Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri - Roma, Italy - Doorways of the World on Waymarking.com

The thermae of Diocletian, built in 306, dominated the Viminal Hill with their ruined mass. Michelangelo Buonarroti worked from 1563 to 1564 to adapt a section of the remaining structure of the baths to enclose a church. He achieved a sequence of shaped architectural spaces, developed from a Greek cross, with a dominant transept, with cubical chapels at each end, and the effect of a transverse nave.

There is no true facade; the simple entrance is set within one of the coved apses of a main space of the thermae. The vestibule with canted corners and identical side chapels—one chapel has the tomb of Salvator Rosa, the other of Carlo Maratta—leads to a second vestibule, repeated on the far side of the transept, dominated by the over lifesize Saint Bruno of Cologne by Jean Antoine Houdon (1766).

The two bronze entrance doors are important works of modern sculpture by the Polish artist Igor Mitoraj, and were completed in 2005. When facing the church, the left hand one depicts the Resurrection, and the right hand one the Annunciation. Most of the surfaces of both doors are blank, showing textured and patinated metal, but out of the surfaces emerge dismembered figures and heads as if they were floating in water. The three figures of Christ, Our Lady and the Archangel Gabriel have arms amputated, and this detail is an allusion to the damaged Classical statues that used to be displayed in the adjacent museum. The figure of Christ is further divided into four by two slashes in the form of a cross.

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Type of material of the door: Other Functional door?: Yes Location of this door/way: On public property Is it accessable only by paid admission": No Style: Modern Address or physical location: Piazza della Repubblica, Roma, Italy, 00185

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Date Logged Log User Rating   05/12/2023 GURUGU visited it 08/28/2011 Ariberna visited it

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