Santa Maria Egiziaca

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englishname= St Mary of Egypt|

dedication= Mary of Egypt|

denomination= Roman Catholic|

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built= 1st century BC (building), 872 (church)|

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address= Piazza Bocca della Verità|

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Santa Maria Egiziaca was the dedication of the ancient rectangular temple in the Bocca della Verità neighbourhood when it was in use as a church. Piranesi engraving on Wikimedia Commons. [1]

Temple

The temple was built in the first century BC, and was dedicated to Portunus, the god of harbours (not to Fortuna Virilis, as formerly asserted). This was because the main harbour of ancient Rome was just to the north, where transhipment boats from the seagoing port at Ostia tied up. There is an English Wikipedia article on it. [2]

It was built to a cheap design. Instead of having a cella (the room containing the divine image) surrounded by detached columns on all sides, it has four fully round Ionic columns at the entrance, a pair behind these flanking the entrance portico and then four half-round columns attached to the cella on each side. Finally, another four half-round columns decorate the back. There are candelabra and festoons carved on the frieze, also lion protomes. The bulding materials are travertine limestone and tuff, which gives the edifice a rough appearance but there would have been an original coating of stucco possibly painted in colours.

The whole edifice is on a high plinth, and the entrance is approached by a flight of stairs.

Church

To convert the building to a church, the entrance wall of the cella was demolished and the gaps between the columns of the portico filled in so as to create one large room. This was done in 872, and the dedication was originally to Our Lady under the title of Santa Maria in Secundicerio (the name refers to an office-holder at the Papal court). The dedication to St Mary of Egypt is first recorded in 1492. She was a 5th century prostitute of Alexandria, who was converted at the Holy Sepulchre during a visit to Jerusalem and who then fled into the Judean desert to be a hermit and to do penance. Her major interest in art history is that she was confused with St Mary Magdalen in western Europe in the Middle Ages, and many of the famous paintings of the Penitent Magdalen in a cave or hut actually refer to her.

In 1571, Pope Pius V granted the church to the Catholics of the Armenian rite, who had had to leave their previous church because it was in the area of the recently organized Jewish Ghetto . Hence, it became the national church of the Armenians. Pope Clement XI (1700-21) ordered a restoration, and the provision of a new hospice for Armenian pilgrims.

In 1921, the building was sequestered by the government, deconsecrated and converted back into a temple by removing the blocking between the columns and re-building the entrance wall to the cella. The Armenians were compensated by being granted the church of San Nicola da Tolentino agli Orti Sallustiani, to which they removed any artwork that could be moved.

Fragments of medieval frescoes survive, depicting Our Lady with saints and also more recent ones showing St Mary the Egyptian.

A comparison between old photos (see links below) and the Piranesi engraving is instructive. The latter does not show the entrance columns. Were they walled up?