Santa Maria Sopra Minerva
subject: Dominicans
description: Santa Maria Sopra Minerva was the second Dominican Basilica in Rome. In the late 13th century, the site was ceded to the Dominicans by the nuns of Santa Maria. The transfer was ratified in 1279 by Aldobrandino Cavalcanti, a Dominican and Vicar to Gregory X, and construction on the current site began in 1280. Calvalcanti's relationship to Gregory X highlights the importance of Papal connections for the advancement of the order. These connections is what brought the well-positioned Basilica into Dominican hands. Its proximity to the center of Rome, north of Tiber bend, allowed easier access to the urban population. It would eventually become the preeminent Dominican church of Rome, demonstrating the importance of space for the success of these churches and their orders. Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is a rare example of Gothic architecture from medieval Rome, replicating Santa Maria Novella in Florence. It’s pointed arches, quatrefoil compound piers, small stained-glass windows, and vaulted aisles/nave are all elements of Gothic design, which was typically very unpopular in medieval Rome due to its more traditional aesthetic leanings. The original Dominican Gothic structure had a nave six bays long, a transept, a polygonal apse, two side chapels, and two aisles. In the 14th century, six other side chapels were added to the building. Like most Dominican churches, it was split into an Eastern friar’s church and a Western laymen church, but Santa Maria had no clear dividing line and allowed visitations to the Eastern side chapels, displaying a less rigid spatial structure than Santa Sabina and perhaps a more ministerial purpose. Large parts of the original church were transformed in the Renaissance, Baroque, and premodern periods, including the facade, which was a 16th century Renaissance construction. Much of the churches design received modifications in the 19th century when Girolamo Bianchedi redesigned the church into a Neo-Gothic look, pointing more arches and windows, …
creator: Spencer Allen (2021)
source: Bagliani, Agostino. "CAVALCANTI, Aldobrandino in "Dizionario Biografico"." In Dizionario Biografico. Accessed June 02, 2019. Krautheimer, Richard, and Marvin Trachtenberg. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton University Press, 2006,211-212. Lloyd, Joan Barclay. "SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA'S TOMB AND ITS PLACE IN SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA, ROME: NARRATION, TRANSLATION AND VENERATION." Papers of the British School at Rome 83 (2015):113. TOSINI, PATRIZIA. "New Documents for the Chronology and Patronage of the Cappella Del Rosario in S. Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome." The Burlington Magazine 152, no. 1289 (2010): 517-22. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.carleton.edu/stable/25769709. White, John. Art and Architecture in Italy: 1250 to 1400. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1990, 7-8.
date: 1280
coverage: 1200s