Church of Montserrat

Near Campo de' Fiori is the church of Santa Maria in Monsterrato, the national church of the Spanish, where the remains of the two Valencian popes, Callixtus III (Alfonso de Borja) and Alexander VI (Rodrigo de Borja), rest.

Callixtus III, who died on August 6, 1458, was buried in the chapel of Santa Maria della Febbre, attached to the Vatican basilica. His nephew, Alexander VI, who lost his life on the 18th of 1503, was buried in the mausoleum that he himself had built for his uncle.

Decades later, the then Jesuit Francisco de Borgia, great-grandson of Alexander VI, who served as General of the Company, tried to take the remains of his relatives to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore or to the future Jesuit church in Ferrara. His death in 1572 cut short the initiative.

The remodeling of the Piazza di San Pietro, in 1585, and the disappearance of the chapel where they were buried meant that their remains ended up being stored in a lead urn. In 1610, Joan Bautista Vives, from Seville, at the service of the Inquisition in Rome, transferred the remains to the sacristy of the church of Santa Maria in Montserrato.

Already in the 19th century, the Spanish ambassador in Rome, the Count of Coello, decided to dignify the burial of the two Spanish popes and commissioned a funerary monument from Felipe Moratilla, completed in 1889, located in the chapel of San Diego. Space that they shared until 1980 with the remains of Alfonso XIII.

The church of Montserrat has its origins in a hospital created in 1350 to house the subjects of the crown of Aragon and in the subsequent church, whose construction began in 1518 and lasted well into the 17th century.

The current invocation of Santiago and Montserrat is already more recent. In 1817, the church of Santiago, located in Piazza Navona, was closed, and that of Montserrat became the official church of Spain in Rome. Most of the works of art from the extinct temple passed to the new headquarters.

The Main Chapel is presided over by a crucifixion painted by Girolamo Siciolante da Semoneta in 1565. In the Chapel of the Virgen del Pilar there is a canvas where his figure is accompanied by those of Saint Vicent Ferrer and the Apostle Santiago, the work of Francisco Preciado de la Vega, Sevillian painter of the 18th century.

The two tombs in the chapel of Santiago el Mayor are of great interest. One by Alfonso de Paradinas, who died in 1485, founder of the church of Santiago, and the other by Juan de Fuensalida, bishop of Terni, secretary of Alexander VI, who died in 1498.