The Rose Garden, Queen Mary Gardens, Regents Park

This photo from the Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regents Park, London is part of one of the panoramic images found on the PanoramicEarth.com Tour of London. There are over 100 images taken from around London linked to an interactive map.

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The Rose Garden is part of the Queen Mary’s Gardens in The Regents Park. In fact many people refer to the whole of the Queen Mary Gardens as the Rose Gardens, though this is incorrect. Within the gardens are nearly 330 different varieties of roses, all planted out with labels indicating what they are. As such this Rose Garden should be a one stop reference point for those interested in roses.

In fact the list of plants here is impressive: There are 84 Formal Beds containing 80 varieties of Roses and a further 145 varieties are in the borders. The Rose Gardens also contains some 60 varieties of rambling or climbing roses, 41 varieties of Patio (miniature) Roses giving a total of 326 varieties and over 15,000 plants.

The focal point of the Rose Garden is the Rose Wheel, the circular area shown in this photo. A series of 10 planted beds radiate out from a focal bed, and are further surrounded by 10 other more rectangular planting beds. Around the whole of this are a number of benches set into alcoves formed by climbing roses. From the air the Rose Wheel takes on the appearance of a crop circle. Yet this is by no means the ends of the Rose Garden More beds of roses are spread out along and around the main lake within Queen Mary’s Gardens forming a glorious display of colour and smells. Put together this is a very popular place where people stroll gently or simply sit surrounded by flowers.

The Queen Mary’s Gardens occupy the whole of the 18 acres surrounded by the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle was first leased to the Royal Botanical Society and used as their garden. In 1932 the lease ran out and the garden was taken over by the Royal Parks and renamed as the Queen Mary’s Garden, after the wife of King George V. Here you will find a National Collection of delphiniums, herbaceous and Mediterranean borders, extensive lawns, an alpine island on the lake and, in the summer, a begonia garden and a sub-tropical border. The Queen Mary’s Gardens are also home to the Open Air Theatre and Garden Café.

Regents park is very close to Baker Street and many people walk through it from here to London Zoo. From Baker Street you will enter the park at the Boating Lake, and then you can cross a bridge, proceed up the path to Queen Mary Gardens. Another formal gardens within the Regents Park is Avenue Gardens.

The full panoramic image taken from the top of Rose Gardens can be found on the London tour by PanoramicEarth.com. An enlargement of this photo can be found on Flickr.

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Chruch of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, Rome

This image of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome 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.

Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri is on the Piazza della Republica., Like so many of the churches in Rome, it is built upon a supernatural event. In 1541 a Sicilian priest, Fr. Antonio Lo Duca, had a vision of angels in the ruins of the Diocletian Baths, and in the 1560’s Pope Pius IV ordered a church to be built there. The resulting church was not only built on the site of the Baths of Diocletian, but also recycled some of the building materials, adapting the Baths for the new use. Michelangelo provided the original design for the church.

Major alterations to the church were carried out in 1749 by Luigi Vanvitelli in preparation for the Holy Year of 1750. The interior of S Maria delgi Angeli still follows the layout of the Baths, however he installed a new front entrance in the long southwest side of the church thereby converting the nave into a huge transept. This transept is 100m long, 27m wide and 28m high. There are 8 huge red granite, 14m high columns which are original. On the right near the entrance to the transept is a large statue of St Bruno.

The Meridian Line
The Basilica also contains an unusual astronomical installation. In the right hand side of the transept is a meridian line, a sort of sundial. It was built on the order of Pope Clement XI by Francesco Bianchini. The meridian line had a 3-fold purpose:
(1) the pope wanted to check the accuracy of the Gregorian reformation of the calendar,
(2) to produce a tool to exactly predict Easter,
(3) to give Rome a meridian line as important as the one Bianchini had recently built in Bologna's cathedral, San Petronio.

There were several reasons for choosing Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri as the location for this project:
(1) The church was orientated to the south and received unobstructed exposure to the sun
(2) The high walls allowed for a longer line resulting in more accurate measurements.
(3) The walls are ancient, and were thus unlikely to settle of move any further]. This meant that carefully calibrated observational instruments set in them would not move out of alignment.
(4) Because it was set in former pagan site, it would represent a victory of the Christian calendar over the earlier pagan calendar.

Bianchini also added holes in the ceiling to allowing one to observe not only the sun but also to mark the passage of stars. Polaris, Arcturus and Sirius are visible through these holes even during the day. The meridian line was restored in 2002 for the tricentenary of its construction.

This Picture:
The view in this image is taken from near the centre of the transept looking towards the north end. The volume of space and size of the pillars dwarfs the people in the picture. The painting above the altar is The Apparition of the Virgin Mary to St Bruno by Giovanni Odazzi. The organ to the left of the altar was built in the 1990’s. The whole image is found on the Rome tour by PanoramicEarth.com.

For more articles on Rome see the Rome Index or select one of the labels at the bottom.

Church of S Maria dei Miracoli in Rome

This image of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Rome 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.

The church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli is one of two twin churches which stand like sentinels at the beginning of Via del Corso as it leaves the Piazza del Popolo. The other church is the Santa Maria in Montesanto. They were built by Carlo Rainaldi, and, although the fronts of the two churches look identical, S Maria in Montesanto has an oval dome whereas S Maria dei Miracoli has a circular dome. This was done because the churches had to look the same to provide a focal point for the Piazza, but the site for S Maria dei Miracoli is slightly narrower.

S Maria dei Miracoli took six years to build, starting in 1675. and built to a circular design with an octagonal cupola. Inside are sculptures by Antonio Raggi.

In this image you can see the high altar and two side chapels. Above the high altar is an image of Mary.The whole image is found on the Rome tour by PanoramicEarth.com. The first chapel on the right-hand side has an altar dedicated to Our Lady of Bétharram, named after a shrine near Lourdes. It contains a mediocre copy of Renoir's Madonna at Bétharram. The order of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, who minister in this church, were founded at Bétharram.

For more articles on Rome see the Rome Index or select one of the labels at the bottom.

Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome

This image of Santa Maria dela Popolo in Rome 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.

The Ghost of Nero
The church of Santa Maria del Popolo is linked to a ghost story. It started as a chapel erected over the tombs of the Domitia family. Nearby was a walnut tree inhabited by ravens. It was believed that the tree was inhabited by the ghost of Nero, and that the ravens were demons sent to torment him. On building the chapel in 1099 Pope Paschal II cut the tree down. And that was the end of that.

The chapel was dedicated to Mary, and funded by the people of Rome, hence the name Poplo. It was rebuilt twice more and the current building dates from the late 15C. Like many other churches in Rome, that of S Maria del Popolo contains a large number of artifacts important to both the religious and arts fraternities. To list them all would make for lengthy reading, but they include the Crucifixion of St Peter and the Conversion of St Paul in the Cerasi Chapel, painted by Caravaggio in 1600.

Within the church are several other chapels, many funded by rich families. These include the Chigi Chapel with a series of mosaics in the dome depicting God creating 7 heavenly bodies known at this time, each of which was guided by an angel.

Politics and Intrigue
The church is also the burial site for Ascanio Sforaz who arranged the marriage of the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI (conceived before he became Pope) and subsequently accused of the murder of the same Pope’s son. Ascanio tried to obtain the papacy 3 times during his lifetime but failed. He died age 50 and the tomb here was commissioned by Pope Julius II, the Warrior Pope who founded the Swiss Guards.

In recent times the church has been popularized as a setting for part of the Dan Brown novel Angels and Demons.

The image here shows the famous Assumption of the Virgin Mary, by Annibale Carracci which is above the altar in the Cerasi Chapel. The whole image is found on the Rome tour by PanoramicEarth.com.

For more articles on Rome see the Rome Index or select one of the labels at the bottom.

Santa Maria della Consolazione

This image of the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Rome 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 della Consolazione

Every church has a little history behind it’s founding, and the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione is no different. It is situated just behind the Forum, and is easily missed. I came across it on my way down from the Palazzo Conservatori.

The Death of the Condemned
The cliff above the church is thought to be the Tarpeian Rock from where condemned Roman criminals were tossed to their death in Roman times. The links between the condemned and this church continue. In 1385 a condemned nobleman, Giordanello degli Alberini, paid 2 gold florins for a picture of Mary to be placed on this site to provide consolation condemned criminals on their last journey. It was from this that the church and the road get their names. The first church was built here in 1470, and reconstructed between 1583 and 1600, during which time the Baroque façade was installed.

The Church:
The picture here shows the fresco of Madonna della Consolazione above the altar painted in the 14^th Century by Antoniazzo Romano. 2 chapels can be seen leading off to the right and left of the altar. The one on the left contains a marble relief of the Marriage of St. Catherine by Raffaello da Montepulo and dates from 1530. The church has a total of 11 side chapels owned by both local noble families and craft guild members.

In 1506 a hospital was built nearby, and it was here that that St Aloysius contracted the plague while caring plague victims. This is commemorated by a plaque on the wall past the church. The hospital was demolished in 1936 and the site is now the HQ of the fire brigade.

The whole image is found on the Rome tour by PanoramicEarth.com. There is an enlargment of this picture from Santa Maria della Consolazione on Flickr

For more articles on Rome see the Rome Index or select one of the labels at the bottom.