Chiesa di San Felice da Cantalice

The building was constructed between 1934 and 1935, designed by architects Mario Paniconi and Giulio Pediconi, and consecrated on 2 October 1941 by Cardinal Luigi Traglia.The church is a parish seat, established on 29 March 1935 by Cardinal Vicar Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani with the decree Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum and entrusted to the Capuchin Friars Minor. The cardinal title of San Felice da Cantalice a Centocelle, instituted by Pope Paul VI on 29 April 1969, insists on the church.The temple is in the shape of a hut, clad externally in brickwork. The façade features a painting of Saint Felix praying, by Rodolfo Villani, set in a large archway supported by pillars. Near the entrance is an ancient cipollino marble column, surmounted by a wrought-iron cross, with a 19th-century inion dedicated to Jesus, protector of the world.The interior has three naves, with the side naves very narrow and divided from the central one by a row of cylindrical pillars, decorated with mosaics. In the apse, illuminated by a large skylight, is a ‘dicola’ composed of two tall columns: inside is a mosaic depicting Madonna and Child and Saint Felix.Of particular artistic significance is a series of graffiti decorating the apse of the church, the work of Franciscan priest Ugolino da Belluno (1968-1969), and blessed by Paul VI on 1 January 1970:The ancient graffiti technique, with which the history of figurative art began, was implemented here for the first time by Father Ugolino with a very modern idea: on layers of polychrome cement, scratched into the fresco with sharp steel points, surprising plastic and luministic results were obtained.In the transept, other works by the same artist, dated 1975, depict the Apparition of Jesus among angels and a Vision of St. Francis. The interior is then enlivened by a series of polychrome stained glass windows, depicting the themes of the Canticle of Creatures through the representation of biblical episodes and figures from Christian iconography. There are many devotional style statues adorning the aisles. Next to the entrance is a chapel with a peperino baptismal font in the shape of a well.On the choir loft in the counter façade is the Tamburini pipe organ opus 364 from 1956; articulated in two symmetrical bodies, it has 27 registers on two manuals and pedal and is electrically driven.The church appears in some scenes of Pasolini's film Accattone.