Santa Maria Sopra Minerva Rome Photos, Church Building Photos, Italian Design Images

Santa Maria Sopra Minerva Roma : Architettura

Roman building photographs, historic Italy religious architecture information & photos

Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

This is a large Baroque church located just east of The Pantheon, in the centre of the Italian capital city.

Rome buildings : traditional architecture

The delightful square outside (west) of this large Baroque church:

The building images by Adrian Welch.

While many other medieval churches in Rome have been given Baroque makeovers that cover Gothic structures, the Minerva is the only extant example of original Gothic church building in Rome. Behind a restrained Renaissance style façade the Gothic interior features arched vaulting that was painted blue with gilded stars and trimmed with brilliant red ribbing in a 19th-century Neo-Gothic restoration.

The church and adjoining convent served at various times throughout its history as the Dominican Order’s headquarters. Today the headquarters have been re-established in their original location at the Roman convent of Santa Sabina. The titulus of Sanctae Mariae supra Minervam is now vacant with the death of Cormac Murphy-O’Connor who died on 1 September 2017.

Key Architecture close to this Rome church building:

The Pantheon

photo © Adrian Welch
The Pantheon