Location Rome, Italy Ecclesiastical or organizational status Titular Church Direction of façade SE Architectural style Baroque architecture Leadership Darío Castrillón Hoyos Architectural type Church | Affiliation Roman Catholic Groundbreaking 1736 Length 30 metres (98 ft) Phone +39 06 798013 Completed 1751 Architect Antoine Derizet | |
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Address Piazza Foro Traiano, 89, 00187 Roma, Italy Similar Santa Maria di Loreto - R, Trajan's Forum, Santi Domenico e Sisto, San Cesareo in Palatio, Santi Nereo e Achilleo | ||
The Church of the Most Holy Name of Mary at the Trajan Forum (Italian: Santissimo Nome di Maria al Foro Traiano, Latin: Ss. Nominis Mariae ad forum Traiani) is a Roman Catholic church in Rome, Italy. This church should not be confused with the church Santissimo Nome di Maria in Via Latina in south-east Rome. The pale marble church stands in front of the Column of Trajan, a few dozen steps from the similarly domed, but externally more colorful, church of Santa Maria di Loreto.
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The feast of the Holy Name of Mary was instituted by Pope Innocent XI after the victory of the Austrian-Polish armies under the command of John III Sobieski over the Turks at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Abbot Giuseppe Bianchi instituted devotion to the most holy name of Mary in 1685 at Santo Stefano del Cacco, and soon afterwards established the Congregation of the Most Holy Name of Mary, which was formally approved in 1688.
History
In 1694, the congregation moved to San Bernardo a Colonna Traiani, but the next year, realizing that they needed to build a new church, they acquired the adjacent plot and had Santissimo Nome di Maria built by the Frenchman Antoine Derizet (1736-1741). In 1748, seven years later, San Bernardo was demolished, but the icon of Mary had been transferred from it to the new church in 1741. Once a year, it is carried in solemn procession from the site of San Bernardo to its present place above the high altar of Santissimo Nome di Maria.
The interior is elliptical. There are seven small chapels, decorated in polychrome marble.
Titular holders
Cardinal holders of the Titular Church of Santissimo Nome di Maria al Foro Traiano: