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Santa Susanna, Rome
The Church of Saint Susanna at the Baths of Diocletian (Italian: Chiesa di Santa Susanna alle Terme di Diocleziano) is a Catholic parish and Cistercian conventual church located on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, Italy. There has been a titular church associated to its site as far back as AD 280. The current church was rebuilt between 1585 and 1603 for a community of Cistercian nuns founded on the site in 1587 and still based there.
The church served as the national parish for residents of Rome from the United States from 1921 to 2017, during which period the pastoral work of the parish was assigned to the Paulist Fathers, a society of priests founded in the United States. The Paulist Fathers' ministry to United States Catholics subsequently moved to San Patrizio (Saint Patrick).
About AD 280, an early Christian house of worship was established on this site, which, like many of the earliest Christian meeting places, was in a house (domus ecclesiae). According to the 6th-century acta of Susanna, the domus belonged to two brothers named Caius and Gabinus, prominent Christians. Caius has been identified both with Pope Caius and with Caius the presbyter, who was a prefect and who is a source of information on early Christianity. Gabinus or Gabinius is the name given to the father of the semi-legendary Susanna of Rome. Her earliest documented attestations identify her as the patron of the church, not as a martyr, and previously the church was identified in the earliest, fourth-century documents by its title "of Gaius" by the Baths of Diocletian or as "ad duas domos" ("near the two houses"). It is mentioned in connection with a Roman synod of 499.
The Church of Santa Susanna is one of the oldest titles in the city of Rome. The early Christian church, built on the remains of three Roman villas still visible beneath the monastery, was situated immediately outside the wall of the Baths built by Diocletian and the Servian Wall, the first walls built to defend the city. According to tradition, the church was erected on Susanna's house, where she was martyred. In the 4th century it was marked with the designation ad duas domos (at the two houses). This first three-aisled basilica was almost certainly built under the pontificate of Pope Leo III (795–816).
According to tradition, the structure became a church around 330, under Emperor Constantine I, when the basilicas of numerous house churches came to be adapted for liturgical use. The basilica was T-shaped with a central nave with twelve columns on each side, flanked by side aisles. All that is left of these two side aisles, after the late 16th-century rebuilding, are the two side chapels of the basilica church. In the Synod of 565, the church is first referred to by the title of Susanna; the church has been dedicated to her veneration ever since. In the acta, Susanna is martyred with her family when the girl refuses to marry the son of Emperor Diocletian; the occasion of Susanna's martyrdom is a literary trope that is familiar in other "passions" of virgins in the Roman Martyrology
Pope Sergius I restored it at the end of the 7th century, but Pope Leo III, the fourth pope who had been pastor of this church, rebuilt it from the ground in 796, adding the great apse and conserving the relics of the saints in the crypt. A vast mosaic of Christ flanked by Leo and the Emperor Charlemagne, and Saints Susanna and Felicity on the other side, was so badly damaged in the 12th century by an earthquake that the interior was plastered over in the complete renovation that spanned the years 1585–1602, and frescoed by Cesare Nebbia.
A façade, in travertine, remained to be constructed. The present church of Santa Susanna on its ancient foundations was the first independent commission in Rome for Carlo Maderno, who had trained as an assistant to his uncle Domenico Fontana, the chief architect of Pope Sixtus V. In 1603, Maderno completed the façade, a highly influential early Baroque design. The dynamic rhythm of columns and pilasters, crowding centrally, and the protrusion and increased central decoration add further complexity to the structure. There is an interplay of relationships, none exactly symmetric on any one mirror side. The entrance and roof are surrounded by triangular pediments. The windows are replaced by niches. There is an incipient playfulness with the rules of classic design, still maintaining rigor. The statues of the higher level (Pope Caius and Genesius of Rome) are by Giovanni Antonio Paracea, those of the lower level (Susanna and Felicitas of Rome) are by Stefano Maderno.
The church of Santa Susanna was accounted so successful that in 1605 Pope Paul V named Maderno architect of Saint Peter's Basilica, where he completed the nave and constructed the great façade.
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Santa Susanna, Rome
The Church of Saint Susanna at the Baths of Diocletian (Italian: Chiesa di Santa Susanna alle Terme di Diocleziano) is a Catholic parish and Cistercian conventual church located on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, Italy. There has been a titular church associated to its site as far back as AD 280. The current church was rebuilt between 1585 and 1603 for a community of Cistercian nuns founded on the site in 1587 and still based there.
The church served as the national parish for residents of Rome from the United States from 1921 to 2017, during which period the pastoral work of the parish was assigned to the Paulist Fathers, a society of priests founded in the United States. The Paulist Fathers' ministry to United States Catholics subsequently moved to San Patrizio (Saint Patrick).
About AD 280, an early Christian house of worship was established on this site, which, like many of the earliest Christian meeting places, was in a house (domus ecclesiae). According to the 6th-century acta of Susanna, the domus belonged to two brothers named Caius and Gabinus, prominent Christians. Caius has been identified both with Pope Caius and with Caius the presbyter, who was a prefect and who is a source of information on early Christianity. Gabinus or Gabinius is the name given to the father of the semi-legendary Susanna of Rome. Her earliest documented attestations identify her as the patron of the church, not as a martyr, and previously the church was identified in the earliest, fourth-century documents by its title "of Gaius" by the Baths of Diocletian or as "ad duas domos" ("near the two houses"). It is mentioned in connection with a Roman synod of 499.
The Church of Santa Susanna is one of the oldest titles in the city of Rome. The early Christian church, built on the remains of three Roman villas still visible beneath the monastery, was situated immediately outside the wall of the Baths built by Diocletian and the Servian Wall, the first walls built to defend the city. According to tradition, the church was erected on Susanna's house, where she was martyred. In the 4th century it was marked with the designation ad duas domos (at the two houses). This first three-aisled basilica was almost certainly built under the pontificate of Pope Leo III (795–816).
According to tradition, the structure became a church around 330, under Emperor Constantine I, when the basilicas of numerous house churches came to be adapted for liturgical use. The basilica was T-shaped with a central nave with twelve columns on each side, flanked by side aisles. All that is left of these two side aisles, after the late 16th-century rebuilding, are the two side chapels of the basilica church. In the Synod of 565, the church is first referred to by the title of Susanna; the church has been dedicated to her veneration ever since. In the acta, Susanna is martyred with her family when the girl refuses to marry the son of Emperor Diocletian; the occasion of Susanna's martyrdom is a literary trope that is familiar in other "passions" of virgins in the Roman Martyrology
Pope Sergius I restored it at the end of the 7th century, but Pope Leo III, the fourth pope who had been pastor of this church, rebuilt it from the ground in 796, adding the great apse and conserving the relics of the saints in the crypt. A vast mosaic of Christ flanked by Leo and the Emperor Charlemagne, and Saints Susanna and Felicity on the other side, was so badly damaged in the 12th century by an earthquake that the interior was plastered over in the complete renovation that spanned the years 1585–1602, and frescoed by Cesare Nebbia.
A façade, in travertine, remained to be constructed. The present church of Santa Susanna on its ancient foundations was the first independent commission in Rome for Carlo Maderno, who had trained as an assistant to his uncle Domenico Fontana, the chief architect of Pope Sixtus V. In 1603, Maderno completed the façade, a highly influential early Baroque design. The dynamic rhythm of columns and pilasters, crowding centrally, and the protrusion and increased central decoration add further complexity to the structure. There is an interplay of relationships, none exactly symmetric on any one mirror side. The entrance and roof are surrounded by triangular pediments. The windows are replaced by niches. There is an incipient playfulness with the rules of classic design, still maintaining rigor. The statues of the higher level (Pope Caius and Genesius of Rome) are by Giovanni Antonio Paracea, those of the lower level (Susanna and Felicitas of Rome) are by Stefano Maderno.
The church of Santa Susanna was accounted so successful that in 1605 Pope Paul V named Maderno architect of Saint Peter's Basilica, where he completed the nave and constructed the great façade.