Did you know that in Rome there’s a small “Duomo di Milano” in the heart of the city?
You won’t believe your eyes: you are in Rome but for a moment you will seem to be in Milan. The Romans, who know it well, call it “little Duomo of Milan”. Let’s discover together the many curiosities related to this church.
It is located on Lungotevere Prati, in the midst of buildings of a very different architectural style, not far from the Palace of Justice. This is the Church of the Sacred Heart of Suffrage, a small neo-Gothic jewel in the heart of Rome.
The nice name given to it is naturally due to the incredible resemblance to the more famous Milanese church. The external facade, in fact, full of spiers and pinnacles, recalls the Cathedral of the Lombard capital.
The construction of the church began in 1908 and the project was entrusted to the engineer Giuseppe Gualandi who was inspired, in the choice of style, by the Gothic from beyond the Alps. The building was completed in 1917 and blessed and opened for worship on 1 November of the same year; the following 10 December the parish was founded. Pope John Paul II visited the church on February 1, 1998.
The facade, entirely in reinforced concrete, is salient and emphasizes the internal subdivision with three naves with six quadrangular pillars each surmounted by a spire. In the lower part of the façade there are three portals with splays decorated with small columns in red Verona marble, each of which is surmounted by a gable and decorated with a marble lunette decorated in bas-relief: the central lunette depicts the Souls in Purgatory, the one above the right door the Deposition of Jesus and the one above the left door the Resurrection of Jesus; the gable of the central portal has a high relief depicting the Sacred Heart of Jesus between two angels.
The facade ends at the top with the slender octagonal bell tower surmounted by a cross inside which there is a heart-shaped votive donated by Victor Jouët who wanted it positioned on the highest part of the building.
The interior of the church, rotated with respect to the axis of the facade, has three naves of six bays each, covered with a cross vault and separated by pointed arches resting on polystyle pillars with sculpted capitals; the pillars and ribs of the vaults are decorated with bands of gray stone and red bricks, while the floor has inserts in red Verona marble.
Its peculiarity lies in guarding a real museum of the underworld. It is a collection of books, images and fabrics on which the footprints of souls from purgatory are thought to be engraved.
In 1894 Father Victor Jouet founded this church and three years later a fire broke out in the chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary. Once the fire was extinguished, Father Jouet observed an incredible phenomenon: on a wall he saw the image of a suffering face in a stain produced by the fire.
The parish priest interpreted this figure as a soul that from Purgatory was trying to communicate with the world of the living. So he decided to build a museum where to collect testimonies left by these tormented souls.
The museum was approved by the then Pope Pius X so that testimony could be given that the Church cannot deny that the souls of the deceased can get in touch with the living.
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