Santa Maria Antiqua
The church of S. Maria Antiqua is situated in the Roman Forum at the foot of the Palatine Hill. It was discovered in 1900 and its surviving wall paintings represent a unique heritage in the Christian world between the 6th and the 11th centuries. The church was inserted into an existing imperial complex, dating back to Domitian (81-96 CE), in the course of the 6th century. Over the following five centuries, it was decorated with an extraordinary series of murals bearing witness to imperial, papal and monastic patronage.
The church was abandoned after an earthquake in 847, but the Atrium and the Oratory of the Forty Martyrs continued to be used throughout the 11th century. S. Maria Antiqua’s pictorial decoration testifies to the development in the early Middle Ages both of painting in Rome and of the Byzantine world as a whole.
The ‘palimpsest wall’, in the sanctuary, is considered by many a milestone in the history of medieval painting and attests to the development of the decorative phases of the church through the overlapping of eight layers of painted frescoes. Through its palimpsests wall and and its more than twenty pictorial phases, S. Maria Antiqua challenges scholars and visitors to read a complex multilayered pictorial decoration and to measure themselves dynamically with obliterations, reuses and cohabitations of murals from different periods.
monument timeline
81-96 CE
construction of the Domitianic complex
Second half of the 4th c.
addition of decoration in opus sectile and mosaic
First half of 6th c.
Christianization of site; addition of Maria Regina mural
Second half of 6th c.
insertion of apse; Angelo bello mural on palimpsest wall
End 6th/early 7th c.
addition of mural icons: Virgin and Child, the Maccabees, St Barbara, St Demetrius, Deësis, etc.
Post 649 CE
re-painting of palimpsest wall: Church Fathers with texts
Pope John VII (705-707)
murals in the sanctuary, Chapel of the Holy Physicians, high and low choir bench seats; addition of marble pulpit
Pope Zacharias (741-752)
decoration of the Theodotus Chapel
Pope Stephan II (752-757)
murals in right aisle: Old Testament cycle; left aisle: New Testament cycle and niche with the Three Mothers;
Pope Paul I (757-767)
mural in apse: Christ, tetramorphs, Mary and Paul I; atrium: St Abbacyrus
Pope Hadrian (772-795)
mural in atrium: Virgin and Child with saints and Pope Hadrian
847
earthquake in Rome: abandonment of the church and transfer of icon to S. Maria Novella
9th-11th c.
murals in the atrium: Virgin and Child with donors; scenes from the life of St Anthony; Christ between saints Abbacyrus and John; and various other images of saints
11th c.
final abandonment of structure
End 11th / early 12th c.
S. Maria de inferno built on the Oratory of the Forty Martyrs
1617
S. Maria Liberatrice built on the existing structure of S. Maria de inferno
1702
the ‘first’ discovery of S. Maria Antiqua
1900
demolition of S. Maria Liberatrice and Boni’s excavation of S. Maria Antiqua complex
1900-1903
the first restoration campaign
1906-1910
the second restoration campaign
1947-1959
the ICR restoration works
1981-1982
restoration works on: the left aisle murals; the high choir bench seat; the Three saints panel on the south-east pillar.
1985-1989
restoration works on the Atrium’s murals
1998-1999
building maintenance works
2000-2015
the conservation campaign of the church murals and the floor
2016
reopening of the church to the public with the Exhibition Santa Maria Antiqua tra Roma e Bisanzio (17 March 2016 to 19 March 2017)