Santa Maria dell'Umiltà is a 17th century former conventual church, heavily restored, at Via dell'Umiltà 30 in the rione Trevi. Picture of the church on Wikimedia Commons here.
The dedication is to the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the attribute of her Assumption.
History[]
Foundation of nunnery[]
The convent here was originally founded in 1601 by a noble lady called Francesca Baglioni Orsini of Perugia. She was a daughter of Caterina de' Medici and a niece of Pope Clement VII, and had been married into the Orsini family before being widowed. Her intention at first was to target vocations from noble ladies of Rome who had fallen into poverty, and so she chose the monastic rule followed by the Visitation nuns founded by SS Francis of Sales and Jane Frances de Chantal. This was deliberately composed to be less severe than the rules of the older female monastic orders.
However, minds were changed and so Pope Paul V sent three nuns from the Dominican nunnery of Santa Maria Maddalena on the Quirinal to introduce the Dominican rule instead.
The convent was finished in 1613 (the identity of the architect seems to be unrecorded). In 1625 Francesca died, and left the convent an enormous legacy. As a result it became one of the richest nunneries in Rome, and also one of the most fashionable. This was especially since it restricted itself to noble vocations, and so attracted further patronage from the aristocracy -as well as generous dowries.
The dedication chosen was to the Assumption of Our Lady.
First church[]
The first church seems to have been a small building, with two altars. The main altar's altarpiece was a Nativity by Francesco Nappi. He also provided wall frescoes featuring scenes from the life of Our Lady, and vault frescoes focusing on St Michael Expels the Fallen Angels from Heaven with subsidiary scenes featuring The Annunciation and the Apostles. The altarpiece ended up in the first side chapel on the right of the second church (see below), but was later sold on and its location is unknown.
The subsidiary altar had an icon of Our Lady of Humility, donated by the foundress. This was allegedly by Pietro Perugino. It also was lost to view when the convent was suppressed, and its fate is also unknown.
Second church[]
A new church was built between 1641 and 1646 for the community, the architect being Paolo Marucelli assisted by the sculptor Antonio Raggi. This did not replace the former church, which was kept as a convent choir chapel or oratory without any public access.
The nunnery expanded to take up the entire city block bounded by the Via dell'Umiltà, Vicolo del Monticello, Piazza della Pilotta and Via dell'Archetto. The church was in the north-east corner of the convent site, with a rather small cloister to the west having arcades on all four sides. A series of gardens occupied the Vicolo del Monticello frontage.
Interior decoration[]
Major work on beautifying the interior began in about 1681, by Carlo Fontana assisted by the sculptor Francesco Cavallini. The first projects involved the chapels of St Michael, finished in 1699, and then that of St Dominic. Then, in 1703, Fontana built a superb façade (which was to be a grievous loss in the 19th century).
Meanwhile the chapel of the Crucifix had been fitted out in 1686, not by Fontana but by one Pietro Vecchiarelli on the apparent insistence of the sponsor.
The ceiling fresco by Michelangelo Cerruti was finished in 1728.
Work on the nave continued until 1735 under Fontana, and this date is preserved for the counterfaçade and its organ loft. However, Fontana handed over to Alessandro Dori in 1737 and it is suggested that the design of the organ itself was by the latter.
In 1756, there was a restoration under Clemente Orlandi (1694-1775), a native Roman architect whose masterpiece is San Paolo Primo Eremita.
Visitation nuns[]
The nunnery was suppressed in the Napoleonic period, and unusually was not re-opened after the papal government was restored. It was not part of a congregation that could have sponsored a re-founding, and obviously the local nobility had lost interest in it.
The freehold devolved to the Holy See, which entrusted the property to the College of Propaganda Fide. They in turn leased it to a community of Visitation nuns in 1814, since it had lost its former convent of Sant'Anna dei Falegnami in 1810.
In 1849, the nuns were brutally ejected without warning by anti-clerical radicals on the declaration of the Roman Republic. They did not return, but instead settled at the Villa Mills (now the museum) on the Palatine Hill in 1856. They are now at Madonna di Guadalupe e San Francesco di Sales in Collatino, since 1940.
North American College[]
The convent complex remained empty for ten years. Then, in 1859, it was given to the North American College by Pope Pius IX, after this seminary for United States candidates for the priesthood had been founded in that year.
The complex was immediately put in proper order, and the convent buildings modified. The church suffered an extremely unfortunate restoration by Andrea Busiri Vici, who mutilated the façade. Further, the nuns' choir (the first convent church) was converted into a common room (place of recreation) with the loss of most of its decoration.
The College then based itself here for almost a century. In 1925, it acquired the southern portion of the grounds of the Villa Gabrielli on the Janiculum for possible future expansion. The first project was the refitting of a casino (garden summer house) there as the Casa San Giovanni as a hostel for United States priests visiting Rome.
Casa Santa Maria[]
All seminaries for expatriate students in Rome were shut down for the duration of the War, and the College premises were used as an orphanage for displaced children who had lost their parents in the hostilities.
The Pontifcial North American College (which it had become in 1884) was re-opened in 1947, by which time the Church in the USA was experiencing a boom in vocations. As a result the old college premises were now inadequate, so a new set of buildings was built on the Janiculum site and opened in 1953. See Cappella del Pontificio Collegio Americano del Nord.
The former convent was kept by the College, and was restored as a hall of residence for United States priests studying in Rome as well as visiting priests. Thus it supplanted the Casa San Giovanni. It has performed this function ever since, as the Casa Santa Maria.
The restoration of the church as part of the project was overseen by Giuseppe Crescimbeni. Unfortunately, it is on record that money was saved by removing some badly decayed decorative elements instead of repairing them.
Exterior[]
Layout and fabric[]
This is a small church, on a simple rectangular plan with a little square apse and four side niches functioning as chapels, two on each side. The exterior is inserted into one wing of the convent, and so is invisible from the street.
There is a campanile, erected in 1655 over the right hand side wall. It is in the form of two little triumphal arches, one on top of the other; the lower has two archways, and the upper just one. Over the upper arch is a little triangular pediment. The three bells fit into the arches.
Façade by Fontana[]
The façade was designed by Carlo Fontana in 1680, after a commission by Pope Innocent XI. A watercolour of it by Achille Pinelli, 1835 is here (as always with this artist, the architectural details and proportions are not entirely correct).
It had a single storey, dominated by two pairs of gigantic Corinthian pilasters on two shared high plinths, with the outer pilaster of each pair doubletted along its outer edge. These pilasters supported an entablature which was brought forward slightly over their capitals. This in turn supported two halves of a split semi-circular pediment, with the halves reversed so that the division faced outwards. This was a major design innovation by Fontana.
The ends of these pediment halves had curlicues. In between them was a vertical elliptical window, framed by curlicues and with a plinth finial on top bearing a cross. The pediment halves also had a pair of finials, these being flaming torches.
Over the single entrance was a large panel containing a bas-relief of The Assumption by Vincenzo Felici, which he finished in 1708. Over that was a rectangular window, with an acanthus leaf motif on sill and lintel. This fitted under the entablature.
Façade by Busiri Vici[]
The intervention by Andrea Busiri Vici in 1853 resulted in the façade being now rather boring. He left the pilasters alone, but chopped off the pediment fragments and elliptical window to replace them with a standard triangular pediment without finials. Also he enlarged the central rectangular window, removing the acanthus decorations and intruding it into the entablature. Thankfully, he did not disturb the Felici relief which is the only thing worth examining there now.
The motivation for this very sorry alteration was the wish to provide an attic storey of accommodation over the façade.
Interior[]
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The interior has a rectangular layout, with a single nave and a small apse. The nave has a total of five bays of different length, three small ones starting from the entrance interspersed with two large ones. Each of the three small bays has a statue of a saint in an arched niche in each side wall, a total of six in all. These statues are over side doors.
Each of the large bays has an arched niche doing duty as a side chapel, with a grille into the nuns' galleries above.
The statues are by Antonio Raggi , and were provided when the church was built. They depict female virgin martyrs: SS Cecilia, Catherine, Barbara, Agatha, Ursula and Agnes.
The bays are separated by gigantic Ionic pilasters, supporting an entablature that runs round the church. The interior surfaces are richly covered in revetting done in polychrome marble, Sicilian jasper and alabaster and there is also much gilded stucco work. The effect of this work is very rich. It was initially effected by Fontana in 1710, completed by his pupil Alessandro Dori in 1737 and embellished by Orlandi in 1756.
The counterfaçade is occupied by a spectacular gilded polychrome marble organ gallery organ case is one of the most beautiful in Rome, and was probably designed by Dori -it bears comparison with the more famous example at La Maddalena. The present organ was only installed in 1868, however.
The ceiling vault has a large central panel fresco of the Assumption of Our Lady by Michelangelo Cerruti, painted in 1726.
Sanctuary[]
The apse has a triumphal arch with an archivolt embellished with festoons on its intrados, sandwiched between two gigantic Ionic pilasters with gilded capitals and revetted in alabaster. The archivolt and sanctuary barrel vault are gilded; the latter features the Dove of the Holy Spirit.
The high altar was designed by Martino Longhi the Younger in the period 1640 to 1646 as part of the original project to build a new church, and was sponsored by the Maccarini family. It has two Composite columns in pink marble, supporting a split segmental pediment with modillions (little brackets). Into the pediment is intruded a painting of Our Lady during her Assumption, which is sheltered by a floating arc cornice (also with modillions) which is fitted into the curve of the barrel vault.
There are two altarpieces. Just above the altar table is a depiction of the Apostles at Our Lady's Empty Tomb, which pairs with the depiction of her ascending into heaven in the pediment, mentioned above. The former has a frame in yellow Siena marble. Above it is a vertical elliptical tondo flanked by a pair of stucco angels, and this contains a little 19th century icon of Our Lady. The icon is supported by gilded bronze putti by Orfeo Boselli and is crowned by a gilded sunburst containing the Dove.
The icon is a subject of devotion on the part of the Casa residents, but looks oddly bleached out. Artistically it is of little interest, being a copy of the Madonna della Misericordia in Santa Chiara at Rimini which was installed here in 1859. It is signed Vincentini.
The pair of oils making up the Assumption have an old but discredited ascription to Francesco Nappi, the artist responsible for the decoration of the first church of the old convent. They are actually by Antonio Mariani della Cornia.
The side walls of the sanctuary have statues of St Mary Magdalen and St Catherine of Alexandria by Francesco Cavallini. He was also responsible for the stucco angels in the altar, and decorative details elsewhere. Two of the former were removed in the mid 20th century, because they were decayed and replacing them would have cost money.
The side chapels are described anticlockwise, beginning to the right of the entrance.
Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe[]
The first chapel on the right is dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was originally dedicated to the Nativity, and contained the altarpiece from the first church by Nappi. When the Dominican nuns were ejected, this went missing. The Visitation nuns who took over the convent in 1814 installed a copy of the famous icon of Guadalupe, which had originally been a gift from Mexico to Pope Benedict XIV (1740-58). He had passed it on to the sisters in their original convent of Santi Maria della Visitazione e Francesco di Sales delle Mantellate.
The sisters took the picture with them when they were expelled in turn in 1849, but Pope Pius IX had it put back when he restored the former convent for the North American College.
The mid-20th century restoration was skimped here, as some stucco heads of putti were removed instead of being repaired.
Chapel of St Dominic[]
The second chapel on the right is dedicated to St Dominic and was fitted out in 1699 by Fontana. The altarpiece is a copy of the famous icon of the saint at Soriano Calabro, of the school of Francesco Allegrini da Gubbio. (Another version of the Soriano icon is at San Sisto Vecchio.) The polychrome marble altar is the original one installed by Marucelli when he built the church in 1645.
Chapel of St Michael[]
The second chapel on the left is dedicated to St Michael the Archangel, and the altarpiece depicting him conquering the Devil is by Allegrini. The altar is again by Marucelli, and the decorative elements by Fontana.
Chapel of the Crucifix[]
The first chapel on the left is the Cappella Colonna, paid for by the dowry of a nun from that wealthy family called Anna. The dedication is to the Crucifix. The architect was Pietro Vecchiarelli, 1685. The sumptuous stucco work was executed to his designs by Cavallini -note that one of the two angels is holding a column in honour of the family.
Access and liturgy[]
The church is closed to the general public. It is apparently possible to arrange a visit by applying to the North American College. Details are not advertised.
Masses here are mostly private, celebrated by the priests in residence.
However a database of Centro Storico Masses, provided by Santa Rita da Cascia alle Vergini (see here) and accessed in May 2019, lists a daily public Mass at 12:30.
External links[]
"De Alvariis" gallery on Flickr (no photos of interior)
"Casa Santa Maria" web-pages on College website
The following blogs have photos of the interior: