DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.71133#0138
CHAPTER IV.
To St. Mary Major and the Holy Places on the
Esquiline.
76.—SS. DOMENICO E SISTO NEAR PIAZZA MAGNANAPOLI.
St. Bridget of Sweden was bidden by our Divine Lord
to go to the Holy City to obtain the confirmation of the Rule
of her Order. “ Go to Rome : there the streets are all golden-
paved and bedewed with the blood of martyrs ; there, because
of the Indulgences their merits have won, the road to Heaven is
shortened.”
It is well in visiting the churches to have the intention of
gaining all these Indulgences, which are very great and
numerous ; and in passing along the streets to reflect that we
are treading in the footsteps of saints, on soil reddened with the
blood of martyrs.
Starting from the Piazza del Quirinale 1 we follow the wide
street that leads down to the Via Nazionale, having on our left
the Palazzo Rospigliosi, built on the site of the baths of
Constantine, and on our right the handsome entrance to the
Colonna gardens. On the site of these gardens stood Aurelian’s
great Temple of the Sun, a colossal building, occasionally
referred to in the Acts of the Martyrs. It was built after the
conquest of Palmyra in A.D. 273, and placed at the top of a
broad flight of marble steps leading from the Campus Martins
to the crest of the Quirinal hill. The steps in question were
removed to the Ara Cceli great staircase in 1348 by Lorenzo
di Andreozzo. Just beyond the garden is the Church of
S. Silvestro a Monte Cavallo, belonging to the Lazarists or
Missionaries of St. Vincent de Paul. A few months after the
Suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, Pope Clement XIV
gave the church, house (novitiate) and garden of S. Andrea in
Quirinale to these Religious, who enjoyed the possession of the
property till 1810, when they were banished by the French
1 The terminus of the well-known Via Venti Settembre.
To St. Mary Major and the Holy Places on the
Esquiline.
76.—SS. DOMENICO E SISTO NEAR PIAZZA MAGNANAPOLI.
St. Bridget of Sweden was bidden by our Divine Lord
to go to the Holy City to obtain the confirmation of the Rule
of her Order. “ Go to Rome : there the streets are all golden-
paved and bedewed with the blood of martyrs ; there, because
of the Indulgences their merits have won, the road to Heaven is
shortened.”
It is well in visiting the churches to have the intention of
gaining all these Indulgences, which are very great and
numerous ; and in passing along the streets to reflect that we
are treading in the footsteps of saints, on soil reddened with the
blood of martyrs.
Starting from the Piazza del Quirinale 1 we follow the wide
street that leads down to the Via Nazionale, having on our left
the Palazzo Rospigliosi, built on the site of the baths of
Constantine, and on our right the handsome entrance to the
Colonna gardens. On the site of these gardens stood Aurelian’s
great Temple of the Sun, a colossal building, occasionally
referred to in the Acts of the Martyrs. It was built after the
conquest of Palmyra in A.D. 273, and placed at the top of a
broad flight of marble steps leading from the Campus Martins
to the crest of the Quirinal hill. The steps in question were
removed to the Ara Cceli great staircase in 1348 by Lorenzo
di Andreozzo. Just beyond the garden is the Church of
S. Silvestro a Monte Cavallo, belonging to the Lazarists or
Missionaries of St. Vincent de Paul. A few months after the
Suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, Pope Clement XIV
gave the church, house (novitiate) and garden of S. Andrea in
Quirinale to these Religious, who enjoyed the possession of the
property till 1810, when they were banished by the French
1 The terminus of the well-known Via Venti Settembre.