Sacro Cuore di Gesù Agonizzante is a mid 20th century parish and titular church at Via Sant’Arcangelo di Romagna 70 in the Mezzocammino zone. Picture of the church on Wikimedia Commons is here. There is an English Wikipedia page here (mostly based on this Wikia page).
The actual suburb is called Vitinia, the first one westwards on the Via del Mare after the Grande Raccordo Anulare (Circonvallazione Meridionale).
The dedication is to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Agony.
History[]
The church was designed by Ildo Avetta. Construction begain in 1953, and the church opened in 1955 after a new parish had been created in the same year.
The cardinalate title, created in 1969, is Sacro Cuore di Gesù Agonizzante a Vitinia, and the present titular is Telesphore Placidus Toppo.
Exterior[]
Layout and fabric[]
The floor plan is basically rectangular with a shallowly curved apse, but the shape of the building is complex. Also, there is a crypt which amounts to a "lower church" and so the main entrance is well above ground level.
The nave has seven bays. The side walls are low, in white, separated by low concrete piers and topped by window strips. Above these strips the side elevations of the building are strongly zig-zag, with six triangular projections running from ground to roof on each side in the same pink brick, with small square windows inserted into the otherwise blank walling in an array shaped like a parallelogram on each of the overall twenty-four diagonal faces of this arrangement.
The roof has a shallow downward curve on either side of the major axis, over these projections, and over the nave is shaped as a result like a row of six and a half lozenges (the half is the canopy over the entrance parabola). Separate, more steeply curved roof vaulting forms triangular infill panels in between the projections of the nave, and these spring from above the window strips.
At the altar end, the roof forms an irregular hexagon stretched transversely and with the angle behind the altar smoothed away by the apse curve. The walls here are all blank brick, but the roof forms three shallow parabolas, a large one over the apse and two smaller ones on the shorter side faces of the hexagon. These three voids are filled by stained glass.
There is a detached campanile to the right of the altar end. It is an octagonal brick tower, with small square windows inserted in one vertical row on each face. The bell-chamber is of concrete, formed of eight parabolic arches.
A large parish centre is attached to the left hand side of the church.
Façade[]
The entrance façade is dominated by a parabola, in grey stone decorated with four rows of unusually shaped windows resembling stretched animal skins arranged vertically (the four curves making up each shape are also parabolic). These windows increase in overall size and proportional length from top row to bottom, and the rows number two, three, four and four and a half (the window over the entrance in the last row is the half). The vertical curves of these windows are filled with parabolic segments in a pale brown stone.
The parabola is bounded by two walls in tufa blocks, which slope inwards from the two corners of the overall façade, creating voids either side of the parabola. The parabola has a curved floating canopy in the same grey marble, either side of its apex and so covering these voids. This forms the façade roofline.
The simple rectangular portal is fronted by an elevated patio over the door to the crypt chapel. This patio is accessed by two curved ramps making a horseshoe shape, and has a metal railing balustrade inspired by the Crown of Thorns.
Interior[]
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The interior continues the theme of Rome's "Church of the Parabola".
As mentioned the nave has seven bays, with its side walls being low and separated by equally low massive concrete piers. Each of these piers melds into a pair of parabolic cross-vault ribs, four such ribs meeting at a point on the major axis on the otherwise slightly transversely curved raw concrete roof. The steeply curved triangular area within each pair of ribs above each bay wall is infilled, and the width of each bay between the wall and this infill has a window strip in panes of coloured glass. Each area of infill has a slightly longitudinally curved base meeting the stained glass, and projects over the latter in a further transverse up-curve.
The "animal skin" windows in the counterfaçade have stained glass. There is an interior entrance kiosk, which has two diagonal walls each containing a portal. Above this is a gallery, with a sculptural metal balustrade including irregularly shaped bas-reliefs.
The same design is given to a circular railing protecting a very large crypt skylight in the middle of the nave floor -a very odd piece of design.
At the far end of the left hand side, one of the rib piers is replaced with a cylindrical concrete column to allow for a portal to the parish centre and sacrisities. The other nave recesses formed by the projecting rib piers are paved with green marble, raised by one step -obviously side chapels were envisaged.
Sanctuary[]
The sanctuary is also paved in green marble, with the free-standing altar on a two-step circular platform. The far wall, slightly curved, is blank except for a suspended bronze statue of Our Lady by Tommaso del Vio. The tabernacle is below this, and has recently been embellished by a device in the form of a silver pointed arch with gold infill.
Liturgy[]
Mass is celebrated, according to the Diocese:
Weekdays 18:00 (18:30 in summer);
Sundays and Solemnities 7:30, 9:30, 11:00, 18:00 (19:00 in summer).