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Open: 8.00 to 13.00, from
15.00 to 18.00 (winter) or 19.00 (summer).
Confessions: Saturday: 16:30 to 17:30 - Sunday: 11:00 to 12:00
S. Mass: Saturday
17.00, Sunday 11.30.
Phone: 06 540 39 96.
To get to St. Paul's Church
must take a short tree-lined avenue, which it leaves behind the church of
Saints Vincent and Anastasius and Santa Maria Scala Coeli. This is the
church dedicated to the martyrdom of St. Paul and is the highest and most
sacred historic and spiritual significance of the Abbey of Tre
Fontane. Even in this case the history of mankind has led to a
stratification of a building built on the ruins of the other, the last of
which dates back to 1599, when it was pulled down the old existing building
and built in its place the work of Giacomo della port commissioned by
Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini. The external facade of the church of San
Paolo is an alternation of brick and travertine used for the decorative
elements of the portal, cornices and capitals. Two statues overlook
the gable of the facade: those of St. Peter and St. Paul, made from
"Franciosini" sculptor of Lorraine, whose real name was Nicolas
Cordier, who, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, he worked
for the Vatican .
Also St. Peter and St. Paul are the subjects of these two
reliefs on the side walls of the vestibule, immediately after entering, the
area that corresponds to the ancient oratory. The two works were
donated by Pope Pius IX, the first in memory of the eighteenth centenary of
the death of the Apostle, the second in memory of the defeat of Garibaldi's
troops, November 3, 1867, by papal dell'esecito ("in memoriam
victoriae to Nomentum). The floor of the vestibule is partly occupied
by a mosaic, existing at the time of construction of the church and was
left where it was.
High up in the lunette above the door, past the marble plaque
commemorating the name of the purchaser of the work, Cardinal Aldobrandini
at the time of the papacy of Clement VIII, is represented in the burial of
St. Paul on the Via Ostiense, in a seal of the matron Lucina, where there
will be then built the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
From the vestibule you enter the nave, cross over the
entrance, with two chapels on the sides and the apse at the center. On
the floor was placed a Roman mosaic discovered in Ostia Antica near Mitreo
the Imperial Palace, it dates from the second century AD and is dedicated
to the Four Seasons, it bears the inscriptions: VER (spring) - AESTAS (Summer)
- AUTU ( MNUS) (autumn) - HIEMS (winter). It was donated to the church
by Pope Pius IX. The two altars of the chapels are topped with
paintings, one on the left, on the altar dedicated to St. Peter, represents
the copy of the "Crucifixion" by Guido Reni (1575-1642) whose
original is kept in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, after the French had brought
to Paris as a result of the Treaty of Tolentino (February 19, 1797) and
then returned in 1815, the altar of the right is dedicated to St. Paul and
is surmounted by the blade of the beheading, by the Bolognese Passarotti
Bartholomew (1529 - 1592).
Both paintings are topped by pediments supported by columns of
precious marble. On the left of the altar of St. Paul, the column is
truncated where tradition has been linked during the Apostle's martyrdom.
The three fountains are aligned along the wall of the nave, at
equal distance from each other but at different level from the floor,
arranged in niches in niche. The sources, closed since 1950, are
surmounted by shrines designed by the door, in black marble columns of
Chios, which support timpani arc basin with marble and each shrine was
adorned with a bas-relief depicting the head of Nicolas Cordier Apostle:
unfortunately we can no longer enjoy because stolen.
Behind the shrine of the central source on the wall of the
apse, representing the martyrdom of St. Paul on this, in the basin, there
is the "Glory of the Apostle," interpret the description of the
revelations of Santa Maria d'Oigny , that the soul of St. Paul was presented
to the SS. Trinity by the martyr Stephen. Above, in the lunette,
a fresco depicting St. Paul at Caesarea before Porcius Festus, the Roman
governor said that the appeal of all'Impertore saying: "Appellasti to
Caesar, to Caesar you shall go."
That this is the place where St. Paul was martyred is a large
marble plaque to testify; mail on the lintel of the external front, it
gives the building to the cardinal and Aldobrandini bears the inscription:
"Site of the martyrdom of St. Paul where three sources miraculously
gushed "According to ancient tradition, the apostle here was taken
June 29 to 67 be beheaded. His head, took off, jumped to the ground
three times and on those three points three sources of water miraculously
gushed.
Certainly, the story includes a series of real events,
documented by numerous archaeological findings and historical
documentation. An Act apocryphal, probably added later, contains the
description of the martyrdom of St. Paul and the miracle: "Explaining
the veil of Plautilla is bandaged his eyes, leaned both his knees on the
ground and handed the head, that quickly with a large blow severed, was
heard by all pronounce loudly for three times in the Hebrew language, the
lovely name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and at the same time from the neck
and head of the Apostle spurted a 'wave of milk on the executioner's robes
and the earth. " The document also states that the waters were
the site of the martyrdom Hi, the shade of an ancient pine tree. In
fact, excavations in 1878 confirmed the presence of a pine forest in the
area: "In very deep cupping practiced a few feet away from the scene
of the beheading, present credible witnesses, were found many cones that
the effects of time and chemical reactions of the soil had almost
fossilized, three well logs of pine and a certain amount of coins from the
times of Nero. "Also, previously, GB de Rossi, during another
excavation, identified the remains of a church and a number of inscriptions
that revealed the presence of a cemetery area near the church of Santa
Maria Scala Coeli; other findings by the end of seventh century gave
evidence of the presence of a chapel in memory of the Apostle who was
restored or rebuilt by Pope Sergius I in 689, it consisted of a hall that
led into two chapels, which contained the sacred springs - two in a chapel
and a in the other.
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Thomas Merton wrote of Tre Fontane and the Trappist monks there in the Seven Storey Mountain.