Santi Aquila e Priscilla, Modern Catholic church in Portuense district, Rome, Italy
Santi Aquila e Priscilla is a modern Catholic church in the Portuense district with an elliptical floor plan. The building features a neo-Byzantine mural in the chancel and a pipe organ used for musical performances.
The parish was established on 5 November 1971 by a decree of Cardinal Vicar Angelo Dell'Acqua titled Neminem fugit. The church itself was designed by architect Ignazio Breccia Fratadocchi and inaugurated by Cardinal Vicar Ugo Poletti on 10 May 1992; Pope John Paul II consecrated it on 15 November 1992. On 26 November 1994 the same pope made it a cardinal titular church, first held by Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino until 2019.
The church is named after Aquila and Priscilla, a married couple whom the Acts of the Apostles and Paul's letters place in 1st-century Rome, where they hosted a house-church. The dedication follows the 1971 parish decree Neminem fugit and the 1994 cardinal title. The name links the modern building to that early Christian community.
The church stands on Via Pietro Blaserna in the Portuense district, in the south-western part of Rome. A nursery is set at the back of the building, close to the main entrance, so families with small children pass it on the way in. The elliptical hall has a low vault that rises into a large skylight above the presbytery, and the pipe organ by Tamburini stands at floor level to the left of the presbytery.
The church's organ, built by Tamburini in 1993, sits at floor level to the left of the chancel. It has two 58-note keyboards, a 30-note pedalboard and 21 stops, with electric action for the stops and pedal and mechanical action for the manuals.
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