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San Giovanni in Oleo

San Giovanni in Oleo

English name:	St John in Oil

Dedication:	John the Evangelist
Denomination:	Roman Catholic





Built:	1500

Architect(s):	Donato Bramante, Francesco Borromini

Contact data
Address:	Via di Porta Latina

San Giovanni in Oleo is a tiny chapel or oratory dedicated to St John the Evangelist, and located just inside the Porta Latina. Pictures of the church at Wikimedia Commons. [1]

There is not much to see in the chapel and it is rarely open, but you may ask for the key at the Rosminian College, the large pink building on the right just down the road.

1 History
2 Exterior
3 Interior
4 Liturgical notes
5 External links

HistoryEdit

The small chapel was built to commemorate a legendary attempt to martyr the Evangelist on the orders of the emperor Domitian. He was placed in boiling oil, but did not die and was instead banished to Patmos where he had his revelation. The legend is ancient, but it seems unlikely that it is true or that St John was ever in Rome. You may see a fresco depicting this incident in the church of Santi Nereo e Achilleo nearbly.

Many think that there is an older shrine, probably 5th century, to St John below the present chapel, because the legend is ancient and because the present church is octagonal, a common type of building for an early shrine but one that in the Renaissance was uncommon except where an older building was copied. No excavations have been carried out, so this is still an open question.

The present chapel was built in 1500, and was originally ascribed to Donato Bramante. It is now thought that the architect was either Antonio da Sangallo the Younger or Baldassare Peruzzi. The founder was a French prelate named Benoît Adam who was attached to the court of Pope Julius II.

The dome was rebuilt by Francesco Borromini in 1658, who added the terracotta decoration on the drum. The work was paid for by Cardinal Francesco Paolucci, and authorized by Pope Alexander VII.

There was a restoration in 1967, after the dome fell into disrepair. To relieve the load on it, the original finial was removed and replaced by a plaster copy. The original is in the porch of San Giovanni a Porta Latina, the Rosminian church nearby.

ExteriorEdit

The exterior walls are rendered in a dull orange, and on each corner is a dark grey stone Doric pilaster following the angle. Rather strangely there are two doors on opposite sides, one facing the city and the oth

er the gate. Such an architectural arrangement was often used for a popular shrine chapel where there would be a queue of visitors, but this chapel has never been one of those. Above the city door you can see the coat-of-arms of the founder, Benoît Adam, with the inscription «Au plaisir de Dieu», and above this a dedicatory inscription on a tablet. The gate door is topped by stylized mountains surmounted by a star, the arms of the Chigi family to whom the pope belonged. The pilasters support an entablature with its frieze in the same colour as the main walls, and above this is the very low drum of the dome with the reliefs by Bramante, featuring double roses and palm leaves repeated all the way round. Above the gate door the coat-of-arms of the cardinal is inserted into one of the roses. The shallow dome is stone-vaulted, and on top is a large finial featuring what looks like a moschatel flowerhead supported by a bundle of acanthus-leaf scrolls. The flowers are meant to be roses (single, not double), and these and the roses on the drum are derived from the one on the cardinal's shield.

InteriorEdit

The stucco work and the paintings with scenes from the life of St John the Evangelist were executed by Lazzaro Baldi in 1716.

Liturgical notesEdit

The legend described above used to have its own feast-day in the Church's general calendar, "St John at the Latin Gate" on May 6th. This was suppressed in 1970, but it is just possible that you may find Mass being said in the chapel on that date.

However, the Diocese does not list the chapel as a place where Mass is said publicly. It has been referred to as a "sacello" or devotional shrine rather than as a "cappella", which may indicate that it is not an approved place for saying Mass. In fact, the dedicatory inscription refers to it as a "sacello" so perhaps it was not even conceived of as a chapel in the first place.