(137) Santi Bonifacio e Alessio The Basilica dei Santi Bonifacio e(d) Alessio all'Aventino is a church on the western point of the Aventine Hill in Rome next to the Tiber, dedicated to Saint Boniface of Tarsus and Saint Alexius. History: The foundation of the church is not documented, and the legends attached to its origin are not reliable. However, scholarly consensus posits a date in the 4th century, built by a rich lady by the name of Aglae in honour of St Boniface. The church was built neat the ruins of the pagan Temple of Jove and the ruim of this were discovered in1935. The present church has a double dedication.. There are two stories, one for each of the saints, which hint at a common origin. (137) Alexis was allegedly the son of a Roman senator, Euphemian, who as a teenager was forced to marry agaimt his will and on the night of his nuptials he left home and led the life of a pilgrim in the East. He returned to Rome after seventeen years to live unrecognized by his parents in a toolshed under a wooden exterior staircase at the family home on the Aventine near or under the present church. He died before they did, and they found a paper revealing his identity on the body. The plot has been attached to the names of other early saints, and the story seems to derive ultimately from Edessa (now Urfa in Turkey). He is listed in the revised Roman martyrology, which makes it clear that the story is traditional not historical. The story of St Boniface was allegedly obtained from a Greek source in the 7th century. According to it, he was a native Roman slave who had a sexual relationship with his owner, a rich expatriate Greek lady called Aglaë who had a house on the site of the church. They repented of their behaviour, and she suggested that he go off to the Middle East to help persecuted Christians. He was martyred in Tarsus (now in Turkey), she had his remains brought back and then converted her house into a church in the early 4th century as a shrine for them. It is now thought that this story is a forgery, and that the saint never existed. Unusually for a saint with a Roman church dedicated to him, he has been deleted from the Roman martyrology. The first hint at the existence of a monastic church dedicated to St Boniface lies in the biography of St Boniface of Crediton, the Apostle of the Germans. He was originally a Saxon from England called Winfrith, but when he went to Rome as a missionary monk the pope ordained him bishop in 717 and, importantly, renamed him Boniface. The first direct evidence for the church's existence is from the Liber Pontificalis for Leo III (750-816) where it is described as a diaconia or centre for social and charitable works. The monastery emerges into history in 977 when it was given by Pope Benedict VII to the Metropolitan of Damascus, a Basilian monk named Sergius, who had been exiled in a Muslim persecution. He established a community of both Latin and Byzantine rite monks, and the monastery very quickly became famous as a missionary centre for some of the most important evangelizers at that time. The most famous missionary monk to be based here was St Adalbert of Prague, who set out from this church on his mission to the Slavs. However, in the early 10th century the breakdown of relations between Eastern and Western churches led to the Byzantine-rite monks leaving. They were replaced by Benedictines from Cluny Abbey. This was in the context of the Cluniac Reform of monastic life in Western Europe, but in Rome at least the monks became corrupt in their lifestyle in the 13th century. The Catalogue of Turin, c. 1320, mentions only five monks in the monastery which was too few to maintain monastic life. As a result, they were dispossessed and replaced by Premonstratensian canons in 1231. By this time, the Aventine was totally depopulated except for the inhabitants of the fortress-monasteries, and most of the land was taken up by vineyards and hay fields. Meanwhile, the complex was reconstructed and St Alexis was added to the church's dedication by Pope Honorius III in 1217 after the saint's legend became very popular. The bodies of SS Alexius and Boniface were discovered and placed under the high altar, and were last scen in 1603. The church was described at the time as a basilica with nave and aisles, and with eight arcade columns on each side. It is uncertain as to when this was actually built, or how much the pope had rebuilt. In 1426 the Premonstratensians made way in their turn for the "Hermits of St Jerome of the Observance", otherwise known as the Hieronomytes of Lombardy who had been founded as a (137) reform of their Order two years previously. They undertook some modifications at the end of the century; it is not clear what these were. To celebrate the Holy Year of 1750, the Hieronymite brethren embarked on a huge project of restoration which turned the church into the Baroque edifice that it now is. The plan was by Giovanni Battista Noli, the execution by Tommaso de Marchis and the one who paid for it was Cardinal Angelo Maria Quirini. Of the building reconsecrated by Honorius III in 1217 only the campanile and mosaic floor remain. The later 18th century was a disaster for the Hieronymites, and the last of their monasteries in Spain were suppressed in 1835 (although the Order has been re-founded there). So in 1846 the Somaschi Fathers were installed in the church, and as a result further alterations were carried out in 1860. However, they lost the main part of the monastery when this was confiscated by the government in 1873. In 1587 it was called Sant'Alessio. In the nineteenth century the former dedication of the basilica was renewed, so from that time on the official name of the basilica is Santi Bonifacio e Alessio. Exterior: The church and monastery occupy the crest of the hill overlooking the Tiber, with a spectacular view over Trastevere in the direction of the Vatican. The complex is just west of the larger one of Santa Sabina, and is adjacent with a boundary wall separating the two properties. The church stands back from the road, and is oriented south to north. Santa Sabina is at exactly ninety degrees, west to east, and the two churches demonstrate that the traditional insistence of orienting churches to the east does not hold in Rome. To the west, on the church's left hand side, is the monastery occupying four sides of a cloister which has its arcaded walkways under the ranges. In between the church and the street is an entrance court, with another wing of the monastery to the west and a further one to the south along the street, with the outer gateway passing underneath. The east side of the court is the boundary wall with Santa Sabina. The church faces a small piazza; and its entrance from the street consists of a covered portico adorned externally with two columns of grey granite, and pierced by four windows, decorated each with two small columns, six of which are of marmo salino, and two of paonazzetto brecciato, and internally with six columns of marmo salino. Inside the portico is a square atrium in which are ten columns and on the left is the campanile. At the further extremity of the portico is the covered narthex of the church. Campanile A fine brick Romanesque campanile of five storeys from the 13th century rebuilding was preserved in the Baroque re-ordering. It is over the near end of the right hand aisle, and has a tall blank lower storey. The second storey has two arches on three faces, the fourth being blocked by the nave roof, but the subsequent three storeys have two pairs of arches on each face. Each pair is separated by a stone column with impost, and a string course runs around each storey at the level of the arch springers. A dentillate cornice separates each storey, and tops off the final one. Narthex The 17th century narthex has a range of rooms above, and hence is a two-storey composition. There are five open arches to the loggia, the central one being slightly larger and crowned with a triangular pediment. Above the arches is a plain entablature with a projecting tiled cornice, and the pillars (137) between the arches as well as the outer corners are decorated with Doric semi-columns in a dark yellow limestone. Inverted plinths connect the capitals of these columns with the cornice, and this is a design feature of the façade. The second storey has five rectangular windows, and six Corinthian pilasters each of which is triply clustered. These support a cornice in the same style as the storey below. The roofline is balustraded, and has six finials in the form of flaming funerary urns with lions' masks. The nave frontage peeps over the façade, and shows a triangular pediment with a small oculus in its recessed tympanum. The cross finial on the apex does not look like much, but is apparently a 9th century survival. In the right hand side of the portico there is a gypsum statue of Pope Benedict XIII (1724-1730), erected by Cardinal Quirini in 1752 to celebrate the completion of the Baroque re-ordering.