Santa Maria in Traspontina

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Santa Maria in Traspontina

English name:	Our Lady across the Bridge
Dedication:	Blessed Virgin Mary
Denomination:	Roman Catholic


Titular church	Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S.,
National church:	Denmark (Chapel of St Knud)
Built:	From 1566, replacing older church

Architect(s):	Giovanni Sallustio Peruzzi
Artists:
Contact data
Address:	14 Via della Conciliazione 00193 Roma
Phone:	06 68 80 64 51
Fax:	06 68 80 33 15

Santa Maria in Traspontina is a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Chapel of St Knud (see below) is the national shrine of Denmark.

[edit] History

The first church, which had the same dedication, was built under Pope Hadrian I (772–795). It was not in the same spot, but closer to Castel Sant'Angelo.

The Liber Pontificalis mentions it under Pope Pascal II in 1118, when it is said to be defunct. Later in the same century, it was again used, as a priest of the church is mentioned in a bull from Pope Urban III dated 1186 or 1187. In the Catelogue of Turin, c. 1320, the church is mentioned as a Papal Chapel with five clerics.

The present church, the only one in the Via della Conciliazione, was built from 1566 Giovanni Sallustio Peruzzi, son of Baldassare Peruzzi. It was relocated to the present site because of the need to strengthen fortifications around the Castel Sant'Angelo. The project was part of the ongoing renewal of the Borgo, which had largely been abandoned after the Sacco di Roma in 1527. It was not completed until 1668.

The appellation refers to the Ponte Sant'Angelo, the bridge across the Tiber at Castel Sant'Angelo. The church has also been known as Santa Maria in Hadriano, as the Castel Sant'Angelo was originally the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian.

The church is served by Calced Carmelites; they were first installed here in 1484 by Pope Innocent VIII. It has been a parochial church since 1587.

It was established a titular church in 1587, with Juan de Mendoza appointed as the first Cardinal priest in 1589. The current titular of the church is Cardinal Marc Ouellet P.S.S., Archbishop of Québec who was created cardinal in 2003, and who succeeded Cardinal Gerald Emmet Carter who had died in the same year.

[edit] Exterior

The façade, designed by G.S. Peruzzi, is built in travertine pilfered from the Colosseum. It has two stories. The lower is divided into five parts, and the upper into three with volutes above the outer parts of the lower level. There are three doors, a large one in the middle, with an 8th century stucco of the Madonna with Child above, and two smaller adjacent to it with windows above them. The outher parts have large windows. On the upper level, there is a large window in the middle and slightly smaller windows on the sides. It is crowned by a triangular tympanon.

The dome is octagonal on the outside, with a smaller lantern with eight windows on the top.

The campanile, designed by Francesco Peparelli in 1637, has a recast English bell, which is some 600 years old.

To the left of the church is the Oratorio della Dottrina Cristiana (Oratory of Christian Doctrine), with a nice late 18th century doorway.

[edit] Interior

The church has a Latin cross plan, with a nave covered by a barrel-vault ceiling. There are five chapels on each side.

The dome does not have a drum, but it placed directly on the walls. The reason is that the cannons on Castel Sant'Angelo needed a clear line-of-sight. It was designed by Ottaviano Mascherino. The pendants have 18th century paintings of Carmelite saints.

The high altar was made in 1734 by Carlo Fontana. It has a very nice Baroque baldachino in marble. The tabernacle is shaped like a globe, which is unusual.

Above the high altar is a Greek icon of the Madonna. It is thought that it was brought to Rome from the Holy Land in 1216. It was crowned in 1641.

The first chapel on the right is dedicated to St Barbara, and has paintings by Cavaliere d'Arpino. There are stucco decorations with military symbols, referring her patronage of the artillery. The chapel originally belonged to the cannoneers at Castel Sant'Angelo.

The middle chapel on the left side is dedicated to the Apostles Peter and Paul. Two columns preserved here are said to be the ones the Apostles were chained to when they were flogged before their executions. The altarpiece depicts these events.

In the third chapel on the left are some artifacts from the older church, including a 14th century terracotta Pietà.

The ceiling in the sacristy has a fresco by Luigi Garzi depicting the Madonna of Carmel. Near the sacristy is a confessional donated by King Christian X of Denmark (see below).

[edit] Chapel of St Knud

One of the side chapels is dedicated to St Knud of Denmark (Canute), the Danish king who was martyred in St Albani Church, Odense, Denmark on 10 July 1086. It was founded by the Danish convert Fr. Christian Payngk (born 1612). About 1630, he travelled to Rome with his brother Ahasverus, and both converted to the Catholic faith there. Payngk was ordained priest, and his brother became a Capuchin monk in Genua. During the 1630's, Payngk laid plans for a Danish chapel in Rome. At the time, Catholicism was banned in Denmark, and Catholics risked severe punishments, even the death penalty, if discovered by the authorities. A Danish chapel in Rome would be a great comfort to the small group of Catholics from the country. Christian enlisted the support of Cardinal Antonio Barberini, one of the pillars of the recently established Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide). He also found a supporter in Giovanni Pamphilii, later Pope Innocent X.

The Carmelites were contacted, and gave permission to install an altar in Santa Maria in Traspontina. They had a chapel dedicated to St Charles Borromeo, who has been canonized in 1610. When the request came, a new church had been dedicated to St Charles, and the Carmelites felt that the dedication of the chapel could be altered. The formalities had been taken care of by 1640, and Payngk started construction. Few alterations were made to the chapel itself; the main task was to get a new altarpiece. The painting depicts The Martyrdom of St Knud. The artist is unknown, but it has been attributed first to Daniel Freschie (this attribution has been abandoned by most art historians) and later to the School of Jacopo Nicolai de Lorena. It is possible that it was Freschie who painted it, but as he died in 1613, it must have been commissioned before that by Christian Payngk's father who probably met Freschie at the court of Emperor Rudolph II in Prague.

The chapel was inaugurated on 7 January 1641, on what was reported to be the memorial of St Knud. Representatives of the College of Cardinals were present on the memorable occasion, and it is reported that the local citizens celebrated for two days. The date of inauguration was chosen through a mistake that is commonly made; St Knud was confused with St Knud… There are two Danish saints named Knud, namely the martyr and king to whom the chapel is dedicated, and St Knud Lavard, a Duke who was murdered on 7 January and therefore celebrated on that day. The proper date for the memorial of St Knud of Denmark was 10 July; in pre-Reformation Denmark he had also been celebrated on the 2nd Sunday in Eastertide. In 1670, the memorial was moved to 19 January.

One of the things that was expected in the chapel was burial of Danish Catholics. Payngk had a plaque made, with the inscription D(eo) O(ptimo) M(aximo). SOLIS DANIS IN URBE FIDEQUE ROMANA OBEUNTIBUS MONUMENTUM. ANNO D(omi)NI MDCLXV, meaning "To the almight God. Only to Danes who have died in City and Faith of Rome is this monument dedicated. The year of our Lord 1665."

There are records of many prominent Danes visiting the chapel, including Prince Jørgen, son of King Frederik III in 1669-70; the prince later married princess Anne, later Queen Anne of England. In 1692, Crown Prince Frederik, later King Frederik IV, visited, and his brother Carl came in 1698.

Payngk decided to add decorations to the chapel in 1685, and had a new altarpiece painted by Daniel Seiter of Vienna. This is the present altarpiece, showing the saint with outstretched arms and his eyes toward the heavens. He is dressed in a blue tunic with a hermine cape over his shoulders. Payngk also commissioned the stonemason Pietro Antonio Ripoli to deliver marble for the walls; Ripoli added some intarsia work to the altar at his own expense. Also, the painter Alessandro Francesi decorated the ceiling with a fresco depicting The Glory of St Knud, where angels carry the saint in triumph to Heaven, where the crown of martyrdom is waiting.

Sadly, Payngk was not to see the restored chapel. He died before work was completed, on 31 January 1687. At his own request, he was laid to rest before the altar in the chapel. All his belongings apart from a few books were given to the Carmelites, including his house with a garden in Trastevere. Mass was to be read for him weekly and on the memorial of St Knud.

Three days after his funeral, the Danish artist Bernhard Keil (1626 - 1687) was also buried in the chapel. He was the son of the painter Caspar Keilhau, and had worked in Rembrandt's study in Amsterdam.

The chapel was reinaugurated by Msgr. Francesco Maria de Marinis on 6 July 1687. The Monsignore gave a simple benediction, and said Mass.

After that, there is no record of the chapel until 1778. Then, a memorial plaque for the former officer Anton Georg Bredahl was erected. Bredahl had been dismissed from the army for medical reasons in 1770, and had shortly after moved to Rome where he converted to the Catholic faith. He was appointed as a member of the Corsican Guard by Pope pius VI on 10 April 1778, and the plaque records that he died the same day, aged 39.

In 1781, Mass was still celebrated on the memorial of St Knud. The Danish scholar Georg Christian Adler was there that year, and records with some interest that the memory of the martyr is preserved in January each year. But soon after, interest in the chapel dropped. Another Danish scholar, the numismatist Christian Ramus, was there in 1793, and records that there were candles on the altar, but no Mass. As a Lutheran theologian, he was sceptical of Catholicism, and it seems to be with some satisfaction that he records that the monks have spent all the money set aside to ensure that Mass was celebrated in the chapel. He says that the monks have eaten all of it, but that before they were used on candles and music, and burning and fiddling them away was not a hair better. The same thing was the case in 1819, when the Danish Lutheran vicar Frederik Schmidt visited on St Knud's memorial, and found four lit candles on the altar but no priest celebrating Mass.

The saddest account of the state of things is that by the famous Danish author H.C. Andersen - author of The Little Mermaid and other fairy tales - given after his visit in 1841. He relates that he had cried over his father's coffin in St Knud's Church (in Odense, where St Knud was martyred and where H.C. Andersen lived), and been confirmed in the same church, but that in Denmark no Mass was celebrated for the king, and even in the Pope's city he was given only two tallow candles.

A brief turn to the better must have followed; in 1866 or 1867, the Catholic priest Fr. J.Cl. Lichtle from Gothenburg, Sweden, visited and found the chapel nicely decorated and noted that Mass was celebrated there. The monks had even prepared xylographs (an early form of photocopy) of St Knud's martyrdom with a prayer printed on the back, which were handed out to the faithful. Licthle asked all Danish Catholics - the Catholic Church had been allowed to reestablish itself in Denmark after the new Constitution had been approved in 1849 - to donate money to the monks. He reminded them of the efforts of the Danish Carmelites in the years preceding the Reformation, when they were among the foremost defenders of the Church.

But something was apparently still rotten in Denmark. The journalist and politician Carl Steen Andersen Bille came to Rome in 1878 and went to the church to take part in Mass on the memorial of the saint. But no Mass was celebrated, and the sacristan explained that St Knud was un molto povero santo, a very poor saint. Clearly, the meagre contributions that had come were not enough.

Then, in 1906, things were finally put right. The Danish Catholic weekly magazine, Nordisk Ugeblad for katholske Kristne wrote in the 3 March issue that the chapel was in a state of disrepair, and announced a collection in cooperation with the Carmelite General. Money was collected, and artists who got engaged in the project made contributions. The author Thor Lange suggested that a carpet should be made, and a pattern was drawn based on a painting from c. 1500 in Skive Church in Denmark. It depicts a seated St Knud with the inscription Sanctus Canutus - Danorum Rex - ac Protomartyr, "St Knud, King and Protomartyr of the Danes", and was made by a group of Catholic women. 3000 Italian lire was collected, which at the time was a considerable sum. Two bronze candelabra were bought and placed on the altar, a fund was set up to pay for Mass on his memorial and on the date of his death (19 January and 10 July), and the fund was also to pay for oil for the eternal lamp hanging before the altarpiece. Bishop von Euch marked the success of the project on 28 November 1906 by celebrating Mass in the chapel, with two Danish seminarians as altar servers and the new carpet on the steps to the altar. This was related in the French Catholic weekly "L'Univers", and rumours also spread in Rome. Many Romans came to the chapel to pray for the intercession of this foreign saint, and many apparently got the results they wanted. There are now many votive offerings in the chapel, mostly small silver hearts hung on the frame of the altarpiece. This new interest also generated more funds, and Mass was celebrated on other days than 19 January and 10 July also. In 1913, Fr. P. Westergaard, who had studied at the seminary of the Propaganda Fide, celebrated his First Mass in the chapel on 18 May, and there were so many present that the monks had to bring in extra chairs.

The fund was almost completely lost during the First World War, due to inflation; most of it had been invested in Austrian state bonds, and Austria did not have much luck in the war. However, the visit of King Christian X and Queen Alexandrine in 1920 brought renewed attention to the chapel. The royal couple were Lutherans, but were well disposed toward Catholicism, and donated a confessional and six benches with the royal monogram. The king also instructed the embassy in Rome to make sure that there was always funds for Mass on St Knud's memorial. It was also decided that the altar should be decorated with flowers in the Danish colours, red and white. The red flowers are brought by the monks, and the white by the embassy. Pope Benedict XV noticed the royal interest in the chapel, and gave two silver candelabras to be used on the memorial.

In 1931, Fr. Niels R.M. Oppermann was present at the memorial day Mass, and mentions several distinguished guests, both from the Church hierarchy, the Danish and Norwegian government and others. On that day, a relic of St Knud was exhibited for veneration on the altar. The relic had been given by a Danish doctor; when he was in Rome he asked if they had a relic, and when told that they didn't he arranged for a bone taken during an examination of the king's mortal remains to be sent to the church. The examination had taken place in 1875, when the reliquary of St Knud had been restored at the National Museum (unlike in many other countries, the Reformation in Denmark led to very little destruction of relics; they were simply moved to less prominent places). A professor in anatomy at the University of Copenhagen, Frederik Theodor Schmidt, had been called to Odense to examine the bones. It is unknown who removed the relic, but it has been noted that professor Schmidt later married a Catholic woman, Louise Sophie d'Auchamp, whose brother was the head of the collection committee in 1906.

[edit] Liturgy

The feast of Our Lady of Carmel is celebrated on 16 July with a solemn procession. Other fests of importance are those of various Carmelite saints. St Knud of Denmark is celebrated on 19 January (memoria) and 10 July (day of martyrdom).

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