The Minor Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, a Renaissance church is erected on the ancient frigidarium of the Baths of D...
The Minor Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, a Renaissance church is erected on the ancient frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian. The frigidarium is a large, cold pool used to tighten the pores after being submerged in the hot bathing pools. These baths were abandoned when the Goths cut the water supply of all the aqueducts of the city. The baths were taken over by bandits and courtesans until the Renaissance when the grounds were bought by the French cardinal Jean du Bellay, who commissioned the construction of a beautiful villa and its gardens.
A Sicilian priest, Don Antonio Lo Duca, had a vision of building a church on the site of the Baths of Diocletian, in honor of the seven angels and all the Christian slaves who died while building the baths. According to the legends, these seven martyrs, Largus, Smaragdus, Cyriac, Sisinnius, Trasonius, Marcellinus, and Saturninus, were slaves who had died during the construction of the ancient Roman baths. 
In 1560, Pope Pius IV commissioned Michelangelo to transform the baths into a Renaissance church. It is Michelangelo’s final great work for in 1564, the year after he began work, passed away. His designs were completed by his student, Jacopo Lo Duca. Upon completion of the structure, the church was given to the Carthusians for its care. That is why you find paintings and a statue of St. Bruno in the church.
In 1582, Europe switched from the Julian Calendar which has been in use since 4 A.D. to the new Gregorian Calendar. Since the Council of Nicea set the spring equinox on 21 March in 325, by the year 1582, the spring equinox was already occurring on March 11. To bring back the March 21 date of the spring equinox, Pope Gregory XIII ordered to remove 10 days from the calendar. That year, they skipped October 5-14 during the transformation from the Julian to Gregorian calendar. If you were alive in 1582, the day after October 4 is already October 15.
Almost two centuries later, in the year 1702, then Pope Clement XI commissioned Francesco Bianchini, a mathematician, archaeologist, historian, philosopher, and astronomer to design a sundial, a 45-meter meridian line to be installed on the floor of the church. Bianchini was the secretary of the commission for the reform of the calendar, working on the method to calculate the astronomically correct date for Easter each year. They chose this church because it is southerly oriented and it is along the meridian that crosses Rome, at longitude 12° 30' E. Remember, we are in 1702. The Prime Meridian in Greenwich that you know now was only established a century after, in 1884.
The Carthusians were forced to abandon the monastery 3 years after the unification of Italy and following the law no. 1402 of 19 June 1873 which suppressed the ecclesiastical estate. The magnificent monastery was at first used as a military store for the French troops but then the Italian government transformed it into a national archaeological museum. The Order of Minims founded by Saint Francis of Paola in the fifteenth century took the church’s custody and then the Diocese of Rome took over.
St. Pius X with an apostolic letter dated November 9, 1906 “Susceptum Deo inspirante” elevated Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri to parish status. The commemorative marble stone is in the present chapel of St. Teresa where you also find the bronze bust of Michelangelo and Don Antonio Lo Duca.
On July 20, 1920, Pope Benedict XV elevated the Church to the status of a minor basilica with his apostolic letter, “Ad perpetuam rei memoriam. Titulum Sancti Ciriaci in Thermis...” The ancient church of Saint Ciriaco was demolished to make way for the imposing building of the Finance Ministry in Via XX Settembre.
On June 27, 1920, the same Pope crowned in the Vatican the venerated image of the Virgin Mary created by Don Antonio Lo Duca which can now be found at the center of the apse. Above this picture, Pope Pius IV had arranged for the following inscription to be added: “Quod fuit idolum nunc templum est Virginis. Auctor est Pius ipse Pater Daemones aufugite.” (What used to be an idol is now a temple consecrated to the Virgin. By the will of Pope Pius. Demons leave).
On October 24, 1896, the Prince of Naples (future king of Italy, Vittorio Emanuelle III) and princess Elena of Montenegro celebrated their wedding at the Basilica. And from this point onwards, Santa Maria degli Angeli became the official Church of the Italian State.
THE MERIDIAN 12° 30' E
The bronze enclosed in a yellow-white marble meridian line was completed and inaugurated on October 6, 1702. It served multiple functions. The most important of these was to confirm the accuracy of the new Gregorian calendar. This tool was also extremely important to the church, as it gave the pope the means to be able to make an exact prediction of the date of Easter through the vernal equinox indicator. The daily solar transits gave the exact time for Angelus prayer at noon. The exact duration of a lunar month and a tropical year were other scientific tasks of this Meridian Line. Until 1846, it served as a regulator of the clocks of Rome until the year 1846. The meridian line was restored in 2002 for the tricentenary of its construction, and it is still operational today.
Every day around noon, the sunlight shines through a small hole (aperture gnomon) in the south wall of the church and casts a beam of light on the meridian line and transverses it. At the summer solstice, the sun appears highest, and its ray hits the meridian line at the point closest to the southern wall. At the winter solstice, the ray crosses the line at the point furthest to the north wall and gives the biggest sunlight circle on the floor. Using the Northern Gnomon, Bianchini determined the apparent elevation of the Celestial Pole within 1” different from the true latitude.
This hybrid feature of the Clementine Gnomon to measure solar and stellar transits allowed Bianchini to conduct in the year 1703 the whole measurement of the duration of the tropical year. Some fixed stars were also observed through the system. The time difference between the transit of a fixed star and that of one of the Sun produced the ecliptic longitude of the Sun, which must be 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270° respectively for the spring equinox, summer solstice, fall equinox and winter solstice.
The zodiac signs can also be read through the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun. They are evenly spaced in sectors of 30° longitudes. The measurement of the altitude of the Sun above the horizon was also useful to show the actual value of the inclination of Earth's axis to the ecliptic plane.
Texts: Different sources on the internet
Images: (c) Originally owned photos
Visit the Official Website: http://www.santamariadegliangeliroma.it
Basilica S. Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
Piazza della Repubblica Roma
Indirizzo Postale:
Via Cernaia 9 - 00185 Roma
Tel (0039) 06488 0812
Fax (0039) 0692912679
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