Chiesa

Address:Via Veneto, 27
Rome, Italy

(close to Piazza Barberini)

At the corner of the Via Veneto and the Piazza Barberini, the Santa Maria della Concezione Church is mostly known for the Crypt of the Cappuccini Monks

Santa Maria in Trastevere , as many of the older churches in Rome has a lapidary collection by the entrance: the mix of stone you see above is very typical. We can recognize on the far left the center of the front of a Roman strigil sarcophagus, bits of mostly Late Antique tombstones on either side of Pope Clement XI's framed commemorative plaque, part of a monumental inscription from the Macellum Liviae below that, with a long piece of architectural ornament from something equally large, and at the bottom the characteristic knotwork of the high Middle Ages. Most of these fragments of stone were taken up from the floor inside the church in the late 19c: the older paleochristian inscriptions, however, originally come from various catacombs outside the City, and were brought to that floor in the Renaissance.

Please note at the upper left corner, a video camera to keep us behaving properly:

Address: Piazza S. Maria in Trastevere - 00100 Roma RM Italy

This small church was built around 440 AD to house a reliquary believed to contain the prison chains of Saint Peter. The chains are actually two sets (one from Rome’s Maritime Prison and the other from the time of Herod) with a splendid story behind them. Legend states that when the Jerusalem chains were brought to Rome to join those from the Maritime Prison, the two sets linked together miraculously. The chains and their reliquary are still kept here on display beneath the altar.

The vincoli, or chains, may have given the church its name, but today it’s best known for Michelangelo’s Moses. This amazing work of art captures Moses, armed with the Ten Commandments, just at the moment he makes ready to return to the Children of Israel. The dazzling statue was originally intended to be part of a gargantuan, monumental tomb for and commissioned by Pope Julius II. About a year into the project, however, the Pope changed his mind and ordered Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel. Four years later he returned to his work on the tomb, but in an on-again/off-again fashion. He died having only completed Moses and The Dying Slaves (now housed in the Louvre). His students eventually completed the few other figures that he started, but they remain a far cry from his intended number of 48 statues.