Santa Maria in Traspontina

Santa Maria in Traspontina
Façade seen from Via della Conciliazione.
Basic information
Location	Rome
Geographic coordinates	Coordinates: 41°54′10″N 12°27′44″E / 41.90278°N 12.46222°E / 41.90278; 12.46222
Affiliation	Roman Catholic
Country	Italy
Ecclesiastical or organizational status	Titular church
Architectural description
Architect(s)	Giovanni Sallustio Peruzzi
Architectural type	Church

Santa Maria in Traspontina (or Transpontina) is a Carmelite church in Rome, Italy. The shrine lies on the Via della Conciliazione, the main road of the Rione Borgo.

The church was established as a cardinalatial titulus by Pope Sixtus V on 13 April 1587. The current Cardinal Priest of Santa Maria in Traspontina is the former Archbishop of Quebec, Marc Ouellet, a supporter of Opus Dei, who is now the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops in the Roman Curia.

Pope Alexander VI demolished an ancient Roman pyramid on the same site (the Meta Romuli, believed in the Middle Ages to be Romulus's tomb, and portrayed on the bronze doors to St Peter's Basilica and in a Giotto di Bondone triptych in the Vatican Museums) for the construction of the first church. This church was then demolished during the pontificate of Pius IV (1559–1565) to clear the line of fire for the cannons of the Castel Sant' Angelo, who wished to exercise shooting on the Gianicolo Hill, which otherwise would have been hidden behind the church.

Designs by Giovanni Sallustio Peruzzi (with contributions by Ottaviano Nonni and Francesco Peparelli) for a replacement church were in place by 1566, though the papal artillery officers insisted that its dome be as low as possible to avoid a recurrence of the previous problem — for this reason this is the only church in Rome whose dome does not lie on a drum. The new church was erected along the North side of Borgo Nuovo, which was at that time - and until its destruction in 1937 - the main road of Borgo.