San Clemente a Monte Sacro

English name:	St Clement on the Holy Mountain
Dedication:	Clement of Rome
Denomination:	Roman Catholic
Built:	1959, 1995
Address:	Via Val Sillaro 22

San Clemente a Monte Sacro is a mid and late 20th century parish church at Via Val Sillaro 22, north of the Nomentana train station in the Monte Sacro district. Pictures of the church on Wikimedia Commons are here.

The patron saint is Clement of Rome.

History

It was begun in 1957 to a design by Luccichienti, but work stalled after the crypt was completed and the parish had to use this as a church for thirty-six years. However, the main building was completed to an innovative post-modern design by Straderini in 1995. The result is spectacular, and well worth visiting.

Exterior

The main body of the edifice is an ellipse in red brick laid to give the effect of a grid of squares. It has a flat roof. Around this, to a rectanguar plan, is an enormous concrete loggia with a flat roof slightly higher than the ellipse, and with the roof terminating at the ellipse. Thus a gap is left beween the loggia roof and the main body of the church, through which daylight shows. There is a large concrete slab supporting the loggia on each front corner, three square columns down each side, four round columns by the ellipse walls, a transverse pair of the same each side of the entrance and another longitudinal pair midway betweent the entrance and sides. The loggia comes to an end at two vertical strip windows either side of the ellipse, but the rectangular plan continues with blank concrete walls for the rest of the side elevations and around the back of the altar. Above the altar, rising above the roofline, is a concrete tower with a concave apse and conch on the side facing the entrance. The campanile is situated in the loggia to the right of the entrance, rising as a single concrete slab through a rectangular hole in the loggia roof and terminating in a floating horizontal slab from which the bell hangs. The arched entrance, painted grey, has a dedicatory inscription in brown above it and encloses a tympanum with a fresco of the Prodigal Son.

Interior

Natural lighting is by a strip skylight running along the flat white ceiling on the major axis of the ellipse. The two spaces between the ellipse and rectangle either side of the altar are occupied by chapels with a pair of doorways each in the internal walls between them and the main area. Above these are four stained glass windows in blue. The undecorated walls are of vertical concrete slabs, and have icons of the Apostles hanging from them. The otherwise blank white screen wall behind the altar, the base of the tower mentioned above, has a crucifix accompanied by icons of Our Lady and St John in the Byzantine style.

External links

Official diocesan web-page

Italian Wikipedia page