- Church of Santi Michele e Magno
-
Church of St. Michael and St. Magnus
Chiesa dei Santi Michele e Magno (Italian)
Friezenkerk (Dutch)
Basic information Location Rome, Italy Geographic coordinates 41°54′5.26″N 12°27′32.26″E / 41.9014611°N 12.4589611°ECoordinates: 41°54′5.26″N 12°27′32.26″E / 41.9014611°N 12.4589611°E Affiliation Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical or organizational status National Church in Rome of The Netherlands Leadership P. Tiemen J. S. Brouwer[1] Website friezenkerk.nl Architectural description Architect(s) François Desjardins Architectural type Church Architectural style Baroque Groundbreaking 1141 Specifications Length 28 metres (92 ft) Width 12 metres (39 ft) Height (max) 20 metres (66 ft) The Church of Saints Michael and Magnus (Italian: Santi Michele e Magno, Dutch: Friezenkerk) is a Roman Catholic church in Rome, Italy, dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel and the Bishop Saint Magnus of Anagni. It lies in Rione Borgo, and is the national church dedicated to The Netherlands. It is also known as the "Church of the Frisians" (Dutch: Kerk van de Friezen). Since 1989 the church was granted to the Dutch community in Rome.
Contents
History
The Frisians were converted to Christianism in the 8th century by Saint Willibrord, known as the "Apostle to the Frisians" in the modern Netherlands. The Northumbrian missionary crossed with eleven companions the North Sea to bring the Gospel. From that time Frisian pilgrims visited Rome regularly. The old name for the people from the Low Countries that came to Rome remained.
Since the 8th century, a Frisian colony lived in Rome. The Schola of the Frisians is first mentioned during the return to Rome of Pope Leo III in 799, by the greetings of Charles the Great in 800 and Louis II of Italy in 844. In 845 the Frisians defended with the inhabitants of the other scholae St. Peter's basilica and its neighborhood against the invasion of the Saracens. The schola was nonetheless plundered. Shortly after, the neighborhood was surrounded by a wall, of which still remains can be seen. Any pilgrim from the Frisian territory who came to Rome would stay in the Frisian hospice, the closest to the St Peter's.
No remains are left from the old church that belonged to the small settlement. All we know is that it existed and that it had a patron: St Michael the Archangel that liberated Rome from the plague. Later a second saint patron was added to the church: Saint Magnus of Anagni, whose remains ended up in the church five hundred years after his death. Enthusiastic Frisians tried to bring the relics back to Frisia, but that initiative was stopped by Pope Leo IV and since then the relics remained in Rome. Pope Eugene IV deprived in 1446 the perpetual right of the Frisians to the church Santi Michele e Magno in Rome.
Description
In 1141 the new and bigger church was built. It was a Romanesque building, with old columns, and a beautiful bell tower. This bell tower is still admirable, but the church looks very different than when it was built. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the interior was transformed to the extent that only small Romanesque details remain visible.
The church is built against the slope of the Gianicolo hill. Thanks to its location it was preserved in the 16th century when all the buildings at the bottom of the hill were demolished for the construction of St. Peter's basilica. The Church of the Frisians is the only existing building that reminds us directly from the scholae, build around the tomb of St. Peter.
There are two fragments of a tombstone of a Frisian knight called Hebus that died in 1004 in Rome at a nonagenarian age.
Scala Sancta
The church's Scala Sancta is to be found in lateral chapel renovated in 2000.[2]
Burials
- Tomb of Anton Raphael Mengs designed by Vincenzo Pacetti.
Notes
References
- De Blaauw, Sible, The medieval church of San Michele dei Frisoni, Papers of the Netherlands Institute in Rome - Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome, Uitgeverij Van Gorcum, pp. 151–165, ISBN 9023228871, http://books.google.com/books?id=sVJGuPFozt4C&pg=PA151
- Pope John Paul II (1995-11-12). "Dedicazione Del Nuovo Altare Nella Chiesa Dei Santi Michele e Magno" (in Italian). http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/1995/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19951112_dedicaz-altare_it.html.
- Muskens, M. P. M. (1994) (in Dutch), De Kerk van de Friezen bij het graf van Petrus: de geschiedenis van de kerk, de kerk in de geschiedenis, Willibrordcentrum, ISBN 8876217916
- "Geschiedenis Friezenkerk" (in Dutch). http://www.friezenkerk.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51:geschiedenis-friezenkerk&catid=39:historie&Itemid=69. Retrieved 17 June 2011.
- Official website of the vicariate of Rome - Chiesa Annessa Santi Michele e Magno
See also
External links
Categories:- National churches in Rome
- Dutch mythology
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
