Santissimo Sudario di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo is the regional church in Rome for the Piedmontese, and is at Via del Sudario 47 in the rione Sant'Eustachio. It is one of two small churches close together in this short street off the north-west corner of Largo di Torre Argentina, the other being San Giuliano dei Fiamminghi at number 40. Picture of the church at Wikimedia Commons. [1]

HistoryEdit

In medieval times this church was dedicated to St Louis until its rebuilding in 1605. This was by the Savoyard Confraternity of the Holy Shroud, dedicated to the Holy Shroud of Turin, who had acquired the church as a headquarters and who gave it their own dedication. Back then, the Grand Duchy of Savoy included territory on both side of the Alps, with the name coming from what is now French Savoy and the economic base being in what is now Piedmont. This later evolved into the Kingdom of Sardinia, with its capital at Turin, and then became the Kingdom of Italy. So, the church was in turn used by expatriates of the Grand Duchy and the Kingdom of Sicily, and was only downgraded from an national to a regional church after the unification of Italy. Carlo Rainaldi was employed to restore the church in the Baroque style in 1678, but it was desecrated during the Napoleonic French occupation. It was re-consecrated in 1856.

ExteriorEdit

It is difficult to view the stone exterior owing to the narrowness of the street. The doorway has a segmented

pediment but no other decoration, and is flanked by a pair of double rectangular Corinthian pilasters. Either side of the main door on the other side of the double pilasters is a smaller door, above which in turn is a niche with a triangular pedimental canopy and then a rectangular window. The outer edges of this first storey of the façade are occupied by another pair of identical pilasters. These six pilasters support a wide entablature dividing the storeys, but unusually a pair of horizontally rectangular windows is cut into this above the pair of main windows below. The ends of the entablature bear the two halves of a broken and well-separated segmental pediment. The second storey, narrower than the first (squeezed by domestic buildings on either side) has a double pair of Ionic pilasters either side of a very large rectangular window and supporting a broken pediment missing its cornice above the window and with its point set back. The window has its own pair of small pilasters and entablature. The pediment contains the arms of the House of Savoy.

InteriorEdit

The interior contains statues of five saints and beati descending from the royal House of Savoy, by Cesare Maccari and Giovan Domenico Cerrini. Above the altar is a stucco relief of God the Father adored by angels, this being by Antonio Raggi. There is also a copy of the Holy Shroud, an object of devotion, which was executed by Maria Francesca di Savoia.

External linksEdit

Official diocesan web-page

Italian Wikipedia page

Photos