Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte
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The church of Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte is a small church in central Rome, on Via Giulia between the Tiber and the Palazzo Farnese, first built in 1575, but completely rebuilt by Ferdinando Fuga in 1733 using an elliptical plan.
Inside may be seen frescoes by Giovanni Lanfranco of 'St. Anthony Abbot' and 'S.Paul of Thebes,' removed to the church from a now-lost structure built by Odoardo Farnese. In the first chapel at the right is a Mystical marriage of Saint Catherine; in the main chapel is a Crucifixion (1680) by Ciro Ferri. In the second chapel to the left is 'S. Giuliana Falconieri Receives the Habit From S.Filippo Benizi' (1740) by Pier Leone Ghezzi. In the first chapel to the left is a Rest on the Flight to Egypt by Lorenzo Masucci.
Santa Maria was built for an order that assumed responsibility for interring unburied corpses of the poor and abandoned in Rome. It is best known for the depictions of laureled skulls over its entrance and other death imagery. Its charity was, and still is, supported by a the Arciconfraternita di Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte, a purgatorial society dating to the 1560s, which would also bury the unclaimed corpses in its own cemetery, once sited on the banks of the Tiber adjacent to the church. Members of reknown included the architect Fuga and San Carlo Borromeo.
