Pilgrimage series: Church built over temple ruins

Editor's note: Thirteenth in a series on the sacred places and tombs of saints included in The Compass pilgrimage to Rome and Paris that retired Green Bay Bishop Robert Banks will lead May 3-13. (More information on pilgrimage)

By Tony Staley

	Santa Maria Sopra Minerva Church What: Rome's only Gothic church, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and built on the ruins of a temple to Minerva When: Built 1280-1370 Where: Rome

The final day of touring in Italy, the pilgrims will go to Rome's only Gothic church, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. The church, a minor basilica, is near the Pantheon.

The name translates in English as St. Mary over Minerva, meaning that the church, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, was built over the ruins of a Roman temple to Minerva the goddess of handicrafts, which Pompey built in about 50 BC. A temple to Isis also may be buried under the church.

The temple ruins may have stood until the eighth century when Pope St. Zachary (741-752) commissioned a church, which he gave to Eastern monks. Today's church was built in the 13th century after Pope Alexander IV (1254-1261) gave the land to the Dominicans, who still administer the church. They used it and its monastery as their headquarters until moving to Santa Sabina.

Dominican architects Sisto and Ristoro, who had worked on Santa Maria Novella, the Gothic cathedral in Florence, are believed to have begun work on the church in 1280, under Pope Nicholas III. Construction was finished in 1370. The church was remodeled during the Renaissance and Baroque and in the 19th century.

The only clues the plain 17th century façade provides to the Gothic interior of pointed vaults and delicate arches are three stained-glass rose windows.

Among the treasures in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is the body of St. Catherine of Siena, which is buried beneath the altar (her head is in San Domenico Church in Siena). Catherine, a 14th century Dominican tertiary and doctor of the church, helped convince Popes Gregory XI (1370-1378) and Urban VI (1378-1389) to return the papacy from Avignon to Rome.

Catherine died on April 29, 1380, in a house near the church. Cardinal Antonio Barberini had her rooms moved in 1630 and turned into a memorial chapel behind the sacristy. From 1461, when she was canonized, until 1887, popes commemorated her by a procession to her tomb each Aug. 15.

Santa Maria Sopra Minerva contains the tombs of many other prominent people, including the great Dominican painter Fra Angelico (1387-1455), whose "Madonna and Child" is in the church.

Also buried there are the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII, and Pope Paul IV, a Dominican, who started the Index of Forbidden Books and required Jews to live in ghettoes in Rome and other Italian cities. Because it once was the church of the Florentine city state, there are tombs of several leading citizens.

The many art works include, the "Christ the Redeemer" statue, begun in 1519 by Michelangelo and completed by one of his students.

In the plaza in front of the church is the Pulcino della Minerva, an elephant sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It supports the smallest of the 11 Egyptian obelisks in Rome. The obelisk, made in the sixth century BC, was brought to Rome by Emperor Diocletian (284 to 305) for the Temple of Isis. It was found in 1665 in the Dominican gardens.

(Staley is a retired editor of The Compass.)

Next: The Colosseum