  Chiesa di S. Maria delle Grazie (Book 7) (Day 8) (View C2) (Rione Borgo) In this page:
The church and the monastery were built in 1628 near Porta Angelica
to honour a sacred image brought from the Holy Land.
A modern building has replaced the church, but on the corner there is a copy of the image of Madonna delle Grazie. The whole area has been affected by significant changes with the reshaping of the walls around the Vatican to reflect the border between Italy and the Vatican City State as you can see in the map below (left 1883, right today). The development of a new residential area outside the walls led also to the pulling down of the little church of S. Giovanni Battista degli Spinelli.
A new church by the same name was built outside Porta Angelica not far from today's entrance
to the Vatican Museum. The Baroque altar of the old church was rearranged at the end of the left nave of new S. Maria delle Grazie.
Above the sacred image there is a pretty unusual inscription, because it is written in Italian rather than in
Latin and
for its simplicity: Facemo bene adesso che havemo tempo (Let's do good now that we have time).
Next plate in Book 7: Convento dei Padri Eremiti di S. Agostino Next step in Day 8 itinerary: Porta Castello
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All images © 1999 - 2003 by Roberto Piperno. Write to romapip@quipo.it