COMPLESSO MONUMENTALE S. SPIRITO IN SAXIA

The Complex of the Holy Spirit in Sassia was built during the early decades of AD 700, during the period in which the king of the Saxons, Ina, gave birth to the Schola Saxonum, hence the term Sassia. The Schola Saxonum was conceived by King as a kind of shelter for his countrymen, who came every year in Rome on a pilgrimage to visit the tomb of St. Peter. The entire complex was rebuilt in 1198, during the papacy of Innocent III, Marchionne D'Arezzo. The reconstruction work was required due to the fires and looting that severely damaged the facilities of the complex. The Pope decided to instruct the Order of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit to form a kind of hospital to house the poor, the sick and protected, that all those children abandoned by their mothers. During the years between 1471 and 1478, the complex was partly rebuilt and enlarged, according to the plans of the architect Baccio Pontelli by Pope Sixtus IV. The cycle of frescoes that affects the Sistine Ward to the initiative of Sixtus IV and depicts the history of the hospital and its rebuilding. The Sistine Ward is divided in two by an octagonal lantern and it houses an altar attributed to Palladio and a painting by Carlo Maratta. During the pontificate of Pius V, the complex was expanded and it was arranged the construction of Commander's Palace, designed by the architect John Lippi said Nanni di Baccio Bigio. In the nineteenth century, the two wings that constitute the Cosrsia were called the Sistine Hall and Cast yourself Baglivi Hall, named after two well-known doctors. The entrance is dominated by a beautiful marble portal, called Paradise and attributed to the school of Andrea Bregno.