St. Mary's Basilica of Angels and Martyrs

The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri is a Catholic place of worship in Rome located in Piazza della Repubblica.

The building was born from the arrangement in 1562, by Michelangelo Buonarroti, of the central hall (frigidarium) of the Baths of Diocletian, by order of Pope Pius IV at the request of the Sicilian priest Antonio del Duca, uncle of the faithful disciple of Michelangelo, Jacob of the Duke.

Antonio Del Duca solicited the construction for a long time, following a vision he had in the summer of 1541, when he allegedly saw a "light more than white snow" rising from the Baths of Diocletian with the seven martyrs in the center (Saturninus, Cyriacus, Largo, Smaragdo, Sisinnio, Trasone and Pope Marcellus I); this would have convinced him that a temple dedicated to the seven Angels was to be built, so he marked the name of the seven angels on the columns inside the frigidarium.

So he began to design a possible construction of the church dedicated to the seven angels and the seven martyrs, but Pope Paul III did not support the idea.

In 1543 Antonio del Duca commissioned a painting depicting the Madonna among seven angels, a copy of the mosaic in the Basilica of San Marco.

The painting is currently placed in the center of the apse of the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.

However, to see, albeit briefly, the dream of building this last basilica, Antonio had to wait a long time since with the election of Pope Julius III the pope's nephews built a hunting enclosure and stables for horses inside the spa. However, with the pontificate of Pope Marcellus II and Pope Paul IV, the conditions for the construction of the basilica began to occur.

Thus the church was born following the papal bull of Pope Pius IV of 27 July 1561 and took the name of "Beatissimae Virgini et omnium Angelorum et Martyrum.

It is the church where the official ceremonies of the Italian Republic take place.

Map: St. Mary's Basilica of Angels and Martyrs