St. Rose of Viterbo Convent
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Mary of the Angels Chapel
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Interior of the chapel
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| Location | 901 Franciscan Way, La Crosse, Wisconsin, United States |
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| Coordinates | 43°48′14″N 91°14′37″W / 43.80389°N 91.24361°WCoordinates: 43°48′14″N 91°14′37″W / 43.80389°N 91.24361°W |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1906 |
| Architectural style | Romanesque |
| NRHP Reference # | 06000204 |
| Added to NRHP | March 29, 2006 |
St. Rose of Viterbo Convent is the motherhouse of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, an American religious congregation, which is located in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The convent is dedicated to Rose of Viterbo, a 13th-century Franciscan tertiary who was a noted mystic and street preacher in Italy who died while still a teenager.
The convent contains three chapels, of which one, Mary of the Angels Chapel, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places of the United States. Another, the Adoration Chapel, is the site of perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which has been an uninterrupted practice of the Sisters since August 1, 1878.
The central portion of the convent was built in 1871, when the Sisters moved their motherhouse from Jefferson, Wisconsin, at the invitation of Michael Heiss, Bishop of the newly established Diocese of La Crosse.
The convent was initially built both as the administrative center of the congregation and also as a secondary school for girls. With the growing numbers of members of the congregation and of the student body, two wings were added to the initial building which were completed in 1914. The original building was gutted by fire in 1923 and had to be rebuilt, which took two years.
The Sisters built the first Chapel of Mary of the Angels (Latin: Maria Angelorum) to serve their own spiritual needs and that of their students. It was dedicated on August 2, 1873, the Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels in Assisi, Italy, the first home of the Franciscan Order. In 1903, they began construction on a new chapel, designed by Eugene R. Liebert, which was completed on August 2, 1906.Thaddeus von Zukotynski was the artist for the oil-on-canvas painting located immediately above the main altar of the chapel. This work shows St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan Order, at prayer in the Porziuncola, having a famous vision of Jesus and Mary in which he was granted the Porziuncula Indulgence.
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