/ / Piazza della Minerva: photos, description (Piazza della Minerva)

Piazza della Minerva: photos, description (Piazza della Minerva)

Piazza della Minerva square in Rome, whose name comes from the temple of the goddess of wisdom Minerva, built on the orders of Roman statesman and General gnaeus Pompey. On this small area centered just a few attractions that are worth seeing tourists.

In the center of the square stands the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, the first mention of which is found in the texts of the 8th century. In the right part of the facade you can see the inscription, which immortalized the floods of the Tiber between 1422 and 1598 - square is very low in Rome, and therefore often suffers from floods. Nearby is the Dominican monastery, which eventually grew into a side street of via del Seminario and the Church of San Macuto. Earlier there were three Roman temple - the temple of Minerva, temple of ISIS (Iseum) and the temple of Serapis (the Serapeum). In the 17th century the monastery became the headquarters of the Roman Inquisition - here was the trial of Galileo Galilei. Today of the original monastery buildings, little has survived, except for his gallery. The last in the 19th century was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of national education and the Ministry of posts and telecommunications. Today in the gallery is a library of the Italian Senate.

The buildings of the former monastery there is a sculpture "Elephant and Obelisk by Bernini in 1667. The obelisk was excavated from under the ruins of the temple of ISIS, and the Bishop of Rome residents call "the pig" because it is believed that Bernini has depicted it pig.

The right of the Church Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is the Palazzo Fonseca 16th century - 1832, it houses a hotel, the guests who was the writer Stendhal and a national hero of Argentina, Jose de San Martin, which is reminiscent of a plaque on the facade. And directly opposite the Church is the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy - the structure of the 14th century, modernized in the end of the 19th century. Here are trained diplomats of the Vatican state.