Church of Santa Maria della Scala

The name and origin of this small church in the heart of the Rione Trastevere are linked to a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary, placed on an external staircase attached to a nearby house and later known as “Our Lady of the Staircase”. According to tradition, it all began when, thanks to her mother’s prayers, a baby girl born mute regained her word: the staircase soon became the destination of a huge number of pilgrims in search of healings, so much so as to convince Pope Clement VIII to build, in 1592, a church with an adjoining convent, entrusted to the Discalced Carmelites.

The first construction of the complex dates back to the time of the miracle, based on a project by Francesco Capriani da Volterra, but works were only finished in 1624 with the completion of the two-storey façade in travertine. Over the entrance door is a Baroque statue of the Madonna and Child in an ornate arched niche The sculptor was Francesco di Cusart, who carved it in 1633.

The plan of the church is based on a Latin cross, with a single nave and three chapels on each side. The church has several works of art, such as the splendid Beheading of the Baptist by Dutch painter Gerrit van Honthorst, known in Italy as Gherardo delle Notti. The original miraculous icon is preserved in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Staircase: this is also the funerary chapel of the Santacroce family, and the monument to the Marquis Santacroce (the first to introduce tobacco in Rome) is by Alessandro Algardi. The apse behind the high altar has a free-standing baldacchino or ciborium, a domed structure (a tempietto) incorporating slender alabaster columns. The high altar is by Carlo Rainaldi, a prominent architect of Baroque Rome. Worth of note is also the Death of the Virgin by Carlo Saraceni, which replaced a controversial work of Caravaggio, rejected by the friars and now at the Louvre.

The convent, built in the early 17th century, is partly attributed to Matteo da Città di Castello and partly to Ottaviano Mascherino. On the second floor is the Antica Spezieria, the first pharmacy in Rome, where the original furnishings and equipment have been preserved.