Rome goes Medieval

Rome's church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva preserves sculptures by Michelangelo and Bernini, the bodies of Fra' Angelico and St. Catherine, and the tombs of two Medici popes—so why isn't it more famous?

Rome's only Gothic church was built in 1280 over the site of a

Temple to Minerva

(hence the name, "St. Mary over Minerva"). The piazza out front sports a whimsical

statute by Bernini of a baby elephant

carrying a miniature Egyptian obelisk on its back (1667).

The interior was heavily restored in the 19th century, and contains some masterpieces by Tuscan Renaissance artists and the bodies of important Tuscan Renaissance personalities.

The last chapel on the right retains a sumptuous cycle of

frescoes by Filippino Lippi

(coin-op lights). In the scene of St. Thomas Condemning the Heretics on the lower half of the chapel's right wall, the two boys in the group on the right are portraits of Giovanni de' Medici and Giulio de' Medici. These two would grow up to become

Popes Leo X and Clement VII,

respectively, and are buried in the apse in

tombs by Antonio Sangallo the Younger.

Under the altar lies the body of the pious medieval activist and Dominican nun

St. Catherine of Siena

(1347–1380), a skilled theologian and diplomat whose letters and visits were instrumental in returning the papacy from Avignon to Rome.

To the left of the altar steps is

Michelangelo's muscular Risen Christ

(1514–21), leaning nonchalantly on a diminutive Cross (such a strong, virile, and quite naked Christ wasn't to everyone's taste, and the church later added a sweep of bronze drapery to cover the Lord's loins).

In a corridor to the left of the choir, behind a small fence, is the tomb slab of the early Renaissance master and devout monk

Fra' Angelico,

who died in the attached convent in 1455. Pope Nicholas V, who had commissioned a Vatican chapel from the painter 10 years earlier and was touched by the little monk's piety, modesty, and skill, wrote the epitaph himself.

Piazza della Minerva