Santa Maria Maddalena

The Santa Maria Maddalena is a Catholic church in Rome, Italy dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene. It is the conventual church of the adjacent General Curia of the Clerks Regular, Ministers to the Sick (Camillians), the world headquarters of the order. Located on the Via della Maddalena, one of the streets leading from the Piazza della Rotonda and the Pantheon in the Campo Marzio area, it is also Romes regional church for the people of Abruzzo.

The church was built on a 14th-century chapel, Santa Maria Maddalena, the regional church for expatriates from the Abruzzo region. In 1586 Saint Camillus de Lellis was given the church as the seat of the Clerks Regular, Ministers to the Sick (Italian: Ministri degli Infirmi). In the early 17th century the congregation rebuilt and expanded the structure, which was completed in 1699 in the Baroque style.

In seventy years of work several architects were involved. Carlo Fontana designed the dome in 1673; Giovanni Antonio de Rossi later worked on the building.

It is uncertain who designed the curved main façade, which was finished circa 1735 and is Rococo, an unusual style in Roman church façades. It also displays motifs reminiscent of Borromini. Early guide books credit Giuseppe Sardi with its design. Between 1732 and 1734, however, as architect of the order, the Portuguese architect Manuel Rodrigues dos Santos directed the completion of works at the church. The historian Alessandra Marino believes that it is to Dos Santos, rather than Giuseppe Sardi, that the design for the highly unusual façade decoration should be attributed. The architectural historian Nina Mallory has also maintained that Sardi is unlikely to be the designer of the façade.

The lower part of the façade contains statues of Camillus De Lellis and Philip Neri, with Mary Magdalen and St. Martha in the upper part.

To the left of the church is the monastery, constructed circa 1678, by Paolo Amato from Palermo and completed by Carlo Francesco Bizzacheri in the early 1680s.

The interior is architecturally complex, it has a Borrominesque elongated octagonal nave, with two chapels at each flank.

The Cappella di San Nicola di Bari, financed by Paolo Girolamo della Torre, was begun in 1690 by Mattia de Rossi and finished from 1694-96 by Bizzaccheri whose choice of colour tones would determine the colour scheme of the rest of the church in the mid-18th century. In this chapel is the painting Christ, Virgin, and San Nicola di Bari by Baciccia.^{[citation needed]}