Santa Maria in Aracoeli

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Façade of Santa Maria in Aracoeli with the monumental stair.

Interior of the church.

Fresco of Madonna and the Child by Pietro Cavallini.

Santa Maria in Aracoeli ("Our Lady of the Altar of Heaven") is a titular basilica church in Rome, located on the highest summit of the Campidoglio. It is still the designated Church of the Italian Senate and the Roman people (Senatus Populusque Romanus).

Originally the church was named Santa Maria in Capitolo, since it was sited on the Capitoline Hill (Campidoglio) of Ancient Rome; by the 14th century it had been renamed. According to a medieval legend presented in the mid-12th-century guide to Rome, Mirabilia Urbis Romae, which claimed that the church was built over an Augustan Ara primogeniti Dei, in the place where the Tiburtine Sibyl prophesied to Augustus the coming of the Christ. "For this reason the figures of Augustus and of the Tiburtine sibyl are painted on either side of the arch above the high altar" (Lanciani chapter 1). A later legend substituted an apparition of the Virgin Mary. In the Middle Ages, condemned criminals were executed at the foot of the steps; there the self-proclaimed Tribune and reviver of the Roman Republic Cola di Rienzo met his death, near the spot where his statue commemorates him.

It is possible that the church was built over the temple of Juno Moneta, built over the Arx. The other hypothesis is that the church replaced the auguraculum, the seat of the augurs.

The foundation of the church was laid on the site of a Byzantine abbey mentioned in 574; at first it followed the Greek rite, a sign of the power of the Byzantine exarch. Taken over by the papacy by the 9th century, the church was given first to the Benedictines, then, by papal bull to the Franciscans in 1249–1250; under the Franciscans it received its Romanesque-Gothic aspect. The arches that divide the nave from the aisles are supported on columns, no two precisely alike, scavenged from Roman ruins. During the Middle Ages, this church became the centre of the religious and civil life of the city. in particular during the republican experience of the 14th century, when Cola di Rienzo inaugurated the monumental stairway of 124 steps in front of the church, designed in 1348 by Simone Andreozzi, on the occasion of the Black Death.

In 1571, Santa Maria in Aracoeli hosted the celebrations honoring Marcantonio Colonna after the victorious Battle of Lepanto over the Turkish fleet. Marking this occasion, the compartmented ceiling was gilded and painted (finished 1575), to thank the Blessed Virgin for the victory. In 1797, with the Roman Republic, the basilica was deconsecrated and turned into a stable.

The original unfinished façade has lost the mosaics and subsequent frescoes that originally decorated it, save a mosaic in the tympanum of the main door, one of three doors that are later additions. The Gothic window is the main detail that tourist can see from the bottom of the stairs, but it is the sole truly Gothic detail of the church.

The church is built in three naves that are divided by Roman columns, all different, taken from diverse antique monuments. Among its numerous treasures are Pinturicchio's 15th-century frescoes depicting the life of Saint Bernardino of Siena in the Cappella Bufalini, the first chapel on the right. Other splendid features are the wooden ceiling, the inlaid cosmatesque floor, a Transfiguration painted on wood by Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, the tombstone of Giovanni Ceivelli by Donatello, the tomb of Cecchino Bracci, designed by his friend Michelangelo, and works by other notable artists like Pietro Cavallini (now only one among his frescoes survives), Benozzo Gozzoli and Giulio Romano. It houses also a Madonna and a sepulchral monument by Arnolfo di Cambio in the transept.

The church was also famous in Rome for the wooden statue of the infant Jesus (Santo Bambino), carved in the 15th century of olive wood coming from the Gethsemane garden and covered with valuables ex-voto. Many people of Rome believed in the power of this statue. The statue was stolen in February 1994, and never recovered. Nowadays, a copy is present in the church. It is housed in its own chapel by the sacristy. At midnight Mass on Christmas Eve the image is brought out to a throne before the high altar and unveiled at the Gloria. Until Epiphany the jewel-encrusted image resides in the Nativity crib in the left nave.

The relics of Saint Helena, mother of Constantine the Great are housed at Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Pope Honorius IV is also buried in the church.

The present Cardinal Priest of the Titulus S. Mariae de Aracoeli is Salvatore Cardinal De Giorgi.