Santa Maria dell'Opera Don Orione is (or was) an earlier 20th century college chapel at Via Massimi ?(164 or 143), in the Trionfale quarter.
The dedication is to the Blessed Virgin Mary, apparently under her title of "Our Lady of Perpetual Help" (Perpetuo Soccorso).
Location[]
There seems to be a serious amount of confusion as to the location, address and status of this chapel -not just online, but on printed maps. The description in this article refers to a stand-alone edifice which is part of a complex at the end of a dead-end driveway leading westwards from the junction between Via Massimi and Via Alfredo Serranti
History[]
The Sons of Divine Providence (the Orionini) have their main Roman headquarters, the Centro Don Orione, around the parish church of Santa Maria Mater Dei in the suburb of Monte Mario.
However, the Diocese lists them as having a theological college (Istituto Teologico Don Orione) at Via Massimi 164. This is on the outskirts of the suburb of Balduina. Info.roma gives the street number as 143.
It is not clear as to whether this establishment is still operating.
Appearance[]
The chapel amounts to a full-sized church, but is seriously hidden away. At the gate at the end of the driveway, there is a glimpse of it through trees way over to the right.
It looks as if it was built in the first two decades of the 20th century.
This is an attractive edifice, having a single nave of three bays followed by a wider transept and a single-bay sanctuary. The fabric is in brick, mostly rendered in a pale yellow. There are four gabled and tiled roofs, for the nave, each end of the transept and the sanctuary.
The bays of the nave are separated by pilasters in naked red brick, and each bay has a pair of round-headed windows in its side walls (three windows on each side). Each transept end has a single, very thin round-headed window.
The church has a round dome, with a fairly tall drum having eight rectangular windows. The actual dome is a low tiled cone with a pepper-pot lantern.
The façade is mostly blank wall. It flanked by a pair of gigantic pink brick pilasters ending in low pyramidal caps in stone. These flank the stone gable roofline, below which is fitted a brick strip having little pendant arches.. The single entrance is topped by a tympanum with a protruding frame.
External links[]
Nothing useful.
Info.roma web-page (the pinned location cannot be right.)