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SANTAMARIADEGLIANGELIEDEIMARTIRI

Location - Rome, ItalyAffiliation - Roman Catholic

Ecclesiastical or organizational status - Minor basilica

Arch i tectura l descr ipt ion

Architect(s) - Michelangelo Buonarroti, Luigi VanvitelliArchitectural type - Church

Architectural style - Baroque

Speci f icat ions

Length - 128 metres (420 ft)

Width - 105 metres (344 ft)

Width (nave) - 25 metres (82 ft

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THEBASILICA..The basilica is dedicated to the Christian martyrs, It was also apersonal monument of Pope Pius IV.

The thermaeof Diocletian dominated the Quirinal Hill with theirruined mass and had successfully resisted Christianization.Michelangelo Buonarroti worked from 1563 to 1564 to adapt a sectionof the remaining structure of the baths to enclose a church.

There is no true facade (i l lustrat ion); the simple entrance is setwithin one of the coved apses of a main space of the thermae.

The vestibule with canted corners and identical side chapels leads toa second vestibule, repeated on the far side of the transept.

Raising the floor truncated the red granite Roman columns(illustration on left) that articulate the transept

and its flanking spaces.

In 2006, Polish-born sculptor Igor Mitoraj created new bronze doors

as well as a statue of John the Baptist for the basilica.Santa Maria degli Angeli was the official state church during theKingdom of Italy (1870-1946). More recently, national burials havebeen held in the church.

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The raised space of the

Tribune.

Diagram of Bianchini's

meridian in Santa Maria

degli Angeli e dei Martiri,

fromhis De Calendario...

(1703).

Bianchini's gnomon

projects the sun's image

onto his line just before

solar noon, around

11:54 in late October

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bianchini's_meridian_line_with_solar_disc.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rome-Meridiana_SantaMariaAngeli.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mariadosanjos3b.jpg

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THEMERIDIANLINEAt the beginning of the eighteenth century, Pope Clement XIcommissioned the astronomer, mathematician, archaeologist,

historian and philosopher Francesco Bianchini to build a meridianline, a sort of sundial, within the basilica.

Completed in 1702, the object had a threefold purpose: the popewanted to check the accuracy of the Gregorian reformation of thecalendar, to produce a tool to exactly predict Easter, and, not least,to give Rome a meridian line as important as the one Giovanni

Domenico Cassini had recently built in Bologna's cathedral, SanPetronio.

This church was chosen for several reasons:

(1) Like other baths in Rome, the building was already naturallysoutherly oriented, so as to receive unobstructed exposure to

the sun.(2) The height of the walls allowed for a long line to more precisely

measure the sun's progress through the year.

(3) The ancient walls had long since stopped settling into theground, ensuring that carefully calibrated observationalinstruments set in them would not move out of place.

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At the summer, the sun appears highest, and its ray hits the

meridian line at the point closest to the wall.

At the winter the ray crosses the line at the point

furthest from the wall.

The longer the meridian line, the more accurately the

observer can calculate the length of the year.

The meridian line built here is 45 meters long and iscomposed of bronze, enclosed in yellow-white marble

.The double systems of The transepts with roman

columns and pilasters columns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S._Maria_degli_Angeli-5.JPGhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:3221_-_Roma_-_Santa_Maria_degli_Angeli_-_Interno_-_Foto_Giovanni_Dall'Orto_17-June-2007.jpg