Santi Bartolomeo ed Alessandro dei Bergamaschi stands on Via di Petra near Piazza Colonna in Rome, next to Palazzo Wedekind. It began in 1591 as a chapel for the Ospedale dei Pazzarelli, described as Rome's first insane asylum, and was first named Santa Maria della Pietà after the high relief over the door.
In the 1720s the hospital moved to Via della Lungara, and the church passed to the Archiconfraternità dei Bergamaschi, founded in 1539. It added its patron saint, Alexander, to the dedication. The church was rebuilt in the Baroque style from 1731 to 1735 to designs by Giuseppe Valvassori.
It is the burial place of Cardinal Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti, an antiquarian from Bergamo. It once housed a painting of the Seven Archangels, whose names were scratched out by order of Cardinal Albizzi.
Comments