Chiesa di Sant'Emerenziana

It was built between 1940 and 1942 at the behest of Pope Pius XII, designed by architect Tullio Rossi, and consecrated on 28 November 1942. On that day, Il Giornale d'Italia wrote:There where Viale Eritrea flows into the countryside and where it is still possible to admire a georgic landscape, certainly destined to devastation, a temple has risen with the presbytery of a new Parish, the first dedicated to St. Emerenziana, who rests not far from here, on the cliff that descends from the Via Nomentana, in the cemetery where Agnes, flower of the Martyrs, was first buried and where she met her death, stoned by pagans, while praying at the tomb of her great sister Collattanea
(From the parish website).
The church is a parish seat, established on 25 November 1942 by Cardinal Vicar Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani with the decree Ad pastoralis officii. It is also the seat of the cardinal title of Santa Emerenziana in Tor Fiorenza, instituted by Pope Paul VI on 5 March 1973. On 26 November 2017, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the consecration of the parish, a solemn Mass was celebrated (on the Sunday of the Solemnity of Christ King of the Universe) by Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès, Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church.
Externally, the building is made of brick. The façade has three entrance portals very close together; they are framed by travertine marble, the same marble that divides the façade into two orders. Characteristic is the large arch that animates the façade, within which is the large coat of arms of Pius XII. In the horizontal travertine band is the dedicatory inion: D.O.M. in honorem S. Emerentianae virginis et martyris D.. The year of consecration of the church (MCMXXXXII) is carved above the central door.
The church has a basilica plan with three naves, separated by pillars covered with cipollino marble, with six side chapels covered with polychrome marble. Above the aisles are women's galleries, surmounted by large windows.
The apse is dominated by the large 523-square-metre mosaic by the Franciscan priest Ugolino da Belluno (1968), depicting the Exaltation of the Church:...the exaltation of the Church, which from the bottom upwards, in an infinite tension of faces and outstretched hands, focuses on the transfigured Christ, who is the origin, life and fulfilment of the Church. In the lower part, the pilgrim church, where the artist has identified some figures, who had a particular impact on his personal life or on contemporary history: from Cardinal Traglia to Luther King. In the central area, he has placed a group of bishops with their first Brother and Universal Pastor, Paul VI... The figure of the triumphant Christ (over four metres high) dominates the centre of the large living Cross with his shadowy eyes, his weeping hands of a worker, his feet of a tireless pilgrim: they rest on the symbols of the four Evangelists, through whom the revelation of the Father, whose name is expressed in Hebrew characters (YHWH), passes unaltered... At Christ's sides, the Madonna as Mother of the Church and the Holy Patroness Emerenziana, the one and the other magnetized towards Christ, the beginning and end of all holiness, while above Christ an abstract play of primitive stars and animals weave around him, almost like a new canticle of creatures. ..
(From the parish website).
On the entrance wall is a triptych by Olga Biancitti, originally placed in the apse, depicting Saint Emerenziana in glory.