Santa Maria della Vittoria (, ) is a Catholic titular minor basilica and Discalced Carmelite conventual church dedicated to Our Lady of Victories in Rome, Italy, famously the home of Gian Lorenzo Bernini‘s masterpiece the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. The church is in the Rione Sallustiano, on number 98 via XX Settembre, where this street intersects with Largo Santa Susanna. It is located next to the Fountain of Moses and mirrors the Church of Santa Susanna across the Largo. It is about two blocks northwest of the Piazza della Repubblica and Teatro dell'Opera metro station.

History

The land for the church was purchased on April 20, 1607, and the church was built from 1608 to 1620 as a chapel dedicated to Saint Paul for the Discalced Carmelites. After the Catholic victory at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, which reversed the Reformation in Bohemia, the church was rededicated to the Virgin Mary. Ottoman standards captured at the 1683 Battle of Vienna were later hung in the church, reinforcing to the theme of the Virgin helping lead Catholic armies to victory. The statues depict a moment as described by Saint Teresa of Avila in her autobiography, where she had the vivid vision of a Seraph piercing her heart with a golden shaft, causing her both immense joy and pain. The flowing robes and contorted posture abandon classical restraint and repose to depict a more passionate, almost voluptuous trance. Although artistically a tour de force, nonetheless, during Bernini's lifetime and in the centuries following, the Ecstasy of St. Teresa was accused by diverse critics for crossing a line of decency by sexualizing the visual depiction of the saint's experience, to a degree that no artist, before or after Bernini, dared to do: in depicting her at an impossibly young chronological age, as an idealized delicate beauty, in a semi-prostrate position with her mouth open and her legs splayed-apart, her wimple coming undone, with prominently displayed bare feet (Discalced Carmelites, for modesty, always wore sandals with heavy stockings) and with the seraph "undressing" her by (unnecessarily) parting her mantle to penetrate her heart with his arrow.

Titulus

thumb|upright|The Virgin Mary Triumphing over Heresy and Fall of the Rebel Angels, in the vault

Santa Maria della Vittoria was established as a titular church by Pope Pius VII on 23 December 1801. The following is a list of its Cardinal-Priests:

  • Michelangelo Luchi (1801–1802)
  • Joseph Fesch (1803–1822); in commendam (1822–1839)
  • Ferdinando Maria Pignatelli (1839–1853)
  • Adriano Fieschi (1853–1858)
  • Joseph Othmar von Rauscher (1858–1875)
  • Godefroy Brossais-Saint-Marc (1876–1878)
  • Louis-Edouard-François-Desiré Pie (1879–1880)
  • Luigi Jacobini (1880–1887)
  • Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau (1887–1898)
  • Giovanni Battista Casali del Drago (1899–1908)
  • François-Marie-Anatole de Rovérié de Cabrières (1911–1921)
  • Alexis-Armand Charost (1922–1930)
  • Angelo Maria Dolci (1933–1936)
  • Federico Tedeschini (1936–1951)
  • Giuseppe Siri (1953–1989)
  • Giuseppe Caprio (1990–2005)
  • Seán Patrick O'Malley, OFM Cap (2006–incumbent)

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File:Bernini Santa Maria della Vittoria 2.jpg|Close up of Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa

File:Santa maria della vittoria 07.JPG

File:Cornaro SM della Vittoria.jpg

File:Cornaro chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome HDR.jpg

File:Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome - pipe organ HDR.jpg

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References

Sources

  • Sturm, Saverio (2015). L’architettura dei Carmelitani Scalzi in età barocca: La ‘Provincia Romana’. Lazio, Umbria e Marche (1597-1705). Roma: Gangemi Editore.
  • Hibbert, Howard (1965). Bernini. New York: Pelican-Penguin.
  • Susanne Juliane Warma (1981). A Study of the Iconography of Bernini's Cornaro Chapel in Santa Maria Della Vittoria Athens: University of Georgia.
  • G. Matthiae (1965). S. Maria della Vittoria. Rome.
  • Francesco Gui, Tomáš Parma, Andrea Trenta, eds. Santa Maria della Vittoria. Una testimonianza fondamentale della storia europea (3 vols.). Roma, Veat Tipografica, 2024. ISBN 978-88-99773-08-3
  • Chris Nyborg, "Churches of Rome: Santa Maria della Vittoria"
  • Roberto Piperno, "santa Maria della Vittoria"
  • "Santa Maria della Vittoria" (in Italian)
  • Roma SPQR: "Santa Maria della Vittoria"

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