Santa Maria Consolata al Tufello is a late 20th century convent chapel at Via Piero Foscari 52 to the west of the suburb of Tufello, in the Val Melaina zone just east of the Via Salaria. The local district is called Salaria Nuova.
Name[]
The dedication is to the Blessed Virgin Mary, under her special title of Our Lady of Consolation. This derives from a famous Marian shrine at Turin, La Consolata.
The Diocese refers to the chapel as Cappella della Casa "Foscari".
Status[]
This late 20th century free-standing building is the chapel of a convent of the Suore Missionarie della Consolata, which is now run as a pilgrims' hotel called the Casa Giuseppe Allamano. This is named after Blessed Joseph Allamano, the founder of the congregation who had been priest-in-charge of La Consolata. He founded the Istituto Missioni Consolata for male missionaries in 1901, and a corresponding female congregation in 1910.
There are two sisters in charge, which makes the large, free-standing chapel functionally redundant. As a result, it has been lent to the parish of San Frumenzio ai Prati Fiscali as a public chapel of ease. However, the congregation remains in ownership.
Appearance[]
Exterior[]
Most private convent chapels in Rome are rooms within convent buildings. However, this one is a substantial structure which amounts to a small church.
The plan is an irregular octagon, stretched along the major axis which is at an angle to the street. The fabric is in orange brick, with thin concrete piers at the corners. The front, back and side walls have gable rooflines, which the shorter diagonal walls have straight ones. The roof is in a metal composition, with twelve pitches meeting at a large octagonal lantern having a low cupola with overhanging eaves.
The concrete gable of the entrance façade projects some distance, sheltering an enormous window taking up the entire upper frontage and fitting into the gable so that it is pentagonal. The fenestration of concrete bars makes up nine squares in blue stained glass on either side of an arrow-shaped arrangement in clear glass, with its tip touching the gable apex. Below the window is a floating horizontal concrete canopy sheltering the single entrance in a blank white wall.
Each of the long side walls has a similar window fitted under the gable, except narrower with only one vertical row of square panes each side of the central arrow device.
An enclosed passage leads from the right hand side of the sanctuary to the former convent.
Interior[]
The interior is very simple, rather stark with white walls having thin grey concrete piers in the corners.
Liturgy[]
According to the parish website (June 2018), there is daily public Mass at 18:00.
On Sundays and Solemnities there is also Mass at 9:00, and 12:00 (not summer).