in Rome and even served as the location for two conclaves to elect Popes Eugene IV (1431) and Nicholas V (1447). Although the Minerva became the administrative residence for its master general, its center for training novices, and, in 1460, the location of its Confraternity of the Annunciation.

The architecture and history

Built in the XIII century (1280), it's a rare example of gothic architecture in Rome. It was the Dominican's traditional site, who for their passion against heretics, were called with a wordplay "Domini Canes" (God's dogs). Built upon ancient ruins, thinking of the Calcidican Minerva's Temple built around 80 A.D. under Domitian's reign; really the Calcidican Minerva's Temple wasn't under the daily church but near S. Marta's Church; we speak about a circular temple called "Minerva Portiera" or "Minerva Calcidica". The name is like the position, in front of the big "Porticus Divorum", an arcade site with two little temples that Domitian built in the name of Vespasian and his brother Titus, as gods.

The Minerva's little temple either, then the name will become at the nearest Minerva's Church, was the work of Domitian, who always had a particular devotion to this divinity. No trace remains of both monuments. The current building was built from 1280 with an ogival plan, the only case present in Rome; the project was by friar Ristoro and friar Sisto, the same who built S. Maria Novella in Florence. By the end of the century, it was ready for worship, but the works proceeded slowly due to the absence of the Pope, who had moved to Avignon, until 1453 when the actual front was built.

The front is too simple, similar to Aracoeli; it has three portals, with the central one being the best. There are many marks on the right side of the front that show the numerous floods of the Tiber in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which reached even twenty meters. The vault building, with the "T" plan, is very rich in chapels and art, with which the orators hoped to perpetuate their memory.

Art and chapels

In the right nave, you must see the V chapel, with an "Annunciation" by Antoniazzo Romano, a Roman artist of this period. Commissioned by Cardinal Tor in December 1499 and finished in 1500, a jubilee year, it shows Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, uncle of the Spanish inquisitor. The sixth, Aldobrandini, is based on a Giacomo della Porta's drawing, Carlo Maderno's, and Girolamo Rainaldi's (1600): upon the altar, Eucaristy's Institution, Federico Barocci's painting (1594); at the walls, the funeral monuments of Pope Clement VIII's parents, work by Della Porta. In the seventh chapel, on the right, "Christ Judge," fresco works perhaps by Melozzo da Forlì.

The right transept ends in Carafa's Chapel, built from 1489 to 1493; the first vault is attributed to Mino da Fiesole; the fresco decoration is the work of Filippino Lippi and shows the "Annunciation," "Cardinal Carafa presents to the Virgin by S. Tommaso," the "Assumption," "Triumph of St. Thomas," "Miracles of the Crucifix"; in the vaults, the "Sibyls." The group is one of the most important and rich pictorial complexes of the fourteenth century in Rome. On the left, there is the tomb of Bishop Guglielmo Durand from 1296 by Giovanni di Cosma, with a mosaic lunette; then the Altieri's Chapel, with Maratta and Baciccia's paintings.

On the left of the major altar, there is "Christ Resurrected," Michelangelo's work (1519–20), with assistants. Under the major altar is St. Catherine's tomb, work of Isaia da Pisa, who died in 1380; in the choir are conserved the tombs of Leone X and Clement VII, both of the Medici house, where they show the monumental style of the Roman Renaissance. In the hall, there is the Beato Angelico's slab tomb, also work by Isaia da Pisa.

Beato Angelico, a Dominican friar, is known to have stayed in Rome in 1453, marking the last years of his life. During this period, the church was not in good condition, and then Cardinal Torquemada called Beato Angelico to restore and paint the Minerva's cloister, which unfortunately no longer exists today. When friar Angelico died in 1455, he was working at Minerva's church, and he was buried there.

The monument to Sister Maria Raggi

In two other works of 1604, Bernini explored certain aspects of supernatural experience with unparalleled profundity. Although not made for chapel decorations, these projects are critical to understanding his achievement in that domain. Before this time, Bernini's religious sculptures conveyed two distinct kinds of spiritual emotion. One is what might be called a response to a beatific vision. We noted earlier that this was not a generic, if unusually intense, form of religious experience, but had precise theological significance, and Bernini portrayed it in a particular way. The head and eyes are turned up and to the side, mouth open. The major distinction is that the mood is one of tragic suffering, and the eyes may be nearly closed. Implicit or explicit in all these works is the notion of a saintly death, of which the two expressive modes evoke contrasting aspects. In the period that concerns us, Bernini fused both alternatives into a new type that conveys the underlying idea in a kind of pathetic rapture. Maria Raggi, as a candidate for beatification, and the monument (actually a cenotaph; her tomb is in the nearby chapel of Maria Magdalen); the divine gifts and her happy death were both mentioned in the inscription on her tomb. A witness at the process for Maria Raggi's beatification gave this account of her death.

In the Raggi monument, the blowing cloth and the medallion carried aloft by airborne messengers are brought together to create a visual metaphor for the spiritual transport expressed by the portrait. Further, the motifs are isolated from their usual context on tombs and altars, so that with regard to both form and content, the happy Christian death agony is presented here as an independent icon and in what might be called its pure state—apart from any narrative context, without external appurtenances—the moment of the soul's ultimate union with God.

The Naro tomb in Santa Maria sopra Minerva

A significant development in Bernini's conception of the tomb effigy appears in a monument to Cardinal Gregorio Naro in the Naro Family chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The effigy is placed in a niche whose architectural framework and monochrome whiteness closely resemble several of Bernini's tabernacles of this period; payments for the tomb show that it was indeed executed according to his design between 1638 and 1642. The effect of the work is unnerving. The bust, of the same type as "Bernini and the Unity of the visual arts" by Irvin Lavin—the Pierpont Morgan Library Oxford University Press New York—London 1980 that of Giovanni Battista d'Aste, is set on a platform covered with a cloth reminiscent of the draperies that carry the images on the D'Aste tombs. In this case, however, the cloth disguises the amputation of the torso and fills the lower part of the niche, so the figure seems to be kneeling at a ceremoniously draped prayer stool. The effigy of Cardinal Gregorio has been described as the first "complete" depiction of a kneeling cardinal in Rome—which is to say that it is the first thoroughly consistent illusion of a whole figure. This consistency of illusion is the optical equivalent to the psychological sophistication of the Raimondi busts. The Naro tomb is of special interest because it incorporated two interrelated new ideas. One is that through the motive of the drapery, the lower part of the body is included in the illusion. The second is that the frontispiece provides a frame large enough to contain the whole figure, with elements extraneous to the illusion (sarcophagus, epitaph) suppressed. In both these respects, the design anticipates Bernini's treatment of the effigies in the Teresa chapel.

Carafa's chapel

This much of the chapel was completed by 1488 when Carafa commissioned Filippino to decorate its interior. Within this imposing setting, Filippino painted frescoes for the chapel vault and three walls. The large pictorial field appears to lie beyond a painted or fictive marble architectural framework decorated with relief sculpture. Seen from the transept, however, the altar wall provides the most dramatic and beautiful enticement into the chapel. A marble frame sets off the frescoed altarpiece representing Gabriel's Annunciation to the Virgin attended by, surprisingly, the portrait of the kneeling Cardinal Carafa and, standing behind him, St. Thomas Aquinas. The Virgin of the Assumption rises over the hills of the countryside above the altarpiece's rich acroterion and suspended banner and beyond the painted triumphal arch framing the rear wall. She is surrounded by nine jubilant angels, six of whom play instruments that would have celebrated her passage into heaven with loud, joyous music. Amazed, the Apostles watch her form either side and slightly behind the altarpiece. The Cumean Sybil points upward toward the divine origin of Christ's Incarnation. Three other Sibyls join her, each attended by an angel, books, and a retinue of putti. In the lunette beneath the vault, Filippino painted a miracle from the Saint's life, the disputed identification of which will be discussed in Chapter Four. St. Thomas kneels with an angel on either side before a crucifix in the corner of the painting but faces toward the visitor at the chapel entrance. Other figures gather across from him, agitated by the mystery at hand. Filippino separated the lunette from the large scene below by a painted entablature connecting the two.