Luogo - Religious building
Chiesa di Santo Stefano degli Abissini
Where
Città del Vaticano
The St. Stephen's Abyssinians is in the homonymous Largo, behind St. Peter's Basilica, in Vatican City. It belonged to a pre-existing monastery of the eighth century. During the Middle Ages, Church and monastery were joined in a hospice for Abyssinians monks. In 1479 Sixtus IV gave the Church to the Coptic monks, and by that time it was called by different names (St. Stephen, Egypt, the Moors and Indians), until the prevalence of the current name. Restored by Pope Clement XI in 1706, still preserves the rich Romanesque portal carved with foliage. The interior has a nave, with some paintings of the seventeenth century and inscriptions in Arabic and Ethiopian. Valuable ciborium of the twelfth century.
