Santa Maria Maddalena, Rome

The Santa Maria Maddalena is a Roman Catholic church in Rome, named after Saint Mary Magdalene. It is located on the Via della Maddalena, one of the streets leading from the Piazza della Rotonda in the Campo Marzio area of historic Rome.

The Clerks Regular, Ministers to the Sick (Italian: Ministri degli Infirmi), order established by Saint Camillus de Lellis, had a church at that location in Rome since 1586 and in the 17th century started the construction of the current church, which was completed in 1699 in the Baroque style.

In seventy years of work several architects were involved including Carlo Quadri, Carlo Fontana (who is thought to have designed the dome) and Giovanni Antonio de Rossi. It is uncertain who designed the curved main facade, which was finished circa 1735 and is Rococo, an unusual style in Roman church facades. It also displays motifs reminiscent of Borromini. Early guide books credit Giuseppe Sardi with the its design. Between 1732 and 1734, however, as architect of the order, the Portuguese architect Manuel Rodrigues dos Santos directed the completion of works at the church. The historian Alessandra Marino believes that it is to Dos Santos, rather than Giuseppe Sardi, that the design for the highly unusual façade decoration should be attributed. The architectural historian Nina Mallory has also maintained that Sardi is unlikely to be the designer of the façade.

To the left of the church is the monastery, constructed circa 1678, by Paolo Amato from Palermo and completed by C.F. Bizzacheri in the early 1680s.

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