My Favorite Spooky Churches in Rome

It’s hardly a secret that Rome has some great churches.

In fact, Ernest Bevan thought they had too many, and not enough hospitals, when he visited Rome in the fifties. Well maybe they have a few more hospitals now, but they certainly aren’t as photogenic as the churches.

I have my favourites which I like to pop into to fire off a few photographs.

Santa Maria Maddalena in the eponymous piazza is one of them. The only rococco church in Rome apparently, though it looks pretty baroque to me. Another is Santa Maria delle Morte, (Saint Mary of the Dead) in Via Giulia, which is on one of my Photosleuth Tours’ routes. A pretty spooky church, as the name implies.

The present baroque church was built in 1737 replacing an earlier XVl century one. It was run by a fraternity that collected the dead bodies of unknown people found in the countryside to give them a Christian burial. An essential requisite if you wanted to go to heaven!

 

The blood red cross of the Camillian Fathers, an order that cares for the sick, in the west window is projected onto the wall of one of the side altars by the afternoon sun in the church of Saint Mary Magdalene.   

Skulls and other symbols, such as hour glasses, adorn the façade and the interior, and on either side of the main door two macabre engravings remind passers by of their mortality. The one on the right depicts death sitting comfortably on a bench with an hourglass in hand patiently waiting for a sick man to die.

Death waits patiently for some poor soul to breathe his last. The inscription says “Alms for the poor dead that are found in the country.”  Almost like fallen apples!

 

Rarely open except for Saturday evening and Sunday masses, so I was surprised to find it open one day in the week and nipped inside and took these photos. Inside it’s very dark so I used an ISO rating of 1600, and still had to shoot at 1/15 of a second.

Looking up at the organ in Santa Maria Maddalena.

Although there’s a lot of gold in the ornamentation the atmosphere is pretty sombre so I converted some of the images to black and white. I just love the way the balustrades curve around forming serried layers going right up to the dome. It seems like The Phantom of the Opera could appear at any moment.

Photos copyright Steve Bisgrove - Leader of "Hidden Rome Photosleuth Tours"

Comments

[John Brinkley]

I truly enjoyed reading of your exploits and adventures--not to mention the excellent art and photography. Thank you, John (Los Angeles)