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San Gregorio Magno al Celio

San Gregorio Magno al Celio

English name:	St Gregory the Great on the Coelian

Dedication:	St Gregory the Great Andrew the Apostle
Denomination:	Roman Catholic
Type:	Titular church


Titular church	Cardinal Casimir Szoka

Built:	6th cent.

Architect(s):	Giovanni Battista Soria Francesco Ferrari
Artists:	Domenichino Guido Reni
Contact data
Address:	Piazza di San Gregorio 1 00184 Roma
Phone:	06 70 49 49 66

San Gregorio Magno al Celio is dedicated to Pope St Gregory the Great, and belongs to a monastery of Camaldolese Benedictine monks on the western slope of the Caelian hill. Its postal address is Piazza di San Gregorio 2, which is quite near the Circo Massimo metro station. Bus route number 3 passes the entrance. Pictures of the church at Wikimedia Commons. [1]

Entry to the church is through the atrium, on the other side of the railings in the monumental façade at the top of the stairs. Visitors are required to ring the bell for the monastery on the right in the atrium at reasonable hours, and ask for access from the duty porter. If the gate in the railings is locked, the church is not open to visitors.

1 History
2 Exterior
3 Interior
4 Monastery, old and new
5 Garden Chapels
6 External links

HistoryEdit

The actual dedication of the church is to St Andrew the Apostle, and the official name is Sant'Andrea al Celio by which it is known by the Diocese. It is also known as Santi Andrea e Gregorio Magno al Celio, which is the cardinalate title. The church that the Diocese knows as San Gregorio Magno is San Gregorio Magno alla Magliana Nuova (which could not be more different in architectural style).

Dark AgesEdit

In ancient times the area was built over, and the gens Anici had a house on the Clivus Scauri which ran west to east from near the east end of the Circus Maximus up the Caelian hill to the Porta Caelimontana. This property passed to St Gregory the Great (c540-601) who founded a monastery here in 575 dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle, and lived in it as a monk and abbot before being elected Pope. He may also have taken over a library (the Bibliotheca Agapiti), founded just to the north by his relative Pope Agapitus I (535-6) and housed in an apsidal basilica. The remains of this are still visible by the garden chapel of Sant'Andrea, and it is clear that a more ancient building was re-used.

It is unclear how derelict the urban landscape had become by then. The population of the city had collapsed, but real ruination of the Palatine and Fora was probably only completed in the early 9th century by a massive earthquake. The monks may have simply taken over the house without building any addtions, using one of the larger rooms as a chapel. This possibility is hinted at by a contemporary practice of restricting the number of monks in a monastery to thirteen, witnessed to in the "Dialogues" attributed to St Gregory (although this work is probably a 8th century forgery using material by him).

Here, he trained English slave-boys he had bought in the Roman market to be monks. They were intended as missionaries to England, but in 596 the pope sent his prior instead, St Augustine of Canterbury, with several other monks. They founded the cathedral at Canterbury, and it was this that made St Andrew's famous in history.

The original house is most likely partially preserved beneath the present church and monastery, but has not been excavated. Given that the site slopes steeply, all that can be said is that the original ancient Roman town house probably had its axis along the contour of the hill, and may be underneath the church.

Owing to the lack of records, it is suspected that the monastery was abandoned after the death of St Gregory. The secular clergy of the time certainly resented his promotion of monks to the Curia, as the Liber Pontificalis testifies. However, in the 8th century it was rebuilt on the orders of Pope Gregory II (715-31), and was occupied by Greek monks of the Byzantine rite. Back then, the papal Curia was Greek-speaking.

BenedictinesEdit

Later, in the 10th century, the Benedictine reform movement of Cluny obtained possession of the property (together with San Paolo fuori le Mura and San Cosimato in Trastevere) and established it as a Benedictine priory under the abbot at Cluny. It was in this period that the legend was propagated that St Gregory and his monastery were originally Benedictine. This is a historigraphical fallacy that has had a long history, even among secular historians, up to the late 20th century.

The priory was sacked by the Normans from Sicily under Robert Guiscard in 1084, but restored by Pope Paschal II (1099-1118). By then, the Clivus Scauri was the most convenient route from the western part of the built-up area to the Lateran, and would have been at least as busy as the Via Ostiense to San Paolo. In 1300 an altar dedicated to St Gregory was consecrated in the church, which led to its present name. However, in the next two centuries the monastic observance of the Benedictines in Rome became very bad. The basic problem was that the monks gained the right to private incomes, which led many of them to live in luxury, dress like noblemen (except in black), carry daggers and keep mistresses. As a result most of their monasteries in the city were handed over to other religious, and this one was granted to the Camaldolese in 1573.

CamaldoleseEdit

The Camaldolese monks who came here were from the Camaldoli congregation, not the Monte Corona reform congregation. They immediately demolished the mediaeval monastery, and built the present edifice. Cardinal Scipione Cafarelli Borghese had the church renovated in 1629-1633, to a design by Giovanni Battista Soria, and the interior was renovated in 1725-34 by Francesco Ferrari. In the latter restoration many funerary monuments were cleared out, and re-erected in the atrium.

The church was made a cardinalitial title by Pope Gregory XVI in June 1839, with Ambrogio Cardinal Bianch O.S.B.Cam. as the first titular priest. The current titular of the church is H.E. Edmund Cardinal Casimir Szoka, archbishop of Detroit, who was appointed in 1988.

The Camaldoli branch of the Camaldolese joined the Order of St Benedict in 1966, hence the monastery has returned to the Benedictines after almost half a millennium. The church had to be closed for a period at the beginning of 2010, owing to defects in the plasterwork of the vault which led to a minor collapse. A safety net has been installed, allowing the re-opening to visitors, but repairs are urgently needed and the church may be closed for a long period for these any time soon (September 2010).

The Camaldolese have had a serious decline in vocations, and hence have have been able to lend part of the south range of the monastery to the Missionaries of Charity. They use it as an outreach to poor immigrants, especially eastern Europeans, and have converted a room to a public chapel -Missionarie della Carità al Celio, Cappella delle. When the church is closed for repairs, this will have to replace it for the duration.

ExteriorEdit

The ComplexEdit

There is a large portico at the top of a staircase, behind which is an atrium flanked by two wings of the monastery. The nave frontage of the church is straight ahead, behind another wing, but access is via the monastery door on the right. From there, visitors go along the ground-floor corridor of the right-hand wing to the church's monastic side entrance. The monastery has three other large ranges, arranged around a cloister to the west of the church. To the north-east of the piazza, up a separate staircase, is a garden. On the other side of this are three chapels arranged on the plan of a half-open fan, with their entrances close together. Although they are stand-alone buildings, they are traditionally regarded as attached to the church.

The PortalEdit

The portal is by Giovanni Battista Soria, together with the atrium, and was built in the 17th century renovation. It is considered his best work, and has recently been restored. The church lies on high ground, and Soria used this to good effect by constructing wide stairs with very low steps. The façade of the portal is of two storeys divided into three vertical sections, with the middle section brought forward. In each section there is an arched doorway with Doric imposts, all of the same size. The middle crowned by an eagle, and the side ones by winged dragons. These two creatures are the supports of the coat-of-arms of the Borghese family. The first storey has a pair of Ionic pilasters on each side of the central section, and single ones on the outer corners. The central four are doubled, looking as if other pilasters are hiding behind, and the pilasters support an entablature. The inscription on this commemorates the cardinal's work. Three rectangular windows in the upper storey correspond to the doors, and have balustraded balconies which also bear eagles and dragons. The central window has a segmental pediment, while the two side ones have triangualar ones, and these are decorated with swags and ribbons. There are six pilasters on the second storey, with Corinthian capitals, and the middle four support a triangular pediment containing a coat-of-ams.

The Atrium and ChurchEdit

The beautiful atrium, painted in lemon-yellow and white, has arcades in the portico and to right and left with applied Ionic pilasters on the piers. Corresponding Corinthian pilasters on the second storey walls of wings and portico support a dentillate cornice. However, the range straight ahead in front of the church is not arcaded but trabeated and is supported by six Ionic columns, one at each end and two pairs. The Corinthian first-floor pilasters above the double ones are also doubled. There are several notable tomb-sculptures in the atrium walks. The Bonsi tomb by Luigi Capponi of 1500, located by the monastery entrance, has a delicately carved Madonna and Child, and there is another one on the Guidiccioni monument of 1643.

The gable end of the church nave can be seen peeping over this range, and shows the same style of six pilasters (two singles and two doubles) supporting a triangular pediment. In the pediment is an oeil-de-boeuf window with its frame decorated with volutes.

The church building has a nave with aisles, a short presbyterium of a much lower elevation and an attached three-sided apse. The roofs are pitched and tiled. There is a little detached campanile to the left of the church, just an elevated bellcote with a single bell.

InteriorEdit

Most of the interior of the church, including the intricate stucco decoration of 1725 by Ferrari, is painted in a cream colour. The arches of the arcades are supported by antique columns with Ionic capitals (the church has sixteen ancient columns in total, eleven in granite, two in bigio and three in cipollino). There is also spectacular and well-restored Cosmatesque marble paving dating from the 13th century.

The painting over the high altar is of Our Lady with SS Andrew and Gregory, by Antonio Balestra of 1734. The second altar in the left aisle has Our Lady with the Saints of the Family Gabrielli of Gubbio by Pompeo Batoni of 1739. The church also has two medieval statues of St Gregory and St Andrew.

There is a chapel of St Gregory at the end of the right aisle. A room off the chapel incorporates what is believed to be the remains of his cell. One of the items is an ancient Roman chair in which he sat. Over the altar is a painted panel, by the 15th century Umbrian school, showing St Michael the Archangel and Saints. The marble front of the altar has a 14th century relief depicting the 30 Masses of St Gregory.

The ceiling vault was painted by Costanzi in 1727. The motif is The Glory of St Gregory.

Across from the chapel of St Gregory is another chapel with a modern painting of Our Lady. Near this chapel is a door that leads to the Cappella Salviati, with a wall from the original church. On the wall is a fresco of the Madonna. Tradition claims that St Gregory prayed before this picture, and that the Madonna spoke to him here. It seems too late for that, but it may have been repainted. The altar here is by the school of Andrea Bregno, 1469, and the decoration of the chapel was completed by Carlo Maderno in 1600.

Monastery, old and newEdit

The old monastery used to be on the left hand side of the church, but the Camaldolese decided to build their new one on the other side. However, the old gateway to the former monastery from the Clivus Scauri was rebuilt in 1607 to a design by Flaminio Ponzo. This has a pair of Doric pilasters supporting a split pediment, the two halves being on either side of a fresco of St Gregory. He has a bird apparently pecking at his ear; this is meant to be the Holy Spirit inspiring him in his writings. Above the fresco is a segmental pediment, and on the lintel of the door is an inscription commemorating Cardinal Scipioni yet again. The ruin of the basilical library is just to the west of this gate.

Although most Benedictines dress in black, the Camaldolese have a white habit. Unlike many others of their congregation, who are hermits, this monks of this monastery have a life organised on normal Benedictine lines. It's possible to see the gardens if you ask one of the brethren. If you can't see any of them, ring the bell at the door in the atrium.

There is an English Wikipedia article on the Camaldolese. [2]

Garden ChapelsEdit

The garden to the left of the portal, up another flight of stairs, is the site of the burial ground of the old monastery. There were two chapels here in mediaeval times, set at an angle to each other, the left hand one being dedicated to St Barbara and the right hand one to St Andrew. Cardinal Cesare Baronio commissioned a restoration in 1603, and simply in order to create a symmetrical composition he had a third one built to the right, identical to St Barbara's and dedicated to St Sylvia. The architect was Flaminio Ponzio, and the work was completed about 1607. If you look at them from the Clivus Scauri, you will see that the façades of St Barbara's and St Sylvia's are false. The actual chapels have much lower roofs; architecturally, the buildings are like saloons in a cowboy town.

These three chapels were the first parts of the complex to be restored in the ongoing programme of restoration work. The central one, St Andrew's, is now used for weddings. The other two are not used for liturgical purposes.

Santa BarbaraEdit

This is a mediaeval building, dating from the 12th or 13th century but built on re-used ancient foundations. The 16th century restoration left the façade with two corner pilasters with imposts but no capitals, supporting a segmental pediment on a broken cornice. The doorway has a triangular pediment, and over this is a window with a curved top. There is a blank elliptical tondo in the pediment.

The inscription on the doorway lintel is "Triclinio di San Gregorio", referring to a legend that this was originally a soup-kitchen run by St Gregory for destitute people. Inside, much of the floorspace is taken up with a large marble table where twelve people were invited to take a meal every day, being served by St Gregory personally. This table is 3rd century, resting on a fragment of granite column and with its end supports carved with griffins. A fresco behind it relates the story of how an angel once came among the poor, disguised as one of them, and was entertained by the saint before suddenly vanishing. A poem celebrating the same event is carved on the table. The frescoes are by Antonio Viviani of 1602, and the large marble statue of St Gregory in its own shrine (where the altar used to be) is by Nicolò Cordieri.

Sant'AndreaEdit

The chapel dedicated to St Andrew is the one in the middle, and is of the 11th or 12th century. It has an open porch occupying the entire width of the façade, with a sloping tiled roof supported by four antique Corinthian columns in green marble. Above it, the windowless gabled frontage is topped by a triangular pediment with a broken cornice. In the pediment is a blank horizontal rectangular niche, decorated with a love-knot on top. There is a dedicatory inscription at the entrance.

Inside, there is are several important frescoes. The Flagellation of St Andrew is by Domenichino, restored by Carlo Maratta. Guido Reni painted the SS Peter, Paul and Andrew at the Temple, Pomerancio executed the Our Lady with SS Andrew and Gregory and Giovanni Lanfranco was responsible for the SS Gregory and Sylvia. There is a coffered and carved flat wooden ceiling. During the restoration, mediaeval fresco fragments were discovered between ceiling and roof which are 12th century at the latest and show a Christ Pantocrator with two angels and two prophets.

Santa SilviaEdit

This was added in the early 17th century, and has a façade deliberately identical to that of Santa Barbara. The patron saint was the mother of St Gregory, and the statue of her by Nicolò Cordieri is a pair to that of her son in Santa Barbara. The fresco Concert of Angels in the vault of the apse is by Guido Reni. Other notable frescoes are San Damiano by Francesco Mancini, and David and Isaiah by Badalocchio.