Paolo Thaon di Revel - 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: WM10QT7
Location: Lazio, Italy
Date Posted: 06/12/2019
Views: 4
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 Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, known as the Duca del Mare (Duke of the Sea) was made by Pietro Canonica, in 1948. The sarcophagus is in yellow Sienese marble, and the monument is crowned with an arch carved to look like an ancient Roman ship. The base is in red Levantine and black Belgian stone. In the centre of the base is a relief portrait in a clipeus.
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