S Maria in Monterone

This photo of the S Maria in Monterone is part of one of the panoramic images found on the PanoramicEarth.com Tour of Rome. There are over 100 images taken from around Rome linked to an interactive map.

Full 360° panorama of Santa Maria in Monterone

There are hundreds of churches in Rome dedicated to Mary, so I was bound to misplace at least one of them. This little church is fairly close to the Pantheon and I forgot to note down the full name when I took the images. In the end it has been identified as S. Maria in Monterone with the help of Anthony.

There is little information available about the S. Maria in Monterone and it is not mentioned in many of the guide books, so if anyone has some information about it the please feel free to add it as a comment. What I have manage do dig up is:

Documents indicate a church S Maria in Monterone was here as far back as 1186, the name Monterone coming from the family who owned the Palazzo Sinibaldi in front of it and built a hospice adjoining the church. It has been modified many time and in 1597 was raised slightly to avoid being affected by flooding from the Tiber. Radical changes were made in 17C and yet more in the early to mid 19C. A chapel of St. Alfons was installed in 1848. In spite of all these changes the aisles are partitioned from the nave by eight columns which used to belong to the Theatre of Pompeus that stood here before.

The church is associated with an Archconfraternity called the "Archconfraternity for the Relief of the Poor Souls in Purgatory under the title of the Assumption of Mary in the Redemptorist church of Santa Maria in Monterone at Rome", which, founded in 1841 has responsibility for saying prayers and collecting indulgences to shorten the plight of those in purgatory. While pope Benedict XVI recently abolished the dogma of limbo, the idea of purgatory still remains.

Thanks are due to liciano! for helping to identify this church. A full panoramic image of the inside of SS Nome di Maria is found on the Rome tour by PanoramicEarth.com. An enlargement of this photo can be found on Flickr where you can also find images of the Right and Left side chapels near the high altar.

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