Santa Maria in Campitelli

Santa Maria in Campitelli or Santa Maria in Portico is a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary on the Piazza di Campitelli in Rione Sant'Angelo, Rome, Italy.

The church contains a 25 cm-high icon of the Virgin Mary dated by style and dendrochronology to the 11th century, though it had previously been claimed by tradition to have appeared miraculously in 524 at the table of Galla, a Roman woman who was helping the poor, and then carried in processions since 590. It was previously housed in the now-demolished Oratory of Santa Gala, sited at what is now the piazza's far end near the Porticus Octaviae (giving the church and icon its name of "Madonna of the Portico").

The icon was believed to have saved the city from plague in 1656 (or 1658), when it was carried in procession through the streets. On account of this, the earlier church on this site was replaced by Pope Alexander VII between 1659 and 1667 with the present one, designed by Carlo Rainaldi in the high Baroque style. The pope entrusted its operation to the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God.

The present church has a travertine façade with large columns against (but not attached to) it, thus giving it strong vertical lines. The original design included statues which were however never executed.

Santa Maria in Portico is a titular church; its Cardinal-Deacon since 2006 is Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo.

The interior shrine of Our Lady was created to contain the icon at the same date (to a design by the Maltese artist Melchiorre Caffà, or by Giovanni Antonio de Rossi), with a "gloria" (an architectural use of light for dramatic effect as used in Bernini's statue of St. Peter in the Basilica of St Peter of 1666). There is a staircase behind the 'gloria' allowing a better view of the icon, open by request only.

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