Santa Caterina da Siena a Via Giulia, Parish church in Via Giulia, Rome, Italy.
Santa Caterina da Siena a Via Giulia is a Baroque parish church on Via Giulia in the historic center of Rome, built with a single nave, two side chapels, and a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The interior is covered with detailed stucco work by Giovanni Battista Marchetti running along the vault.
The church was first built in 1526 to designs by Baldassarre Peruzzi, serving a Sienese confraternity that had settled in Rome. Repeated flooding from the Tiber caused serious damage, and it was fully rebuilt between 1766 and 1775 by architect Paolo Posi.
The facade carries sculptures of Romulus, Remus, and the she-wolf, pointing to the founding legend that links Siena to Rome. This stone detail makes visible a bond between the two cities that the Sienese community in Rome has long kept alive.
The church sits along Via Giulia, a long straight street in the historic center of Rome that is easy to walk. The basement cemetery of the Sienese confraternity is not always open to visitors, so it is worth checking before going.
A large fresco painted by Lorenzo Pecheux de Lyon in 1773 covers the apse and shows Pope Gregory XI returning to Rome from Avignon, where the papacy had been based for decades. This subject was chosen to honor the role Saint Catherine of Siena played in convincing the pope to make that return.
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