Sant'Apollinare | |
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Sant'Apollinare alle Terme Neroniane-Alessandrine | |
Facade Sant'Apollinare
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41°54′3.2″N 12°28′25″E / 41.900889°N 12.47361°ECoordinates: 41°54′3.2″N 12°28′25″E / 41.900889°N 12.47361°E | |
Country | Italy |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Website | basilica |
History | |
Founded | 7th Century |
Dedication | Apollinaris of Ravenna |
Events | Station church for the Thursday of the fifth week in Lent. |
Architecture | |
Status | Minor basilica |
Architect(s) | Ferdinando Fuga |
Style | Baroque |
Groundbreaking | 1742 |
Completed | 1748 |
Administration | |
Archdiocese | Rome |
Sant'Apollinare alle Terme is a titular church in Rome, Italy, dedicated to St Apollinare, the first bishop of Ravenna. It is the station church for the Thursday of the fifth week in Lent.
The church was founded in the early Middle Ages, probably in the 7th century. It is first mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis under Pope Hadrian I, using spolia from the ruins of an imperial building. The first priests who served the church were probably eastern Basilian monks who had fled from persecution during the iconoclast period.
It is listed in the Catalogue of Turin as a papal chapel with eight clerics and in 1574 was granted to the Jesuits by Pope Gregory XIII, and it was used as the church of the next-door Collegium Germanicum in the Palazzo di Sant'Apollinare, which was later united with the Hungarian College to form the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum. This remained a Jesuit institution until the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, when this church passed to the Lazarists.
In the late 17th century, the church was in a poor state of repair. Its rebuilding was considered over a long period but wasn't carried out, probably due to the lack of funds. Despite this, in 1702 a chapel was redecorated and dedicated to St Francis Xavier, and a statue of the saint commissioned from Pierre Le Gros who carved the marble with extraordinary virtuosity (the statue was preserved when the church was eventually rebuilt some 40 years later and is still ).