Madonna di Fatima alla Massimilla is a later 20th century parish church with a postal address at Via Nicola Garrone 44, in the neighbourhood of Massimilla south of the Via Aurelia. The church faces onto the Via Paolo Bellezza. The larger suburban area is known as Massimina, and this is in turn part of the Castel di Guido suburban zone.
The dedication is to the Blessed Virgin Mary, under her title of Our Lady of Fatima.
History
This parish is in the municipality of Rome, but belongs to the diocese of Porto Santa Rufina.
The church was begun in 1970 when the parish was founded, and completed in 1979. The architect was Lorenzo Monardo.
Exterior
Layout and fabric
The layout is traditionally basilical, with a structural central nave of six bays having side aisles. There is no separate structural transept, and the aisles continue back to flank the single-bay sanctuary.
The site slopes down from front to back. To provide a level foundation, the hillside was excavated and this allowed for a ground-level crypt. Level access to this exists at the back, but at the front the entrance to the church is at street level.
The fabric consists of a reinforced concrete frame left in the raw (light grey), and brick infill which is rendered in orange. The roofs are pitched and tiled, the lower aisle roofs being single-pitched.
The nave bays are separated by thin exposed concrete piers in both central nave and aisle walls. The sanctuary is separated from the nave by a wider set of piers. Deep concrete beams occupy the rooflines, and also form dado plinths above the crypt.
The aisle walls are blank, except for a tall rectangular window in each side wall of the last nave bay which reaches from the dado to the roofline beam. The far end of each aisle has a fairly large, almost square window. The second, fourth and sixth nave bays have similar windows in their central nave side walls.
Round the back, the sanctuary wall has a large horizontal elliptical window high up above aisle roof level. Here is an interesting entrance arrangement for the crypt accommodation, consisting of an open loggia accessed by three plain arches separated by wide piers. A pair of further arches are around the corners. The sanctuary is over the loggia. The wall surfaces of the latter are not in orange, but in light pink.
The church lacks a campanile and the ancillary accommodation is entirely in the crypt, both of these being unusual features.
Façade
The church is set back from the street on the far side of a courtyard which, thankfully, is railed and free from parked cars.
There is an attached entrance loggia, accessed by a flight of six steps and occupying the width of the central nave. It has a concrete pier at each corner and deep concrete eaves, matching the main church. The roof is gabled, the slopes matching those of the aisles behind. The walls are in blank orange render, except for a large plain entrance arch and two smaller arches round the sides.
Above the loggia, the church frontage has an elliptical window matching that in the sanctuary far wall. The gable zone is entirely in concrete, giving a false pedimented effect.
The aisle ends have vertical rectangular windows, each with three-bar vertical mullions.
Interior
The interior is all in pink, with the bays being marked by transverse triangular wooden tie-beams in the otherwise blank pink ceiling which is pitched.
The aisles are separated from the nave and sanctuary not by arcades, but by trabeations. The lower edges of the central nave and sanctuary walls (nave and sanctuary are not structurally distinguished inside) are horizontal and entirely without decoration. They are supported by thin square piers clad in wood.
The best thing in the church is the attractive fresco which occupies the entire far wall, both of sanctuary and aisles. It features a Calvary in a bucolic landscape expressed in a slightly naïve realistic style vaguely recalling the Dolomites.
The Blessed Sacrament altar is at the end of the right hand aisle.
Liturgy
Mass is celebrated on Saturdays and Eves of Solemnities at 18:00, and on Sundays and Solemnities at 8:30, 11:00 and 18:00.
No information found on weekday Masses.