Chiesa di Santa Maria Portae Paradisi

The church, known as Santa Maria in Augusta as early as the 9th century, was named Porta Paradisi or simply Portae Paradisi because one of the doors in the walls surrounding the nearby Mausoleum of Augustus, known as paradiseiois, opened near it, or because the cemetery (closed in 1836 for health reasons due to the cholera epidemic) of the Hospital of St James in Augusta, known as the Incurabili, was next to it: According to Christian tradition, the place that welcomed the faithful to eternal sleep was called Paradise, and Paradise Gate was the name of the place that led into it: hence the name of the church, used for funeral services and close to the old hospital cemetery.

In the 16th century, the church was rebuilt by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, at which time it took its present name. Its façade, overlooking Via di Ripetta, is preceded by a small portico, and incorporates a marble relief depicting The Madonna and Child attributed to Sansovino. The interior has an octagonal plan and contains 17th-century works by Pietro Paolo Ubaldini, Cosimo Fancelli, Paolo Naldini, Francesco Brunetti and Lorenzo Greuter. Above the choir loft on the counter façade is the 1962 Tamburini pipe organ opus 447, with 18 registers on two manuals and pedal.