Piazza della Minerva
Encyclopedia
Piazza
A piazza is a city square in Italy, Malta, along the Dalmatian coast and in surrounding regions. The term is roughly equivalent to the Spanish plaza...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, near the Pantheon
Pantheon, Rome
The Pantheon ,Rarely Pantheum. This appears in Pliny's Natural History in describing this edifice: Agrippae Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis; in columnis templi eius Caryatides probantur inter pauca operum, sicut in fastigio posita signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata.from ,...
. Its name derives from the existence of a temple built on the site by Pompey
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
dedicated to Minerva Calcidica
Minerva
Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...
, whose statue is now in the Vatican Museums
Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums , in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and...
.
Features
Facing this piazza are:- the church of Santa Maria sopra MinervaSanta Maria sopra MinervaThe Basilica of Saint Mary Above Minerva is a titular minor basilica and one of the most important churches of the Roman Catholic Dominican order in Rome, Italy. The church, located in the Piazza della Minerva in the Campus Martius region, is considered the only Gothic church in Rome. It houses...
, centre of the square, already attested in the 8th century by the Anonymous of Einsiedeln by the name (ecclesia) "S. Mariae in Minervio". To the right of its facade are inscriptions built into the wall commemorating the flooding of the River Tiber between 1422 and 1598 - the area of the piazza is the lowest in Rome, and so was always the first to suffer in flooding. - A convent (or casa profess) of the Dominicans, who held the nearby church from the 13th century. This expanded over time to Via del Seminario and to the church of San Macuto, in the space formerly occupied by three Roman temples - the aforementioned Minervium, the IseumIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, and the SerapeumSerapisSerapis or Sarapis is a Graeco-Egyptian name of God. Serapis was devised during the 3rd century BC on the orders of Ptolemy I of Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm. The god was depicted as Greek in appearance, but with Egyptian trappings, and combined iconography...
. From the 17th century, the convent became the base of the Roman InquisitionInquisitionThe Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
or Holy Office, and it housed the trial and recantation of Galileo GalileiGalileo GalileiGalileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
. Little remains of the Dominican complex except its cloister: This had been largely rebuilt from the original building, and expropriated by the state in 1870 as the seat of the Ministry of Public Education and for a short time the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. The cloister now holds the library of the Italian SenateItalian SenateThe Senate of the Republic is the upper house of the Italian Parliament. It was established in its current form on 8 May 1948, but previously existed during the Kingdom of Italy as Senato del Regno , itself a continuation of the Senato Subalpino of Sardinia-Piedmont established on 8 May 1848...
, dedicated to Giovanni SpadoliniGiovanni SpadoliniGiovanni Spadolini was a liberal Italian politician, the 45th Prime Minister of Italy, newspaper editor, journalist and a noted historian.-Biography:Spadolini was born in Florence....
. - At the centre of the piazza, backing onto the Inquisition convent, is the 1667 elephant by Bernini and the small obelisk atop it. This obelisk was excavated in the cloister and came from the Iseum. The elephant was known as "il pulcin della Minerva", or "porcino", from the Roman people's story that - uninspired by elephants - Bernini in fact sculpted a pig.
- To the right of the church stands the 16th century Palazzo Fonseca, since 1832 the site of one of the historic hotels of Rome, known as the Minerva, whose guests have included StendhalStendhalMarie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...
and José de San MartínJosé de San MartínJosé Francisco de San Martín, known simply as Don José de San Martín , was an Argentine general and the prime leader of the southern part of South America's successful struggle for independence from Spain.Born in Yapeyú, Corrientes , he left his mother country at the...
, remembered in plaques on the facade. - Opposite the church is the Palazzo dell'accademia ecclesiasticaPontifical Ecclesiastical AcademyThe Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy is one of the Roman Colleges of the Roman Catholic Church. The academy is dedicated to training priests to serve in the diplomatic corps and the Secretariat of State of the Holy See....
(the former Accademia dei nobili ecclesiastici), 14th century in origin but completely rebuilt in 1878. It is an academy that trains the diplomats of Vatican CityVatican CityVatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
.