Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio

The Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio It is a place of Catholic cult of the fifth century that stands in Rome on the Celio.
It was also known as Santo Stefano in Girimonte, Santo Stefano in Querquatuto (for his closeness to a oak), Santo Stefano In the head of Africa (for its proximity to the ancient Street head of Africa ).

Since the construction, the church was the seat of the homonymous cardinal title. According to the catalog of Pietro Mallio, drawn up under the pontificate of Pope Alexander III, this title was linked to the Basilica of San Lorenzo outside the walls and his priests officiated in turn.

Managed later and until 1580 by the Hungarian Paolini, the Church since then belongs to the Pontifical Germanic-Hungarian College in Rome. Basilica minor has been erected and is the national church of Hungary. It is one of the state churches of Rome.

In the past, up to the 19th century, it was believed that the church had been built by re -effect a Roman building such as the structures of the The supermarket neroniano ^[2] . It seems instead that it arose near the Roman barracks of the The camp of a foreign country , seat of the special troops that played the role of modern internal and external secret services, and in correspondence of a mitrean that had been implanted around 180 and which was highlighted in 1973-1975 ^[3] . There was also a large residence of the Valeri ( Home Valeriorum ).

The construction was probably desired by Pope Leone I (440-461), under which another church dedicated to Santo Stefano had also been built (the Basilica of Santo Stefano in via Latina), and had to be started in the final years of his Pontificate: in fact, two coins of the emperor Libio Severo (461-465) were found in a stretch of the foundations of the building; In addition, through derocronology it was ascertained that the wood used in the roof beams had been cut around 455. From the sources we know that however the church was consecrated only later, by Pope Simplicio (468-483).

The building had a circular plant, originally made up of three concentric circles: a central space (diameter 22 m) was delimited by a circle of 22 argued columns, on which it rests a drum (22.16 m high); This central part was surrounded by two lower ring ambulances: the innermost one (diameter 42 m) was delimited by a second circle of columns connected by arches, now inserted in a continuous wall, while the outermost one (diameter 66 m), disappeared, it was closed by a low wall.

In the outermost ring of the radial colonnades surmounted by a wall, four environments of greater height delimited, which enrolled in the circular plant a Greek cross recognizable also outside for the difference in height of the roofs.

The intermediate features of the outermost ring, of lower height, were further divided into a narrow external corridor, covered by once a ring barrel time, and in an internal space, probably uncovered. From the corridors, which was accessed from the outside by means of eight small doors, we passed to the radial environments of the Greek cross, and from here to the internal ambulacrum and the central space, probably covered with self -supporting vaults, perhaps made up of fictile pipes.

The interiors were richly decorated with marble slabs: traits of the original floor were found, with chives and holes on the walls on the walls testify to the presence of a parietal coating in the same material. In the central space there was the altar, inserted in a fenced space.

The colonnade surrounding the central space consists of 22 columns with stems and reuse bases (of different height from each other), while the Ionian capitals were specially performed in the fifth century for the Church. Even the architraves above the columns, probably reaped by blocks reused of different origins, have slightly different heights.

The building in the context of early Christian architecture [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

The building is part of the “classical rebirth” of Roman early Christian architecture, which reached its maximum expression in the years between 430 and 460 (Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Basilica of Santa Sabina, remaking of the Lateran Baptistery,

The plant resumes, by merging them, the two models of central plan buildings, the circular plant with walking and the Greek cross plant, already used in the Constantinian era for the buildings of worship and in particular for the martyria , Memories of Martyrs.

The structure of the building has analogies with the round of the roundabout ( Anastasis ) of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem which, for its great prestige, represented a lasting model for western architecture, up to the whole Middle Ages ^[2] .

Between 523 and 529, under the Popes Giovanni I and Felice IV, we know from the sources that the Church was adorned with mosaics and covered in precious marbles.

Pope Gregory the Great had preached in the church, to which a chair is attributed that is still preserved there, a marble seat of the Roman era, from which the back and armrests were eliminated in the thirteenth century.

At the Church, he recalls the Armellini, in Historical and topographical news of the churches of Rome Vol. 2, p. 121 ,

‘ There was the monastery and the church of s. Erasmus, where he already lived Munich Adeodato who then became Pope. Between the ruins of that in 1554 and 1561 domestic memories of the Rufini Valerî procules of the IV century were found, which attest that their home arose there; […] That house in the VI century or in the VII changed in the cenobio with the name of Erasmus, did not forgive the ancient appointment at all since it was called Xenodochium Valerius . »

In this monastery, the followers of San Benedetto Messi were found to flee by the monasteries of Subiaco by the work of the Lombards after 601.

The chapel of the first and Feliciano saints [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

In the seventh century Pope Teodoro I (642-649) transferred to Santo Stefano Rotondo the relics of the first and Felician holy martyrs. On the new sepulcher of the martyrs, located in the north-eastern arm, a new altar was erected, with a silver crawl, behind which the external wall was demolished to make a small apse.

The apsidal basin was decorated with a mosaic with a golden bottom, on which the two saints on the sides of a large gemmata cross, surmounted by a medallion with the bust of Christ are depicted; From a higher ring you can see the starry sky, with the hand of God that the crown of martyrdom offers. The mosaic, one of the few examples of this era to be kept in Rome, was probably performed by an artist of Byzantine origin.

In the 11th century the chapel was restricted with partitions to host a sacristy and a secondary choir and in 1586 the walls were frescoed by Antonio Tempesta with the stories of the martyrdom of the two saints. The current altar is due to 1736 and is the work of Filippo Barigoni.

The restorations of the twelfth century [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

The Church decays in the following centuries and lost the original covers. It was restored by Pope Innocent II in the years between 1139 and 1143: the external ring and three of the four arms were abandoned, while only the one that housed the chapel of the first and Feliciano saints remained intact. The outermost colonnade was closed with brick walls and an entrance porch was created, covered in vaulted, five arches on columns with granite reuse stems and Tuscan capitals.

In the renovation of the roofs of the central space, a swallowing wall was built, to reduce the width, opened with three arches (the largest one of the two lateral ones) supported by two large columns, with granite stems and Corinthian capitals and bases of re -use. Finally, to consolidate the structure, 14 of the windows open on the drum were walled up.

The restorations of the XV and 16th century and the frescoes of the Pomarancio [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

The building, without a regular clergy, continued to be overlooked and in 1420 the church was described as basils disrupted And he came to interpret the remains like those of a temple dedicated to the god Fauno. The belief that the Church derived from the reuse of a Roman building lasted until the 19th century ^[4] , as well as the name of “Tempio di Bacco”.

Pope Niccolò V (1447-1455) entrusted the complete restoration of the building to the Florentine sculptor and architect Bernardo Rossellino, who reflects the roofs and the floor, raising the quota, placed a marble altar in the center of the building, definitively eliminated the falling ambulatory External and dabbed the columns of the second ring with a sturdy wall cylinder which corresponds to the current external wall of the building. Of the arms of the Greek cross therefore remained only one used as a vestibule in correspondence with the entrance porch of the XII century ^[4] . Some authors have hypothesized in accommodation a design role also by Leon Battista Alberti.

In 1613 a high carved wood tabernacle was placed on the altar, today in the ambulacrum.

The church was then entrusted to the Paolino order that maintained it until 1580, when Pope Gregory XIII entrusted it to the “Collegium Hungaricum”, then in turn unified to the “Collegium Germanicum”, a boarding school held by the Jesuits intended for the German -speaking priests .

In the same year the new door of the sacristy was built and an octagonal fence was built around the altar, decorated with sculptures (papal coats of arms) and frescoes by Niccolò Circignani, called the Pomarancio. The enclosure is decorated with 24 scenes that imitate sculptural surveys, in yellow tones, depicting the history of Santo Stefano and his cult, in particular, in Hungary (see in particular the scene of the dream of Sarota, mother of Santo Stefano d ‘ Hungary).

In 1583 the same Pomarancio received the task of frescoing the wall that closed the ambulatory with martyrdom scenes. The cycle begins with the massacre of the Innocenti, continuing with the crucifixion of Jesus, followed by the martyrdom of Santo Stefano, with in the background the representations of the tortures of the Apostles. The paintings are provided with captions in Latin and Italian. Some of the scenes, in a bad state of conservation, were badly repainted in the nineteenth century

The chapel of Santo Stefano d’Angheria [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

In the eighteenth century, as a compensation for the destruction of the Hungarian national church of Santo Stefano degli Hungarians, a new Hungarian national chapel for students from the Kingdom of Hungary was created in the Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo.

Since 1958 the archaeological excavations in the subsoil of the church and in the surrounding area, and a series of restorations, still in progress began.

The Basilica belongs to the Pontifical Germanic-Hungarian College and is part of the parish of nearby Santa Maria in Domnica to the spacecraft. Is cardinal title ( Saint Stephen in the mountain ).