Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri

Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri (English: St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs) is a basilica built inside the tepidarium of the baths of Diocletian, in Rome. The basilica is dedicated to the Christian martyrs who, allegedly, worked to build the baths.

Related Topics:
Basilica - Baths of Diocletian - Rome - Christian martyrs

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Michelangelo Buonarroti worked to adapt the baths to a church up to 1561. Later, the works were directed by Vanvitelli

Related Topics:
Michelangelo Buonarroti - 1561 - Vanvitelli

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Around 1700, Pope Clement XI commissioned th the astronomer, mathematician, archaeologist, historian and philosopher Francesco Bianchini a sundial, the Meridian Line, to be built within the basilica. The project meaning was threefold: the pope wanted to check the exactness of the Gregorian reformation of the calendar, to produce a tool to exactly predict Easters, and to give Rome a sundial as important as the one recently built in Bologna's cathedral, San Petronio. The sundial was built along the meridian that crosses Rome, at longitude 12° 50'; at true noon, around 12.15 pm (1.15 pm in summer time), the sun casts its light dead on this line. The meridian is 45 m long, and is composed by a bronze line, eclosed in a yellow-white marble.

Related Topics:
1700 - Pope Clement XI - Sundial - Gregorian reformation of the calendar - Easter - Bologna

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Santa Maria degli Angeli was the official state church during the Kingdom of Italy (1870-1946), but recently, some national burial have been held in the same church. The church hosts the tomb of Armando Diaz, the general who won the World War I on the Italian front.

Related Topics:
1870 - 1946 - Armando Diaz - World War I

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William Henry Cardinal Keeler is the Cardinal Priest of the Titule of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.

Related Topics:
William Henry Cardinal Keeler - Cardinal Priest

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