| Santa Maria della Scala | |
|---|---|
| Church of Saint Mary of the Stairs | |
Chiesa di Santa Maria della Scala | |
 Facade | |
 Click on the map for a fullscreen view | |
| 41°53′28″N 12°28′04″E / 41.89111°N 12.46778°E | |
| Location | Piazza della Scala 23, Rome |
| Country | Italy |
| Language(s) | Italian |
| Denomination | Catholic |
| Tradition | Roman Rite |
| History | |
| Status | titular church |
| Founded | 1593 |
| Dedication | Mary, mother of Jesus |
| Architecture | |
| Architectural type | Baroque |
| Completed | 1610 |
| Administration | |
| Diocese | Rome |
Santa Maria della Scala (English: Mary of the Staircase) is a titular church in Rome, Italy, located in the Trastevere rione. Cardinal Ernest Simoni took possession of the titular church on 11 February 2017.[1] Santa Maria della Scala is a titular church.
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The church Santa Maria della Scala is located on the square of the same name. It was built under the patronage of Pope Clement VIII between 1593 and 1610 to house a miraculous icon of the Madonna. Tradition holds that a midwife with a dying child in her arms prayed under the stairs of a house where the image of the Madonna was present, and the child was immediately revived.[2] Consecrated to Mary, mother of Jesus, the church enshrines that icon in the north transept, alongside a baroque statue of St John of the Cross. The church was built on the site of a house once bequeathed to a Casa Pia founded by Pope Pius IV in 1563 for reformed prostitutes. In 1597, the church was granted to the Discalced Carmelites.[3]
Bronze statues of the Twelve Apostles were stolen from the sacristy during the Napoleonic era, and subsequently replaced by papier-mâché.
In 1849, during the last stages of the revolutionary Roman Republic's resistance to the invading French forces, Santa Maria della Scala was used as a hospital where Garibaldi's soldiers, who were wounded fighting in the Trastevere, were treated.
The two-story travertine facade was completed in 1624. The Baroque Madonna and Child in the niche over the entrance was sculpted by Francesco di Cusart in 1633. In 1650, nearly fifty years after the buildings completion, Carlo Rainaldi designed for the church a tempietto-shaped baldachino with 16 slender jasper Corinthian columns and a high altar.[3] Four statues of the Evangelists were looted in 1849 and replaced by terracotta ones.
The interior has a nave with three chapels on each side. Its choir, nave and north transept's vaults are decorated with paintings intended to resemble moldings, whilst the south transept has actual stucco relief moldings.
Following a commission by Cardinal Luigi Antonio di Borbone Spagna, Giuseppe Pannini, the son of Giovanni Paolo Pannini, executed the ornately carved and gilded wooden two-tiered gallery for musicians or cantoria (ca. 1756) above the entrance of the church.[9][10] The lower gallery houses the pipe organ, built by Carlo Vegezzi Bossi in 1908 (opus 1282) and equipped with 11 registers on a single manual and pedal.
San Giuseppe Hall houses a collection by Tito Sarrocchi.
Around 1600, the friars built a monastery next door famous for containing the Papal court's 17th century pharmacy (Antica Spezieria di Santa Maria della Scala) on the second floor. The friars prepared their medicines with herbs from the attached garden. In the 18th century, the apothecary also began to train future pharmacists. In 1873 the convent and garden was confiscated by the government and the convent turned into a police station; the Carmelites retained the church.
The former pharmacy now houses a museum, containing the herbarium, and the original scales for weighing medicines, the machines for making pills, oil mills, mortars, and alembic stills.[14] The furnishings, shelves, showcases and counter are from the eighteenth century.
