Chiesa di San Biagio

San Biagio closes the north side of Tivoli's Piazza Plebiscito with a tufa facade, rose window, Roman clock and sundial. Its history links a medieval church and Dominican convent with the present parish and a lapidary collection in the cloister.

Why it matters

Local tradition places a temple of Juno Regina on the site, beside a temple of Diana; the square was once called Piazza della Regina. A twelfth-century Romanesque church stood here, its entrance facing the Aniene. In 1285 Pope Honorius III granted the site to the Order of Preachers, and the Dominican convent shaped the block for centuries. The church's formal title was Santa Maria de Gloria, but it became known as San Biagio.

What to notice

The tufa facade has a portal bearing the Leonini family arms and a marble relief of the Madonna and Child, donated by Cardinal Gustavo Hohenlohe and carved by Moses Jacob Ezekiel in the nineteenth century. A 1516 inscription stands above the doorway. The upper facade pairs a rose window with a Roman clock and sundial. Luigi Petrucci reshaped the interior in 1887, using Rome's Santa Maria sopra Minerva as a model; vaults rest on ten piers, and eleven side chapels line the nave. A Crucifixion in the presbytery is dated to the second half of the thirteenth century. The former Dominican cloister retains four round arches on frescoed piers; its lapidary museum displays inscriptions, many from the church, recording Tiburtine families including the Zappi and Colonna.

Context and history

Pope Boniface IX encouraged building work around 1400, but it was completed only in the sixteenth century, with support from Vincenzo Leonini, brother of Tivoli's bishop Angelo Leonini and commander of the papal guard. The Leonini arms appear on the portal. Petrucci's 1887 restructuring was funded by Cardinal Hohenlohe. Bombing in 1944 reduced the Romanesque bell tower to two storeys and shattered the apse windows made in Marseille in 1884. The present Carrara marble floor was laid in 1962.