The Catholic Church has a lengthy tradition of collecting relics from saints and clerics dating back almost to its beginnings. Bones, clothes or artifacts from the person were carefully preserved in caskets, lockets and glass urns to commemorate and venerate them after death. And many churches collected relics, especially of their namesake, in ornate reliquaries with their popularity peaking during the early Middle Ages.
Today relics still draw the faithful and there’s one church at the heart of Rome with a particularly peculiar collection. Welcome to the Church of Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi.
Walking around the eternal city of Rome you really are spoilt for choice. The ancient Romans obviously left their indelible mark with acres of ruins still dotting the city. More recently, Benito Mussolini added his signature of wide avenues, subterranean trains and futurist, sleek concrete, steel and glass architecture as part of his revolution to create La Terza Roma, the third Rome. But it’s to the intervening years that we owe a real debt of gratitude as the Romanesque, Renaissance and Baroque periods filled the city with beautiful palazzi, piazze and churches.
Today there are an estimated thousand churches within the city boundaries. They adorn busy corners, cobbled streets and every bustling piazza. Each one has its own style. From the extravagant Baroque statue homages to saints and angels, to the sumptuously frescoed ceilings full of biblical life, all have a story to tell. But with so many strewn around town, it’s easy to become a bit blasé and to miss some of the lesser-known jewels.
The Church of Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi is a case in point.
Situated on the site of a medieval church, St Vincent and Anastasius celebrates two martyrs from different countries and periods. Vincent lived in Spain and was put to death during the 3rd century Diocletian persecution of Christians. Anastasius, by contrast, was a Persian soldier who converted before being executed in the 7th century by King Chosroes II of Persia. Their sacrifice was commemorated first by a 10th century church, and again when diplomat and politician Cardinal Mazzarino ordered it rebuilt in the Holy Year of 1650.
The church’s façade is covered in symbols of the mother faith and its earthly sponsor. The cardinal’s hat sits atop his coat of arms surrounded by angels and trumpeting cherubs. His niece, Marie Mancini, is also reputed to be depicted in the scene, despite being one of Louis XIV of France’s mistresses. Add in eighteen imposing travertine stone columns and several pediments and you have a beautifully theatrical setting. But that’s not enough to draw the faithful, they come instead for what’s inside the church – a collection of 22 rather unusual relics.
The Chiesa of Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi was founded as one of Rome’s territorial parish churches. It counted the residents of nearby palaces as parishioners and this, rather unusually, included the Quirinal Palace, official residence of popes from 1583 onwards. Popes weren’t just parishioners however, they left their hearts in the little church. Literally.
The practice of keeping a relic of a saint or cleric dates back to the earliest Christian churches and usually involves a bone or artifact that was once associated with the venerated person. In the case of the church of St Vincent and Anastasius, however, the relics are the hearts of every pope from Pope Sixtus V in 1590 through to Pope Leo XIII, who died as recently as 1903. And it’s this link that makes the church unique in Rome, if not the world.
It sounds a little strange, macabre even, to us now but when Sixtus died his internal organs, including his heart, were separated from his body and put in a jar. Far from being a religious practice though, it was a purely practical way to prevent the corpse from decaying too fast, in the days before refrigeration, whilst arrangements were being made for the funeral. But rather than re-uniting the papal heart with its body at its final burial, or simply throwing the organs away, the jar was given to the “Pontifical parish” church of St Vincent and Anastasius. And thus began a custom that would last over three hundred years, even after the popes were evicted from the Quirinal and moved to the Vatican in the early 1800s.
The names of the popes were successively inscribed to the left of the central altar of the parrocchia papale, as each of the 22 silver hearts, or præcordia, was added to the wall. Interestingly none of the pontiffs whose hearts are preserved at the church was ever canonized or declared a saint, but their relics hold great significance nevertheless. It’s just a pity that few people know that they’re there.
Today, despite the fact that literally millions of tourists pass by the steps of the church of St Vincent and St Anastasius every year, only a fraction climbs the short flight of stairs to enter through its large doors. And that’s more from curiosity than on purpose as sadly, despite the church’s heritage, most visitors these days have actually come to see the church’s neighbor, the iconic, dramatic Baroque masterpiece that is the Trevi Fountain. The Fontana, built a little under a century after the new church, quickly became a must-see for Grand Tourists and today is one of Italy’s top attractions. No wonder then that the little parish church to the side of the piazza is totally overshadowed by the fountain’s grandeur. At least now you now it’s there you will be able to pay the little church of San Vincenzo and Sanat’Anastasio a visit next time you’re in town. Just don’t forget to throw your three coins in the fountain afterwards to make sure you return.
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