Sant'Andrea delle Fratte, Minor basilica in Colonna district, Rome, Italy

Sant'Andrea delle Fratte is a Baroque church in Rome with a Latin-cross plan, a single nave and three chapels on each side. Its tan-brick and pale-stone facade rises in two tiers to a triangular pediment, with a central green door, two round medallions and two framed standing figures. Borromini built the square bell tower and the dome with diagonal buttresses.

A church existed here by 1192, called infra hortes, amid orchards on the edge of medieval Rome. The present building was begun in 1604 to designs by Gaspare Guerra, halted eight years later, and taken up again in 1653 by Francesco Borromini, who built the apse, the cupola's tholobate and the square campanile. Mattia De Rossi continued after his death, and the facade was completed in 1826 with funds left by Cardinal Ercole Consalvi.

The two angels beside the presbytery, the Angel with the Crown of Thorns and the Angel with the Superscription, were carved by Bernini between 1667 and 1699 for Ponte Sant'Angelo. Clement IX judged them too precious for the open air, so copies went onto the bridge and the originals came here in 1729, given by Bernini's heirs.

The church stands in the Colonna district, a short walk from Piazza di Spagna and the Via del Tritone. Enter from the street through the green double door beneath the 1826 facade; the single nave leads to the deep apse, with three chapels on each side. The pews face the Madonna del Miracolo chapel rather than the main altar. The cloister on the right holds 17th-century frescoes.

Under the high altar lies a crypt holding Rome's only putridarium, a chamber where deceased Minims were once seated on stone chairs to drain before burial. The two angels beside the presbytery, carved by Bernini between 1667 and 1699, were judged too precious for Ponte Sant'Angelo and replaced there by copies.