San Giovanni della Malva in Trastevere


San Giovanni della Malva in Trastevere is a church in Rome, in the Trastevere district, located in Piazza di S. Giovanni della Malva. It is the Albanian national church in Rome.

History

The church dates back to the Middle Ages. It is attested by a bull of Pope Callixtus II of 1123 with the name of Sancti Iohannis prope portam Septimianam . It was known in the fourteenth century by the name of Sancti Iohannis ad Ianiculum . The current name, attested only since 1367, can derive either from the mallow that grew near or from the corruption of the name Mica Aurea , a name that in the Middle Ages was given to the part of the Gianicolo still called Montorio. Moreover, in some catalogues of Roman churches, it is called Sancti Iohannis Mica Aurea. In 1475, on the occasion of the Jubilee and the opening of the Sisto bridge, Pope Sixtus IV had it restored. In 1818 the medieval church was demolished because it was dilapidated and in a state of decay, and in 1851 a new one was built, financed by Pio Grazioli, based on a project by Giacomo Moraldi.

Description

The church has a tripartite façade and a triangular tympanum; above the door there is a bas relief depicting the Virgin Mary with saints John the Evangelist and John the Baptist. This recalls that the church is dedicated to the Immaculate and to two saints named John. Also in the façade there are two coats of arms with the lamb and the eagle that allude to the two saints. The interior forms a Greek Cross , with a hemispherical dome. The church leads to an atrium, above which there is the choir. Nothing remains of the ancient interior decoration; only works from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are exhibited, mostly by unknown or uncertain authors. The altarpiece depicting the Madonna among the Evangelist and Baptist dominates.