Chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmine e San Giuseppe al Casaletto

The church of Santa Maria del Carmine and San Giuseppe al Casaletto is a church in Rome, in the Gianicolense neighborhood, on Via del Casaletto. In fact, there are three churches in the neighborhood dedicated to Santa Maria del Carmine and San Giuseppe. The original church was built around 1772 by the priest Giuseppe Aluffi, and erected as a parish by Pius VI with the brief Divina virtutum of May 11, 1781. It was called the parish church because of its size, but certainly not because of the vastness of the territory, which extended over a surface with a diameter of 32 kilometers. Due to the increase in population, the small sacred building was no longer sufficient. Thus, in 1853, a second church was built nearby, while the original church (which was also deconsecrated for a certain period) continued to serve as a second parish church, until in 1933, with the construction of the third church, it was sold to the Camillians and from then on dedicated to San Camillo. The second church was built, designed by Nicola Carnevari, in 1853, a few dozen meters from the previous one, with expenses supported by Pope Pius IX himself, and was consecrated on May 26, 1854. In 1857, a cemetery was erected on land owned by the parish, the only one in Rome owned by a church, where all the bones that were in the first parish church were transferred. Between the 19th and 20th centuries, the church was enlarged with the addition of a left nave and a chapel dedicated to the Madonna della Salute. In July 1933, the Silvestrine Fathers, who had governed the parish in the previous decades, were replaced by the Bolognese-Romagnola Capuchins, who left the parish in 1994. These religious men immediately began work on the construction of a new and larger church, capable of hosting a thousand people, and a convent for their community. The works were entrusted to the architects Tullio Rossi and Francesco Fornari and ended in 1934 with the consecration and opening to the public of the new church. The previous sacred building is still used by the current parish as a theater with the name of Sala Santa Chiara. The new church is flanked by the baptistery on the left and the convent on the right. It consists of a single nave, with three chapels on the left side; the nave is divided by arches, which support the roof, corresponding to which there are wooden statues depicting saints of the Franciscan order. In a side altar there is the image of the Madonna della Salute, which was previously located in the second church. In the last chapel on the left is the Tamburini pipe organ opus 681, from 1974, with 15 registers on two manuals and pedal and mixed transmission. In the adjacent baptistery there is the baptismal font, a gift from Pius IX, whose coat of arms is set in the red marble basin, supported by a cipollino marble column.