Rome - Boxing Day - December 26, 2011 - Santa Maria Maggiore

As promised a wee blog to relate pictures etc. from latest trip to Rome, Naples and Milan. 

Thanks to Royal Dutch Airlines arrived in Rome ahead of schedule, but not soon enough to meet traveling companion at airport train station (perhaps I should have checked flights a wee bit closer, no worries though, back up plan was meet at hotel. 

Santa Maria Maggiore from Via Torino

Luckily for both of us the hotel was just four blocks from the train station and just off the Piazza del'Esquillino and the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Which was a good landmark to have, as no one could miss this giant duel domed thing looming over the Piazza dell'Esquillino. 

Found that traveling companion had already checked into hotel, but weird slightly creepy old porter took me up to room and left before I could even dig for a tip. (odd as the younger though slightly creepier porter a few weeks later would hang around attempting to fluff cushions until I paid him to go away and stop creeping me out...though the butt slapping hotel maids were highly amusing). 

Detail on rear of Santa Maria Maggiore

It was just after four - thirty in the afternoon and we decided to run over to Santa Maria Maggiore. Considering it was across the street from the hotel and was open till seven seemed like a good start. Entrance is free and it just happens to have an incredible collection of art spanning near two millennia (for example the columns and some of the mosaics date from 420 CE). 

Santa Maria Maggiore was founded some time in the fourth century after a miraculous shower of snow that fell on the spot in August. The ceiling inside was added about a thousand years later and the rear facade with its naughty domes completed in 1673. Some time in the next hundred years the front facade and vestibule was added.

Piazza dell'Esquilino and Obelisk
from Tomb of Augustus

The rear of the church and the apse face the Via Cavour and it's own Piazza (Piazza dell’Esquillino). Wherein sits the Esquilline Obelisk in all it's granite glory. This Obelisk  was manufactured for the tomb of Augustus and is one of a pair (the other is in the Piazza dell Quirinale).  

The rear facade itself is a rather restrained baroque architectural arrangement that includes two rather saucy domed flanking the apse (which on the inside has some delightful gilded medieval mosaics) and a grand flight of stairs stretching nearly  the width of the whole piazza.

Inside the church the decoration just doesn't seem to stop; from the elegant columns of the original basilica to the mosaics on the triumphal arch and asp to the gilded and coffered ceiling. I must say I had seen pictures, but it was just overwhelming. Like being inside some sort of exquisite jeweled Faberge egg.  The confessionals line the side aisles and were labeled with the languages spoken in each: English, Espagnol, Italiano, Portuguese etc.  in gilded letters above the doors. The workmanship on these wood booths was amazing, dark wood (possibly Honduran Mahogany, Possibly dyed walnut) elegantly carved within an inch of their lives. 

Facade of Santa Maria Maggiore
with medieval bell-tower

I had to stop outside to contemplate the the actual facade of Santa Maria Maggiore, ordered by Pope Benedict XIV and built in the middle of the 18th century, it just is a facade covering the antique shell...the medieval bell tower is still right there popping out of the baroque body of the church. Its simple brick and Romanesque arches a complete contrast to the rather fluid 18th century facade. 

Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore Column

The front of Santa Maria Maggiore faces the Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore (who would have thought?) Instead of an obelisk here the center of the piazza is decorated with a column that twas removed from the basilica of Maxentius and Constantine (where the big head of Constantine used to be). It now has a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary on top which was added just after the column's erection here in 1615. Just the logistics of moving a forty-fifty foot long solid piece of granite boggles my mind today, let alone the 17th century or even the Roman era come to think of it.

The rear of the church is amazing at sunset, at any time really, but at sunset it turned a rosy pink that was hard to capture on film. Not that I didn't try. Such a marvelous location for a stay in Rome, close to the train station, walkable to everywhere (including the Vatican, though that did take about forty minutes) near food, supermarkets and a number of kebab places. In Italy eating kebabs? Yes, well...

Santa Maria Maggiore near sunset, pretty in pink