The Parish Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo () is a titular church and a minor basilica in Rome run by the Augustinian order. It stands on the north side of Piazza del Popolo, one of the most famous squares in the city. The church is hemmed in between the Pincian Hill and Porta del Popolo, one of the gates in the Aurelian Wall as well as the starting point of Via Flaminia, the most important route from the north. Its location made the basilica the first church for the majority of travellers entering the city. The church contains works by several famous artists, such as Raphael, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Caravaggio, Alessandro Algardi, Pinturicchio, Andrea Bregno, Guillaume de Marcillat and Donato Bramante.
History
Legendary founding
The well-known foundation legend of Santa Maria del Popolo revolves around the evil memory of Emperor Nero and the cleansing of the area from this malicious legacy by Pope Paschal II. As the story goes, after his suicide Nero was buried in the mausoleum of his paternal family, the Domitii Ahenobarbi, at the foot of the Pincian Hill. The sepulchre was later buried under a landslide and on its ruins grew a huge walnut tree that "was so tall and sublime that no other plant exceeded it in any ways." The tree soon became the haunt for a multitude of vicious demons harassing the inhabitants of the area and also the travelers arriving in the city from the north through Porta Flaminia: "some were being frightened, possessed, cruelly beaten and injured, others almost strangled, or miserably killed."
As the demons endangered an important access road of the city and also upset the entire population, the newly elected pontiff, Paschal II, was seriously concerned. He "saw the flock of Christ committed to his watch, becoming prey to the infernal wolves."Ambrogio Landucci, cited by Alessandro Locchi: La vicenda della sepoltura di Nerone. in: Fabrizio Vistoli (ed.): Tomba di Nerone. Toponimo, comprensorio e zona urbanistica di Roma Capitale, Rome, Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2012, pp. 111–112 The Pope fasted and prayed for three days and at the end of that period, exhausted, he dreamt of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who gave him detailed instructions on how to free the city from the demonic scourge.
On the Thursday after the Third Sunday of Lent in 1099, the Pope organised the entire clergy and populace of Rome in one, impressive procession that, with the crucifix at its head, went along the urban stretch of the Via Flaminia until it reached the infested place. There, Paschal II performed the rite of exorcism and then struck the walnut tree with a determined blow to its root, causing the evil spirits to burst forth, madly screaming. When the whole tree was removed, the remains of Nero were discovered among the ruins; the Pope ordered these thrown into the Tiber.
Finally liberated from the demons, that corner of Rome could be devoted to Christian worship. Paschal II, to the sound of hymns, placed the first stone of an altar at the former site of the walnut tree. This was incorporated into a simple chapel which was completed in three days. The construction was celebrated with particular solemnity: the Pope consecrated the small sanctuary in the presence of a large crowd, accompanied by ten cardinals, four archbishops, ten bishops and other prelates. He also granted the chapel many relics and dedicated it to the Virgin Mary.
Historical origins
The legend was recounted by an Augustinian friar, Giacomo Alberici in his treatise about the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo which was published in Rome in 1599 and translated into Italian the next year.Iacobo de Albericis (Giacomo Alberici): Historiarum sanctissimae et gloriosissimae virginis deiparae de populo almae urbis compendium, Roma, Nicolai Mutij (Nicolo Muzi), 1599, pp. 1–10. Another Augustinian, Ambrogio Landucci rehashed the same story in his book about the origins of the basilica in 1646.Ambrogio Landucci:Origine del tempio dedicato in Roma alla Vergine Madre di Dio Maria, presso alla Porta Flaminia, detto hoggi del popolo, Roma, Franceso Moneta, 1646, pp. 7–20. The legend has been retold several times ever since with slight changes in collections of Roman curiosities, scientific literature and guidebooks. An example of the variations could be found in Ottavio Panciroli's book which claimed that the demons inhabiting the tree took the form of black crows.Ottavio Panciroli: Tesori nascosti dell'alma citta' di Roma, Rome, Heredi di Alessandro Zannetti, 1625, p. 449 It is not known how far the tradition goes back but in 1726 in the archive of Santa Maria del Popolo there was a catalogue of the holy relics of the church written in 1426 which contained a (lost) version of the "miracle of the walnut tree". This was allegedly copied from an even more ancient tabella at the main altar.Santa Maria del Popolo a Roma, ed. E. Bentivoglio and S. Valtieri, Bari-Roma, 1976, p. 203. In the 15th century the story was already popular enough to be recounted by various German sources like Nikolaus Muffel's Description of Rome (1452)Nikolaus Muffel: Beschreibung der Stadt Rom, herausg. Wilhelm Vogt, Literarischer Verein, Stuttgart, 1876, p. 53 or The Pilgrimage of Arnold Von Harff (1497).The Pilgrimage of Arnold Von Harff (ed. and trans. Malcolm Letts), London, The Hakluyt Society, 1946, pp. 34–35
The factual basis of the legend is weak. Nero was indeed buried in the mausoleum of his paternal family, but Suetonius in his Life of Nero writes that "the family tomb of the Domitii [was] on the summit of the Hill of Gardens, which is visible from the Campus Martius." The location of the mausoleum was therefore somewhere on the higher north-west slopes of the Pincian Hill and certainly not at the foot of it where the church stands.Platner & Ashby: “Sepulcrum Domitiorum”, in Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London, 1929, p. 479
The foundation of the chapel by Paschal II was maybe part of an effort to restore the safety of the area around Porta Flaminia which was outside the inhabited core of medieval Rome and certainly infested with bandits. Another possible source of inspiration for the legend could have been the well-documented revenge of Pope Paschal II on the body of his opponent, Antipope Clement III. The pope seized the city of Civita Castellana, had Clement's cadaver exhumed from his tomb, and ordered it thrown into the Tiber. Clement III was the protégée of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV who was often called "Nero" by the papal party.Kai-Michael Sprenger: The Tiara in the Tiber. An Essay on the damnatio in memoria of Clement III (1084–1100) and Rome’s River as a Place of Oblivion and Memory, Reti Medievali Rivista, 13, 1 (2012), pp. 164–168
Etymology
The name del Popolo ("of the people") was most probably derived from populus meaning large rural parish in medieval Latin. In this case the name refers to the first suburban settlement around Via Flaminia that was formed after the chapel had been built in this previously deserted part of Campus Martius.Mariano Armellini: Le chiese di Roma dal secolo IV al XIX, Tipografia Vaticana, 1891, p. 320 Others think the denomination implied that the people of Rome were saved from the demonic scourge or it came from the Latin word pōpulus, meaning poplar. The demonic tree was a huge walnut but there might have been poplar trees growing on ancient tombs in the locality. The name S. Maria ad Flaminiam appeared in some 15th-century documents.
Early history
The name of Santa Maria del Popolo is missing in the catalogue of the churches of Rome which was written by Cencio Camerario in 1192. Later tradition held that the miraculous image of Our Lady, painted by St. Luke himself, was moved to the church by Pope Gregory IX from the Sancta Sanctorum in the Lateran. This happened after a flood of the Tiber – probably the great flood in 1230 – caused a horrible plague in the city. The pope convoked the cardinals, the whole clergy and the people of Rome and the icon was transferred in a solemn procession to Santa Maria del Popolo. After that the plague ceased and the tranquility of the city was restored.Landucci, pp. 76–77 The Madonna del Popolo has certainly remained one of the most popular Marian icons through the centuries, attracted many pilgrims and assured a greater role to the geographically still remote church. In 2018, it was announced that the icon was a work of Filippo Rusuti, whose signature was discovered on the image during restoration.
The early history of Santa Maria del Popolo is almost unknown because the archives of the church were dispersed during the Napoleonic era and few documents survived from before 1500. The first references in archival sources are from the 13th century. The Catalogue of Paris (compiled around 1230 or 1272–76) listing the churches of Rome already contains the name of Santa Maria de Populo.Paul Fabre: Un nouveau catalogue des Églises de Rome, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, 1887, Vol. 7, p. 437 There may have been a small Franciscan community living by the church until around 1250 but it is possible that they stayed there only temporarily.Anne Dunlop: Pinturicchio and the Pilgrims: Devotion and the Past at Santa Maria Del Popolo, Papers of the British School at Rome, 2003, p. 267, citing Oliger: 'De fratribus minoribus apud S. Mariae Populi Romae a. 1250 habitantibus', Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 18 (1925)
The Augustinians
In the middle of the 13th century the church was given to the Order of Saint Augustine which has maintained it ever since. The Augustinians were a new mendicant order established under the guidance of Cardinal Riccardo Annibaldi, probably the most influential member of the Roman Curia at the time. Annibaldi was appointed corrector and provisor of the Tuscan hermits by Pope Innocent IV in December 1243. The cardinal convened a meeting to Santa Maria del Popolo for the delegates of the hermitic communities where they declared their union and the foundation of the new order that the Pope confirmed with the bull Pia desideria on 31 March 1244.Francis Roth: Il Cardinale Riccardo degli Annibaldi, primo protettore dell'ordine agostiniano, in: Augustiniana vol. 2-3 (1952-53)
A few years later a community of friars was established by the church and the Franciscans were compensated for their loss with the monastery of Ara Coeli. This probably happened in 1250 or 1251. The so-called Grand Union that integrated various other hermitic communities with the Tuscans by the order of Pope Alexander IV was also established on the general chapter held in Santa Maria del Popolo under the supervision of Cardinal Annibaldi in March 1256. The strong connection between the Annibaldi family and the church was attested on an inscription that mentioned two noble ladies of the family, Caritia and Gulitia who set up some kind of marble monument in the basilica in 1263.The inscription was already recorded by Fioravante Martinelli: Roma ricercata, 1658, p. 302 The Catalogue of Turin (c. 1320) stated that the monastery had 12 friars from the order of the hermits at the time.
In his bull Dum praecelsa Pope Boniface IX on 30 August 1400 granted a special indulgence to those who offered alms for the construction of a new tabernacle above the miraculous image of the Virgin. A marble relief depicting the Coronation of the Virgin (now preserved in the sacristy corridor) could have been part of a Gothic ciborium or cella built for the icon after that papal concession.Claudia Bolgia: Icons 'in the Air': New Settings for the Sacred in Medieval Rome, in: Architecture and Pilgrimage, 1000-1500. Southern Europe and Beyond, Routledge, 2016, p. 134