Armando Diaz - Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri - Roma, Italy
Posted by: denben
N 41° 54.186 E 012° 29.808
33T E 292369 N 4642047
The Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs is a titular basilica church built inside the frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian in the Piazza della Repubblica in Rome
Waymark Code: WM10QRC
Location: Lazio, Italy
Date Posted: 06/12/2019
Views: 3
The thermae of Diocletian, built in 306, dominated the Viminal Hill with their ruined mass. Michelangelo Buonarroti worked from 1563 to 1564 to adapt a section of the remaining structure of the baths to enclose a church. He achieved a sequence of shaped architectural spaces, developed from a Greek cross, with a dominant transept, with cubical chapels at each end, and the effect of a transverse nave.
There is no true facade; the simple entrance is set within one of the coved apses of a main space of the thermae. The vestibule with canted corners and identical side chapels—one chapel has the tomb of Salvator Rosa, the other of Carlo Maratta—leads to a second vestibule, repeated on the far side of the transept, dominated by the over lifesize Saint Bruno of Cologne by Jean Antoine Houdon (1766).
The tomb of General Armando Diaz, an Italian hero of the First World War, was made by Antonio Muñoz in 1920. The sarcophagus is of red granite from Aswan in Egypt, matching the ancient columns, and is placed in the transept floor. The monument itself rises above that. In the centre is a dedication stele flanked by two slabs of African green marble with bronze decorations in the shape of swords with laurel crowns.
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