Villa del Priorato di Malta or Magistral Villa, [1] located on the Aventine Hill in Rome, is one of the two institutional seats of the government of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Along with Magistral Palace, the estate is granted extraterritorial status by Italy. It also hosts the Grand Priory of Rome and the embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta to Italy. [2]
The site, on a rise directly overlooking the Tiber and access to the Roman Pons Sublicius, was already a fortified Benedictine monastery in the tenth century. The monastery passed to the Templars and after the destruction of their order, to the Knights Hospitallers, predecessors of the present Order of Malta. Radical rebuilding was undertaken in the 15th through 17th centuries. The villa was granted extraterritoriality in 1869. [3] On the piano nobile is an assemblage of portraits of the Grand Masters of the Order.
The site is reached by Via Santa Sabina, which ends in the small, picturesque Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta enclosed on two sides by the cypresses of the garden of the Benedictines backing the fantasy screen of obelisks and stele constructed in 1765 to designs by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, one of the very few executed designs by this etcher of Roman views who prided himself on being an architect. [4] Ahead rises the Neo-Romanesque campanile of the Church of San Anselmo (1893-1900) attached to the international Benedictine seminary (Seminario Internazionale Benedettino).
At the northern side of the square the monumental entrance screen is located, also designed by Piranesi under commission from Cardinal Carlo Rezzonico, nephew of Pope Clement XIII. The Villa is arguably best known for a small keyhole (Il Buco Della Serratura) in the arch-headed central portone, through which the copper-green dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, can be viewed at the end of a garden allée framed in clipped cypresses. [5]
The parterre garden links the villa with the Order's Church of Santa Maria del Priorato, an ancient church completely redesigned by Piranesi in 1765, affording perhaps the earliest example in Rome of Neoclassical architecture. [6] Its facade is capped with a low pediment; paired pilasters on either side of the door have fanciful capitals each formed of a tower flanked by seated sphinxes; other elements of the classical vocabulary are also combined in fanciful and personal ways.
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, commonly known as the Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of a military, chivalric, and noble nature. Though it possesses no territory, the order is often considered a sovereign entity under international law.
Giovanni BattistaPiranesi was an Italian classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric "prisons". He was the father of Francesco Piranesi, Laura Piranesi and Pietro Piranesi.
The Militia Templi, also called the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ, is a lay order of the Roman Catholic Church.
Ripa is the 12th rione of Rome, Italy, identified by the initials R. XII, and it is located in the Municipio I.
Piazza Armerina is a comune in the province of Enna of the autonomous island region of Sicily, southern Italy.
The Church of Santissima Trinità dei Monti, often called simply Trinità dei Monti, is a Roman Catholic late Renaissance titular church in Rome, central Italy. It is best known for its position above the Spanish Steps which lead down to the famous Piazza di Spagna. The church and its surrounding area are a French State property.
The Knights of Justice or Professed Knights, form the first of the three classes of members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta together with the professed conventual chaplains. They make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. According to the Order's Code, "they are religious in all respects and they comply with the universal and particular norms that concern them."
Sant'Anselmo all'Aventino is a complex located on the Piazza Cavalieri di Malta Square on the Aventine Hill in Rome's Ripa rione and overseen by the Benedictine Confederation and the Abbot Primate. The Sant'Anselmo complex, also known as the "Primatial Abbey of Sant'Anselmo" because it is the residence of the Abbot Primate, consists of: an ecclesiastical residential college known as the "College of Sant'Anselmo" ; a university known as the "Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm" ; the "Church of Sant'Anselmo" ; and the curial headquarters of the "Benedictine Confederation" and Abbot Primate. The complex and associated institutions are named in honor of the Benedictine monk Saint Anselm of Canterbury.
Palazzo Malta, officially named as the Magistral Palace, and also known as Palazzo di Malta or Palazzo dell'Ordine di Malta, is the more important of the two headquarters of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Roman Catholic lay religious order and a sovereign subject of international law. It is located in Via dei Condotti, 68 in Rome, Italy, a few minutes' walk from the Spanish Steps, and has been granted extraterritoriality by the Italian Government. The Palace has been a property of the Order of Malta since 1630.
Tommaso Righi (1727–1802) was an Italian sculptor and stuccator with a practice in Rome. His marble and stucco funeral monument to Carlo Pio Balestra, patron of the Church of Santi Luca e Martina, in the Roman Forum, is probably his most prominent commission. His monument of cardinal Camillo Paolucci stands in a chapel of San Marcello al Corso, where its design was constrained by its having to form a pendant to the baroque monument facing it, of Fabrizio Paolucci, by Pietro Bracci (1726). A great work, less often seen, is his altarpiece in the Church of S. Maria del Priorato, the chapel of the Villa of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta: Piranesi provided the design, and Righi executed the great globe surrounded by putti in clouds, and Saint Basil in Glory supported by two angels. His bas-relief panel appears among a host by others, in the central Sala degli Imperatori of the Galleria Borghese, part of the rearrangement of the interiors of the Villa Borghese undertaken in 1782 by prince Marcantonio Borghese.
The Church of St. Mary of the Priory, also known as St. Mary on the Aventine, is the monastery church of the Priory of the Knights of Malta on the Aventine Hill in Rome, and is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
This is an article about the postage stamps and postal history of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Fra' Giovanni Battista Ceschi a Santa Croce was Lieutenant of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta from 1872 to 1879 and then Prince and Grand Master from 1879 until his death in 1905.
The Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi is a building in Rome. Sited in the ruins of the Forum of Augustus, it was built by the Knights Hospitaller at the end of the 13th century and since 1946 has been used by their successors, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Villa Pagana, formerly known as Villa Spinola, is a residential building in the frazione of San Michele di Pagana in Rapallo, within the Metropolitan City of Genoa in Italy.
The Association of Italian Knights of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta brings together the Knights and Ladies of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta of Italian nationality. It was founded in 1877 in Rome, it is currently based at the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi in the Piazza del Grillo, Rome.
Fra' Roberto Viazzo is an Italian medical doctor and a member of the Sovereign Council of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Since December 3, 2022, he has been Administrator of the Grand Priory of Rome.
Armando Brasini was a prominent Italian architect and urban designer of the early twentieth century and exemplar of Fascist architecture. His work is notable for its eclectic and visionary style inspired by Ancient Roman architecture, Italian Baroque architecture and Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
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