Then there was the day we visited the Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva.

This was important because, not only is it gorgeous, but most of the body of St. Catherine is there. (The exception being her head, which is in Siena, of course).

This must have been Monday, because I remember that was the day it rained, and the day it rained was the day we went to the Pantheon, and we visited this church either before or after the Pantheon. I also remember thinking, "Uh…I think I like this better than I liked either St. John Lateran or St. Mary Major.." so it must been after that, which had been Sunday. So.

This is one of those amazing churches in Rome in which the exterior gives you absolutely no clue of what lies within. Here’s the outside:

And here’s the interior:

See what I mean?

I found all of the side chapels quite absorbing (the previously linked site, while the official site and very good is in Italian. This one’s in English.

Of particular interest was Michelangelo’s statue of The Redeemer – there was an art class there sketching it. Of course there were the two major tombs – St. Catherine’s, under the main altar, and off to the side, that of Fra Angelico. From another site on the church:

An especially endearing presence is that of Fra Giovanni of Fiesole (1387-1455), known in art history as Beato Angelico, who died in the adjoining monastery. His tomb is located in the Frangipane Chapel to the left of the altar choir. This pious Dominican monk was also one of the most renowned painters of the late Middle Ages-early Renaissance. Florence’s Renaissance ruler, Cosimo de Medici, so admired Fra Angelico’s work that he commissioned him to paint the entire convent of San Marco. Nicholas V, one of the first popes to actually reside in the Vatican and a great patron of the arts, invited Fra Angelico to Rome to decorate his private Vatican chapels. A wide-eyed reposing figure, also by Isaia of Pisa, gazes from the the top of the saint’s tomb, and his painting of the Virgin and Child hangs over the chapel altar.

These mystical and artistic spirits keep company with those of some of a very different type. Two of the Renaissance’s most powerful popes, Leo X (Giovanni de Medici, 1513-1521) and Clement VII (Giulio de Medici,1523-1534), are buried in the choir area behind the altar. These great humanists, munificent patrons of artists, political strategists, and vigorous hedonists, have imposing sepuchral monuments, worthy of their many achievements and huge egos.

And this?

Sacristy. Yeah.

Anyway, the sacristy is behind a locked gate to the left of the sanctuary and down a little hall. Behind the sanctuary, through the back doors, is something else – the room in which St. Catherine of Siena died – the walls, at least, which were moved here from nearby, at the order of Cardinal Antonio Barberini in 1680.

And yes, this is all behind bars – I think the rooms are open only infrequently. But we saw them – how? Because as we were standing there in the hall outside the sacristy, looking at old tomb slabs mounted on the walls, a woman came by jingling keys, and began to open the gate to the sacristy. I asked, in whatever English/Italian mix I could muster, if we could see St. Catherine’s room – she nodded and motioned, we went in, and she locked the gate behind us.

Later Katie asked…"How did you do that?" I said, "I asked," and that’s all it takes, much of the time. We were given some instructions on who to ask to see various spots in other churches – St. Sabine, St. Ignace and the Gesu…but never quite swung it, or remembered. You’d be surprised, though, what happens..if you just ask the right person at the right time!

A marvelous place, from Bernini’s elephant/obelisk out front, to St. Catherine’s room in the back, and every Gothic moment in between, made ven more memorable by the constrast of the plain, square, exterior and the curved, colorful nooks, crannies and vaults you discover within.

MIchael has much more on that rainy Monday, including our visit to the Pantheon and other area churches, and Jospeh’s saga of Wet Feet.

(And thank goodness I had packed his hiking boots – which I’d purchased last year for our Arizona trip and mercifully still fit. And will probably fit when he’s 8. The Star Wars shoes were packed away and the hiking boots kept his feet dry from that point on.)

And here, via Michael, is the (blurry) tomb of Fra Angelico, with a visitor: