The church has functioned since then as the student chapel for the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (aka the Angelicum). Today it is shared with both the university and the Dominican friars who live on campus in an attached friary. It is no surprise the chapel has a long and rich history.
For a period in the nineteenth century, the campus was sequestered by the government and actually taken from the Dominicans amid the strife of the Revolution of 1870. Fortunately, the Dominicans were able to re-acquire the property after that unfortunate period of expropriation, the result of laws designed to suppress the religious orders.
The Interior
The chapel was built by care of the Dominican Pope St. Pius V. Construction began in 1569 and eventually an attached convent was built up. The property was originally intended for Dominican nuns. The original structural design plan of the chapel was from Giacomo della Porta, although over the years various other architects were involved. Construction lasted until 1663. Nicola Torriani worked on the interior.
The design plan of the main altar, dedicated to Our Lady, is attributed to Bernini. Work began in 1636 and was completed in 1640. Below is an image of the scene above the main altar, clearly in the style of Bernini. It depicts two angels in flight supporting an image of the Madonna and Child in polychrome majolica, a type of earthenware pottery (probably dating from the fifteenth century). In the typical style of Bernini, this is crowned with an image of the Holy Spirit emanating the golden rays of a sunburst.
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| The "Bernini" main altar reredos |
The sanctuary displays two inspiring frescoes that depict the life of St. Dominic, one on each side, likely painted by Giovanni Baglione in 1634. They adorn the side walls on either side of the sanctuary. On either side of the altar are a sequence of four stories depicted from the life of Our Lady, starting in the above left with the Nativity of Mary. These are framed by lovely stucco decorations.
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| The "Bernini" side altar |
Bernini also had a hand in decorating the chapel, going back to 1649. His plan is attributed to the decoration of the first chapel on the right upon entering. The altar here with its sculpture group is very much in his style and is reputed to be by his pupil, Antonio Raggi. The altarpiece statues depict Christ meeting St. Mary Magdalene after His Resurrection. The work is called Noli me tangere (Latin for "Touch me not"), in reference to the words spoken by Our Lord to Mary Magdalene when she recognized Him after His Resurrection (John 20:17).
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| The magnificent ceiling by Canuti |
An obvious highlight is the majestic ceiling painting entitled the Apotheosis (or the glorification) of St. Dominic, created in 1674 by the Baroque painted Domenico Maria Canuti. He was an artist from Bologna who painted fresco ceiling decorations. He first trained under the master Guido Reni. In the above photo can be seen his quadratura decoration of the ceiling that creates the illusion of "opening up" depth. The tompe-l'oeil framing is by Enrico Haffner.
Noteworthy is the altarpiece in the third chapel on the south side, by Pier Francesco Mola, depicting the vision of St. Dominic. In the second chapel on the north side is Francesco Allegrini's Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine, painted in 1532. In the third chapel on north side is the Madonna and Child by Benozzo Gozzoli, a pupil of Fra Angelico, completed in 1460.
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| The majestic staircase |
The Exterior and Staircase
The church has an unusual bonus in the form of a Baroque staircase that leads up to its front entrance. In some ways this is an echo of the high staircases that led up to the Roman temples of old vis-à-vis the temple informs the city. Thus, the present exterior view of the chapel stands as a visual symbol of architectural continuity with the past.
Vincenzo della Greca and his brother Felice constructed the travertine facade, completed in 1646. The front showcases four statues. Two upper statues depict St. Dominic and Pope St. Sixtus II. They are by Marcantonio Canini.
The two lower statues depict St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Peter of Verona. These were sculpted by Stefano Maderno, one of the greatest sculptors of that generation.
The church has a remarkable unity of design and a very tall ceiling. One of its greatest treasures is actually the exterior curved double staircase and balustrade leading to the main entrance, built in 1654 by the architect Orazio Torriani.
The staircase was memorialized by American painter John Singer Sargent, who while visiting Rome in 1906 was so enraptured that he decided to sketch and paint it. The following year he wrote: "I did in Rome a study of a magnificent curved staircase and balustrade, leading to a grand facade that would reduce a millionaire to a worm..." The oil on canvas painting can be seen in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University, seen below.
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| The famous painting |
The Original Nuns
The chapel is attached to the old convent that is under the same name. Today Dominican friars live and teach here, with classrooms mostly on the main level.
When the Angelicum moved in in 1934, the nuns transferred to a historic convent of Dominican nuns located at the Church of San Sisto Vecchio, where Pope St. Sixtus II is today entombed. It was St. Dominic himself who established his nuns at this location as his first foundation in Rome, just across from the Baths of Caracalla.
Also in 1931, some of the Dominican nuns left to establish a new community at Santa Maria del Rosario on Monte Mario. They took with them a famous icon that had formally been kept in their chapel, a seventh century Byzantine icon known as the Madonna of San Luca - one of the oldest in Italy, that had been venerated by St. Dominic himself.
The original establishment of this Dominican community was done at the behest of Pope Honorius III who entrusted the reform of the already existing monastery of St. Sixtus to the female Dominicans. Just before that, in 1219, the same pope invited Dominic and his male companions to take up residence at Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill.
Santa Sabina thus became the original genesis of the Angelicum. The Dominicans founded their Roman convent and studium at this location high on the Aventine on June 5, 1222, thus forming the original Dominican school of higher studies out of which the sixteenth century Angelicum was born, taking up residence at the Dominican friary at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva.
The community of nuns at St. Sixtus flourished under the jurisdiction of the Dominicans. A house of noble ladies who wished to embraced religious life was set up there. Until that time the women had lived in various convents of the Eternal City, but without the regular discipline in accordance with their religious state.
St. Dominic gave them a rule of life known as the "Constitutions of St. Sixtus of Rome." This community, a month after its foundation, had more than a hundred members. It quickly became noted thanks to the loving care of the holy patriarch St. Dominic, whose aim was holiness and the regularity of religious discipline.
But time, which tests the greatest human institutions, overthrows empires and abolishes kingdoms, does not spare even the dwellings of the servants of God. Thus, over the decades, the monastery of St. Sixtus came upon hard times and was almost in ruin. Its holy inhabitants, reduced to extreme poverty by the troubles of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, saw their members greatly reduced.
The situation was desperate when, in 1566, Providence gave the nuns a great benefactor in the person of one of their brothers in Saint Dominic, Pope St. Pius V. He was their longtime friend, Dominican Cardinal Michel Ghislieri, who ascended the papal throne and came to the aid of his sisters in distress.
Pius V ordered a magnificent new monastery built for the sisters, which is still standing today. It is a sprawling complex with a beautiful chapel and lovely gardens. The location is across from the Terme di Caracalla and near the Circus Maximus and St. John Lateran.
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| The sublime facade |
Visiting the Chapel
Hopefully readers will have the chance to one day visit the chapel. Today it is open certain times for weekday Mass as well as for special Masses celebrated each year. There has also been an annual Corpus Christi procession organized by students. Many of the younger friars have a special predilection for the hallowed Dominican Rite. By popular demand, over the years an occasional Missa Cantata liturgy has been sung here for the students. Always with a welcome trope of plainchant celebrated Iuxta Ritum Ordinis Praedicatorum, according to the ancient Dominican Rite. See below for lovely photos.
