Santo Stefano Rotondo
41.88458333333312.49675Koordinaten: 41 ° 53 '4 " N, 12 ° 29' 48" E
Santo Stefano Rotondo, including Santo Stefano al Monte Celio, completely Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio, is a church in Rome, dedicated to the martyr Stephen, and one of the titular churches of the city. It is located on the hill Celio in the east of the old town in the Rione Monti. Santo Stefano is the National Church of Hungary.
Predecessors
The Caelius was in the Roman Empire, a preferred residential area of Rome. The Via Caelimontana, today's Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo, connected the Porta Caelimontana in the old Servian Wall built in the 3rd century Porta Praenestina. To her, built in the 2nd century Castra Peregrinorum, a barracks for soldiers who have been transferred from provincial legions to Rome, which was used until the 4th century was. Around the year 180 AD a Mithraeum was incorporated into the barracks, which was discovered during excavations under the Church today. The Mithraeum was probably abandoned and destroyed after the object of the barracks still in use and was only shortly before the establishment of the Church. The excavations can be visited only on request.
Due to the unusual shape of the church, there was speculation in the past, the church goes back to an ancient circular temple, for example, a temple of Faunus. This was refuted by archaeological investigations.
Architectural history of the church
About the planarized Castra Peregrinorum the construction of the church of Santo Stefano was started in the middle of the 5th century. She was designed as a circular building with three concentric circles, the outer had a diameter of 65.80 m. The circularity was enrolled a Greek cross, which in the roof shape was visible from the outside and the inside was illustrated with partitions. The church was dedicated to the first Christian martyr Stephen and consecrated in the tenure of Pope Simplicius ( 468-483 ). Since 499 Santo Stefano is occupied as a titular church. In the years 523-530, she was decorated with the now-defunct mosaics and colored marble slabs.
Between 590 and 596 founded a monastery Pope Gregory I in the church. Pope Theodore I. had in his tenure ( 642-649 ) the relics of the martyr Felician and Primus from the catacombs on the Via Nomentana to Santo Stefano convict. This is the first transfer of relics in a church. In this context, the apse was built, now the north-eastern arm of the cross, the only surviving, is located.
Pope Hadrian I had the church restored in his tenure, 772-795. But in the turmoil of the 11th and 12th century it was almost destroyed. Pope Innocent II made her re- build to 1143. She was, however significantly reduced. The outer ring has been abandoned except for the segment of the chapel for Felician and Primus.
1450 came the church and monastery of the Hungarian mendicant orders of the Pauline. Bernardo Rosselino renovated the church 1450-1454 and created the high altar in the Renaissance style.
1579 took over the Collegium Hungaricum the church, which was already in 1580 united with the Collegium Germanicum the Pontifical Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum de Urbe, which maintains the church today. 1580 painted Antonio Tempesta from the Chapel of the Holy Primus and Felician. Niccolò Circignani and Matteo da Siena (Landscape Hinder reasons ) created from 1582 to 1583 the frescoes with scenes of martyrdom in 32 scenes. They show in a drastic manner the torture and executions of early Christian martyrs.
1778 Saint Stephen of Hungary was dedicated a chapel. It houses the tomb of Bernardino Chapel, which was created by Lorenzetto in 1524. In 1778 the chapel of Pietro Camporese ( 1726-1781 ) has been redesigned.
At present, Santo Stefano Rotondo is the titular church of Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, the former Archbishop of Munich and Freising.