Giornale 3: Santa Maria del Popolo

Panorama of the Church

After visiting St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican this morning, it only seemed appropriate to go on a solo excursion to another religious place. Amari, Emily, and I decided to take the Metro around 3pm to Flaminia to visit the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the Piazza del Popolo. We had passed the exterior of the Church on the way to dinner a few nights ago and all of us agreed that it was worth another visit to the Piazza. When we arrived, however, the church was closed and we realized that we had an hour to kill before 4 o’ clock. We decided to walk down the Via del Corso and try to find the Casa di Goethe, another site on the list of optional solo excursions. We even asked a few people working in retail stores and got blank looks; I’m guessing either Goethe is pronounced totally differently in Italian or it’s a small museum. After our unsuccessful search for the museum, we headed back to the Church and waited on the steps until the doors opened. I wasn’t expecting so many of the people resting on the steps to get up along with us, but most of them were waiting on the same thing. Walking through the doors of the Church I was surprised by my reaction. I had assumed that after seeing such magnificent basilicas like St. Peter’s and St. John Lateran’s, I would be underwhelmed by a smaller church. The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, however, was just as ornately decorated. Each of the bordering chapels was filled with paintings, marble sculptures, and intricate moldings. And the Church housed works of some quintessentially Roman artists that we have seen all over Rome like Bernini and Caravaggio. While reading the labels in front of each chapel I considered how prolific these great Renaissance artists must have been to have their work commissioned all over the city. The Church also had many unique features that I had not noticed in any other churches or basilicas. For example, the altar was cheerfully decorated with sunflowers. This bright pop of yellow made the Church feel more accessible; I could easily picture parishioners attending mass here on a weekly basis. Additionally, the chapels along the side walls were very memorable because of their stylistic differences. Some consisted mainly of paintings (such as the one housing the Caravaggio paintings), others were entirely white marble, and some were highly wrought with variations of marble in black, green, and red. I also noticed many more symbols of death than I have seen in other buildings. Near the entrance was an eerie hooded marble skeleton in a niche covered with iron bars. And throughout the church were skulls and crossbones and other motifs of death. After sitting in the pew for a few minutes and reflecting while jotting notes in my journal, I was glad that I had chosen the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo as my third solo excursion; for an unassuming façade and scale, it was rich with valuable works of art and eclectic style.