Santa Maria della Mercede e Sant’Adriano is a modern parish and titular church with a postal address at Via Basento 100, north-east of the Villa Borghese in the Salario district. The main entrance is on the Viale Regina Margherita. Pictures of the church at Wikimedia Commons. [1]

The parish is administered by the Mercedarian Order, who commissioned Marco Piloni to design the church. It was completed in 1958, and received the subsidiary dedication of Sant'Adriano in memory of the deconsecrated church in the Roman Forum. The main dedication is to the Blessed Virgin Mary under her title of Our Lady of Mercy, patroness of the order. In art she is shown sheltering people under her cloak.

The present titular is Albert Vanhoye.

ExteriorEdit

The plan is rectangular, with a large presbyterium of the same height but slightly narrower than the nave. The roof is pitched and tiled. The gabled façade, approached by steps, is a high-quality Modernist interpretation of a traditional Roman one, in white limestone. However, the Modernist principle of form following function is broken here, as the top of the façade is false and rises higher than the church. There is an external loggia of square-cut travertine blocks, with three equal-sized entrances having triangular tops and separated by square piers. The triangular tops cut into a large horizontal dark grey concrete beam running across the width of the frontage. Above this, there is stone walling before another similar beam on the loggia roofline. A large aperture over the central doorway also has a triangular top cutting into the latter beam. Four grey concrete pilasters occupy the corners of the loggia and the two piers. These run up to the roofline, and are continued over the loggia roof to stop at the actual nave frontage. This is a blank stone face having no windows, with the stones laid in a lozenge pattern like a chain-link fence. There is a border in dark grey concrete. There is a bronze sculpture of Our Lady two thirds of the way up, on its own little shelf and with a projecting canopy. Both of these are segments from a hexagon. with an angle in the middle.

Within the loggia, there are three doors into the church, the middle one having bronze angels above it by Guarino Roscioli. Bronze papal coats of arms decorate the loggia frontage above the two side portals.

There is a campanile, but to see this you have to go round to the back of the church in Via Tirso. It is a plain square yellow brick tower attached to the left hand side of the church near the altar (your right hand side, from the street), and has an open bellchamber with four concrete piers supporting a concrete cap.

InteriorEdit

The interior has a nave and aisles, but no apse. The spectacular polygonal granite columns increase in girth as they run right up to the roof, which is pitched and which has supporting ribs formed by continuations of the columns. There are stained glass windows just under the roofline, in between the ribs. The far wall of the presbyterium, behind the main altar, is completely taken up by a fresco of Our Lady in Glory with the Mercedarian Saints, by Luigi Montanarini. The presbyterium is narrower than the nave, and the narrow return walls that flank it are decorated with a stucco pattern of lozenges in relief, recalling the façade.

Several artworks from the old Sant’Adriano were taken out of store to embellish this church, including a painting of the Sacred Heart by Carlo Maratta, another one of the Holy Family originally thought to be by Raphael (it is not), and holy water stoups with angels after the style of Bernini.

The second altar on the left has the relics of St Bonosa, enshrined here in 1958. She had endured eighty years of wandering after her old church in Trastevere, Santa Bonosa, was demolished in 1888.

External linksEdit

Official diocesan web-page

Italian Wikipedia page

Info.roma web-page