Chiesa dei Santi Urbano e Lorenzo a Prima Porta

Since ancient times, the cliffs that extend along the right bank of the Tiber from the Crescenza ditch to the Prima Porta ditch were called Saxa Rubra, due to the reddish color of the tuff outcrops. According to legend, the color of the rocks was due to the blood of Roman soldiers who died during the famous and bloody battle that took place on the plain between these cliffs and the Tiber, between the army of Maxentius and that of Constantine, which ended in 312 at Ponte Milvio with the victory of Constantine and the definitive triumph of Christianity.The primitive church of San Lorenzo, already mentioned in a document from 1109, stood near a Roman arch of the late Empire, called, in the Middle Ages, Prima Porta because it indicated the first entrance to Rome for those coming from the north. This arch probably belonged to an aqueduct of the nearby, grandiose Villa of Livia, consort of the emperor Augustus.Prima Porta (km 13 of the Via Flaminia) where the Flaminio Cemetery now extends, was, in the Middle Ages, a small village built on pre-existing Roman buildings; today it is a populous neighborhood (Municipality and diocese of Rome).Documents show that near the rural church of San Lorenzo, the Monastery of Santa Maria in Via Lata – which owned land in that area – built a hospital that was short-lived, having already needed restoration in 1225.The Church, abandoned and in ruins, was rebuilt by Pope Urban VIII Barberini who on March 7, 1629 with the apostolic constitution Creditam nobis desuper erected it as a parish, dedicating it to Saints Urban and Lawrence. At the time of its foundation it belonged to the Roman episcopal jurisdiction and later passed to that of Porto-Santa Rufina, before returning to be part of the diocese of Rome.The church built by Urban VIII, to which was annexed an inn with a post station for changing horses, underwent some modifications already with Pope Pius XI: the nave was rebuilt in neo-Gothic style, while the façade and the front building, which already had the function of narthex and rectory, were preserved in their seventeenth-century forms.Since 1945, due to the dismemberment of the suburban diocese of Porto-Santa Rufina, the church of Saints Urban and Lawrence has been annexed to the Vicariate of Rome.In 1965, a flood raged in the Prima Porta area. On that occasion, Pope Paul VI visited the site and promised the inhabitants of the area that he would build a new church.Built to the left of the arch, based on a design by architect Giorgio Pacini, the modern building – with a central plan, in exposed concrete and iron – was inaugurated by Paul VI at Easter 1971. In 1999, it was visited by John Paul II, as a plaque affixed to a wall of the church recalls.The architecture of the new church – with a single hall – is characterized by a roof with sloping pitches converging towards a polystyle pillar inside which the Tabernacle is placed, the center and ideal support of the sacred area. A polychrome glass crucifix dominates the back wall above the altar.The pre-existing seventeenth-century church, which has become a pleasant appendix to the new one, serves as a weekday chapel.Of the Roman arch – still intact in the 17th century, as shown by a drawing of the time – a pillar is still visible leaning against the seventeenth-century façade of the old church, the rear part of which was gutted to make room for the new building. On the left you can admire the small bell tower that preserves the original bell.Behind the parish, there is a small hill on which a Renaissance tower is still visible. The hill was the site of Etruscan and Roman settlements; in fact, in the Etruscan era, the hill was supposed to be a strategic point, being at the confluence of a dense network of roads now traced by modern roads.The new parish, initially entrusted to the diocesan clergy of Rome - Oblates Sons of the Madonna del Divino Amore - and since 14 September 2005 has been officiated by the Monks of San Paolo Io Eremita who are also entrusted with some subsidiary places of worship.
Since ancient times, the cliffs that extend along the right bank of the Tiber from the ditch of Crescenza to that of Prima Porta were called Saxa Rubra, due to the reddish color of the tuff outcrops. According to legend, the colour of the rocks is due to the blood of Roman soldiers who died during the famous and bloody battle that took place on the plain between these rocks and the Tiber, between the armies of Maxentius and Constantine, which ended in 312 at Ponte Milvio with the victory of Constantine and the definitive triumph of Christianity.
Urban VIII and the recovery of the Roman suburbs. The case of the church of SS. Lorenzo and Urbano in Prima Porta
Contributions on the history of the suburbs and villages of Rome are still sporadic and scarce, and it certainly arouses a certain astonishment to come across architectural artefacts of significant artistic interest, built next to insignificant and often hideous reinforced concrete buildings of more recent construction, in peripheral areas forgotten by every visitor. This is certainly the case of the church dedicated to SS. Lorenzo and Urbano in Prima Porta along the Via Flaminia: we know that the church originally dedicated to San Lorenzo de Obra was founded at the beginning of the 12th century and subsequently the nuns of Santa Maria in Via Lata, who owned the land on which the church stood, decided to build a hospital to the right of the facade, already in ruins in 1215The church was erected close to a Roman arch probably belonging to an aqueduct, whose technical characteristics suggest a dating to the 4th century AD; the arch, from which the name Prima Porta derives, as the first entrance to Rome for those coming from the north from the Via Flaminia, today in a state of almost complete decay, was still standing in 1660 and 1662, when it was reproduced together with the church in the drawings of the land registry of Alexander VII, which represent the oldest figurative source and certainly the only one that gives us the image of the church as it was desired by its re-founder, Urban VIII Barberini. The church in fact, abandoned and in ruins, was rebuilt by will of Pope Urban VIII, who [...] ordered the Happy Memory of Cardinal Pinnetti Vicar of Rome to have a new church built in the place at the expense of the Vicariate and the Priests of the nearby estates, Casali and Osterie, which was done with the expense of five hundred scudi [...] with a papal bull of 1629. A post station and a horse changing station were annexed to the church, which later disappeared.From other documents it appears that Clement VIII had already issued a decree for the construction of the church in 1603, but only in 1629 was the project started, not without controversy over the jurisdiction of the dioceses over the area intended for the church; the purpose of rebuilding the church is to be found in the Pope's desire both to control the areas near the capital and to provide health care services to the local populations since a hospital was annexed to the church.On the author of the project it is possible to advance only hypotheses since there is no type of bibliographical reference and so far the examination of archive documents has not provided any indications in this regard. However, from some unpublished documents we learn that in 1760 the church and the parish priest's house were restored by the architect Carlo Murena (or Morena) of the Chapter of San Pietro and, again based on the same documents, we know that in 1785, the architect Virginio Bracci (Rome 1737 - 1815), son of the well-known sculptor Pietro, a student of L. Vanvitelli and author of several works outside Rome, had his project for the new sacristy approved.Currently the church is used as a weekday chapel and, of the seventeenth-century layout, only the facade remains, while the rear part was destroyed to make way for a new building. The facade, simple and sober, is divided into two registers: the first is made up of the portal surmounted by a rounded tympanum; the upper one, surmounted by a triangular tympanum, is made up of three windows, of which the central one is fake and painted. As already mentioned, it is not possible, given the current state of our knowledge and despite the examination of various archive documents, to trace the name of the architect, who however could be one of those architects to whom Urban VIII had entrusted minor tasks and border fortification works. Among these in particular Vincenzo Della Greca (Palermo 1592 - Rome 1661) could be the author of the project for the church of Prima Porta.In 1627 he was appointed assistant to Carlo Maderno and followed many construction sites led by the famous architect; upon the death of the master, he was appointed architect of the chamber factories and of Castel Sant'Angelo. Since 1623 he participated in numerous fortification tasks commissioned by Urban VIII; in 1630 he obtained from the pope the task of erecting the church of San Caio destroyed in 1885. The project for this church, known through the drawing in the Codice Barb. Lat. 4409, appears very similar in terms of the sobriety and simplicity of the architectural solution to the façade of SS. Lorenzo and Urbano and falls exactly in the years of construction of the small church of Prima Porta.This short contribution aims to provide some ideas for future studies that will not be long in coming and that will try to shed light on the role of Urban VIII as a promoter and creator of projects and minor works that probably had the intent, as in the case of the complex of SS. Lorenzo and Urbano at Prima Porta, to redevelop the outskirts of the city and to contribute to the improvement of the conditions of the local populations, in addition to controlling the access areas to the eternal city.It is worth mentioning, as a demonstration of the extraordinary wealth of archaeological evidence in the Prima Porta area, just to mention the major sites, the Villa of Livia and, immediately in front of the church of SS Lorenzo and Urbano, the fountain in opus reticulatum, on which there are few contributions; and finally the cave near the Villa of Livia almost completely ignored by scientific literature.Source: Lisa Della Volpe ISSN 1127-4883BTA - Bollettino Telematico dell'Arte, 12 October 2005, n. 409 http://www.bta.it/txt/a0/04/bta00409.html