Organ - Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri - Roma, Italy - Musical Instruments on Waymarking.com

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).

On the left wall on the Chapel of St Bruno is now the monumental organ, built by Bartélémy Formentelli in the 1990's and inaugurated in 2000. It has 77 registers distributed on four keyboards, and is made using cherry, walnut and chestnut wood. There are 5400 hand-made pipes, and the instrument is claimed to be the only one in Europe demonstrating the consolidation of the French and Italian organ-building styles. It is often used for concerts, being one of the best in any parish church in Rome.

Opening hours: Daily 7:30 to 18:30 (19:00 on Sundays and Solemnities)

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Date Logged Log User Rating   05/27/2023 GURUGU visited it 08/28/2011 Ariberna visited it

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