Santa Maria sopra Minerva: the only gothic style church in Rome

SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA: THE ONLY GOTHIC STYLE CHURCH IN ROME

If you walk around the area of the Pantheon having in mind to go to see the Ancient Rome you do not have to miss the visit to this gem of Rome that belongs to the Dominican fathers.
Santa Maria sopra Minerva takes its name from its construction on the ruins of the roman temple built by the Flavian emperors dedicated to Minerva,patron of the housewives.
In addition to its historical and artistic treasures, this basilica displays a record of flooding and highlights the uneasy relationship that has long existed between the city and the Tiber river. Some tablets attached to the church facade by the dominican order mark the water depths during major floods of the river of Rome. The highest plaque records a water depth of 3.95 meters ( 13 feet ) in Piazza della Minerva for the flood of December 24, 1598 and the last flood that took place in the eternal city, 20 december 1870, 3 months after that the temporal power of the pope ended in the papal states after the annexation of Rome to the kingdom of Italy.

Why this church has more history than the Pantheon as church?

Because in the fifteen century in the sacristy of santa Maria sopra Minerva were elected two popes, Eugenius IV and Nicholas V before that the Pope Sistus IV built the sistine Chapel that still today is used for the Conclave.
Therefore, this temple guests a work of Michelangelo, a statue representing Jesus holding the cross that was carved at the age of 35 years old after that the florentine artist completed the frescoes of ceiling in the sistine chapel.
Bernini left also incomparable works inside this church like the tomb of the spanish cardinal Pimentel and the marble memorial to the sister Maria Raggi benefactress of the church.

In the golden altar at the center of the apse you can see the the tomb of saint Cathrine from Siena, who lived in the XIV century and wrote several letters to the popes when they were in Avignone asking them to return to Rome as soon as possible because the city was completely left to its destiny without a central authority.
Behind the magnificent altar candelabra you will see the tombs of two famous popes of the renaissance time: Clement VII and his uncle Leo X, son of the great Lorenzo de' Medici.

Another pope buried in santa Maria sopra Minerva is the pope Paul IV from the family of Carafa ( Naples ) who rests in a wonderful chapel frescoed by Filippino Lippi with the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and with side scenes depicting the late medieval landscape of saint John in Lateran and of the Capitol Hill before the renaissance transformations of Michelangelo and Domenico Fontana. This pope is sadly famous too because he ordered to build the Ghetto in Rome and to surround the jewish houses in 1555 with a wall guarded by the swiss guards. Rome became a city within a city for 300 years until the day in which the king of Italy Victor Emauel II ordered to demolish these walls because he declared the jewish citizens of the kingdom of Italy.

Here,so close to the Pantheon, took place the trial of the church against the scientist Galileo Galilei in 1623 accused of heresy for his teachings.

The history and the heritage of this church can not be completed if I do not mention the tomb of the dominican father who is better known as one the most famous artists: fra' Angelico. He is buried near the sacristy used in early renaissance time as popes' election place.

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