Description
The church stands on a slight natural depression in the plain of Campo Marzio, the Romans considered one of the inputs of the Underworld and place of worship of the infernal deities, with the name of Tarentum.
From the thirteenth century is here reminded of a church dedicated to the Nativity of Our Lady, linked to the parish of San Lorenzo in Damaso. In the fifteenth and sixteenth century the church was known as the "Santa Maria in Pute register" because of an old true of the well ("well-head") in white marble. The church had three naves separated three columns on each side.
In 1551 St. Philip Blacks founded the "Congregation of the Oratory," which was then recognized by Pope Gregory XIII in 1575. In the same spirit the congregation relied on the old church, which, however, was no longer in good condition. He was then entrusted to the architect Matteo di Citta di Castello was commissioned to build a "new church". The first Mass in the new building, with nave and four side chapels, still covered by a wooden roof, was celebrated in 1577. The church and its chapels were decorated with polychrome stucco and marble, designed by Domenico Fontana and Giovanni Antonio Dosio.
In 1586 the works passed to Martino Longhi the Elder, architect of the largest funder of the trust works Cardinal Pier Donato Cesi. After the cardinal's death the work continued and a semicircular apse, the transept and the dome that surmounted the intersection, were inaugurated in 1591.
Between 1594 and 1617, according to a draft Giacomo della Porta in 1585 and edited by John the Baptist War as a supervisor in the work, the original plan was modified with a single aisle through the piercing of the side chapels, which were backward in order to leave room for two narrow aisles. He also added two other chapels, one on each side.
Meanwhile Angelo Cesi, Bishop of Todi and brother of the Cardinal, funded the work of the facade, which always began in 1594 to a design by Fausto Rughesi and ended after interruption between 1598 and 1603, in 1605, while the front steps was completed in 1614. The pediment that crowns the facade for the entire width is perhaps an intervention by Carlo Maderno.
The bell tower was added in 1666 by Camillo Arcucci.
