San Stanislao a Don Bosco is a late 20th century parish church at Viale Rolando Vignali 15, off the Via Tuscolana east of Cinecittà in the Don Bosco quarter. Pictures of the church at Wikimedia Commons are here.
The dedication is to St Stanislaus.
History[]
The parish was erected in 1982, the mother parishes being San Giovanni Bosco and Santa Maria Regina Mundi a Torre Spaccata. This is surprisingly late for an inner suburban location, and perhaps might not have happened at all if delayed for a few years.
The church was designed by Aldo Aloysi, and completed in 1991. It is very typical of the architect.
Clergy of the Diocese of Rome were originally in charge and are again now (2017), although priests from the diocese of Patti in Sicily were in charge for a while. This also is surprising, as this is a small diocese and the city of Patti has only about 15 000 inhabitants.
Exterior[]
Layout[]
The church proper is a low, flat-roofed building with a reinforced concrete frame having concrete infill. The plan consists of a square, which is divided into nine smaller squares by the intersecting roof-beams of the frame. These smaller squares are fundamental to the design, and divide the walls of the church into equal thirds.
Midway just to the left of the church is a free-standing tower campanile.
In front of the church is a combined entrance loggia, occupying the left hand third of the church's frontage and extending slightly out to the left. This loggia abuts a transverse rectangular ferial (weekday) chapel which occupies the middle third and half of the right hand third of the church frontage. The chapel suite then extends, still under the same roof but stepped back from the main façade, as a extension round the bottom right hand corner of the church to join the main access from the latter to the parish office block.
This ancillary block is a two-storey flat-roofed concrete edifice running transversely to the right. Behind it, a low sacristy block abuts the church for the far two thirds of its right hand wall.
Fabric[]
The reinforced concrete piers and beams of the frame are left on show, and are in grey. In contrast, the concrete infill panels of the walls are in bright white.
The roof has eight flat panels in a grey composition, recessed below the prominent frame-beams. The exception is the roof of the sanctuary, the middle square at the back. This has a higher roof which is flush with the framing beams, and contains a pyramidal skylight which is over the altar.
Each wall section to the left and at the back, except that behind the altar, has a central vertical window strip running the whole height. To the right, the two far walls above the sacristy each have a short strip running above the sacristy roof.
The frontage of the church above the ferial chapel has a long horizontal window strip occupying the central third in between the frame-beams.
Entrance[]
The church has no entrance façade as such. The left hand third of the frontage is occupied by an open portal, about two-thirds of the height of the church behind, which is formed by an enormous white concrete slab extending slightly beyond the line of the church side wall to the left. This is supported by a single square reinforced concrete pier in front, which is aligned with the side wall mentioned.
The church frontage peeping above this portal has a dedicatory epigraph: D. O. M. in H. S. Stanislai A. D. MCMXCI. To the left of this is a rather ornate relief sculpture of the Keys of St Peter.
Ferial chapel[]
To the right of the portal, the middle of the frontage is occupied by the ferial chapel. This has four lozenge-shaped (rotated square) stained glass windows in its white concrete wall, followed by a vertical rectangular one at the right hand end. The flat roof is slightly higher than that of the portal, and has a pyramidal skylight over the altar.
Campanile[]
The eye is caught by the tall campanile in grey reinforced concrete to the left of the church, shaped rather like a tuning fork with the right hand blade slightly larger and taller than the left, and with a wide connecting strut at the top. The bells are hung between the blades. On top is a very large cross made out of steel rods, with circles at all four ends.
Interior[]
The interior of the church is a large square space, with creamy white walls. The roof is coffered, with forty-nine (seven by seven) square coffers within each of eight square zones. The main roof beams and the coffering are in brown. The exception is the ninth zone over the altar, where the roof is higher and the beams framing it are in white.
The back wall of the sanctuary is in blank bright white, and bears a smallish crucifix and a painting of the Pietà.
Colour is provided in the interior by the stained glass in the windows, which depicts heavenly orbs in a semi-abstract style.
Liturgy[]
The parish has no website.
According to the Diocese (July 2018), Mass is celebrated:
Weekdays 8:30, 18:00 (18:30 in summer);
Sundays and Solemnities 8:30, 10:00, 11:30, 18:00 (18:30 in summer).