Santa Maria della Pace, Catholic church in Ponte district, Rome, Italy
Santa Maria della Pace is a house of prayer in the Ponte district near Piazza Navona. The 17th-century facade forms a convex curve with pilasters and columns, while the interior has an octagonal central space beneath a dome and several side chapels.
Pope Sixtus IV ordered the building in 1482 on the site of an older chapel after a Madonna image reportedly shed blood there. Pietro da Cortona redesigned the front in a Baroque style between 1656 and 1667, while Bramante added the adjacent cloister in the early 16th century.
The name refers to a medieval account of a Madonna image that reportedly brought peace between feuding groups after it began to bleed. Visitors can see works by Raphael and his contemporaries in the chapels, which show how Roman churches were furnished during the 16th century.
The entrance sits in a narrow lane between Piazza Navona and the Tiber that is easy to miss. The rooms are open most days, and visitors should look for changing exhibitions in the cloister.
The Bramante cloister displays a continuous arcade on two levels, with the upper gallery narrower than the lower one. The structure now serves as a venue for changing exhibitions of contemporary art and photography.
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