SAN PIETRO IN MONTORIO

San Pietro in Montorio - click to enlarge

The church of San Pietro in Montorio is built where, according to Christian tradition, was crucified San Pietro and as early as the ninth century we know that here there was a monastery.

As time goes by the monastery fell into disrepair until Sixtus IV Della Rovere restored the monastery and built a new church, however, completed thanks to Pope Alexander VI Borgia and the funding that he obtained from Ferdinand the Catholic and Elizabeth of Castile.

Pope Borgia consecrated in 1500. It is not certain who was the designer maybe Baccio Pontelli (1450 – 1494).

The interior, particularly attractive, preserves masterpieces by Sebastiano del Piombo, Pomarancio, Baldassare Peruzzi, Giorgio Vasari and Bartolomeo Ammannati.

San Pietro in Montorio - click to enlarge
Sebastiano del Piombo	Baldassarre Peruzzi

The main altarpiece, up to 1797, was the Transfiguration of Raphael, that first was brought by the French in Paris, then it was returned TO Rome and nowadays is in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.
Under the main altar was the tomb of Beatrice Cenci, but even in death the unhappy Beatrice had rest, the tomb was desecrated by the French in 1798.

In the left of the nave to note the Virgin with the Child an St. Ann, the work of a pupil of Antoniazzo Romano.

San Pietro in Montorio - click to enlarge
Transfiguration	Virgin with the Child an St. Ann

In the cloister of the church of San Pietro in Montorio, you can admire one of the jewels of the Renaissance, the Temple of Bramante, dedicated to the martyrdom of St. Peter.

Bramante especially loved the Greek cross churches, in other words a circular plan (so he designed St. Peter in the Vatican), and the temple praises the symmetry of circular shapes, such as the dome, a perfect hemisphere, which inspired Michelangelo when he designed the dome of St. Peter in the Vatican, but as we know the genius of Giacomo Della Porta, turned the hemisphere by Michelangelo in the slender ellipsoid we see today.

Temple of Bramante - click to enlarge

In 1876, in the anti-clerical rage, the convent of San Pietro in Montorio was sold to  the Spanish State that assigned it as the Royal Spanish Academy in Rome.

Royal Spanish Academy in Rome - click to enlarge

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