Santa Maria di Monserrato in Rome: Shifting Identities of a Multifaceted Community

Susanne Kubersky-Piredda and Sílvia Canalda Llobet

Santa Maria di Monserrato is one of around fifty churches in early modern Rome run by nationally organized confraternities. It was built from 1518 onwards for subjects of the Crown of Aragon along the model of – but also in competition with – the church of San Giacomo degli Spagnoli in Piazza Navona, which had been serving the community of Castilians from as early as 1450. The Confraternity of Santa Maria di Monserrato, founded under Pope Alexander VI Borgia, included a number of different groups, notably Catalans, Aragonese, and Valencians, and the institution itself had its roots in two older hospices founded by female benefactors from Barcelona and Mallorca in the mid-14th century for Catalan pilgrims. Since the church was financed solely by private donations, construction dragged on for many years. The altar was consecrated in 1594, but the apse was not completed until 1675. In 1807, San Giacomo degli Spagnoli and Santa Maria di Monserrato were merged into a single national Spanish institution. The church in Piazza Navona was abandoned and the majority of its artistic inventory was relocated to Santa Maria di Monserrato. 
This brief historical outline already demonstrates that Santa Maria di Monserrato was a multifaceted institution, which over the centuries was characterized by a constant change of identities and influences. Individuals, families, and regional groups with different cultural backgrounds gathered within the confraternity, each seeking to realize their own interests and not infrequently coming into conflict with one another. Although the confraternity presented a unified front to the outside world under its patron saint, Our Lady of Monserrat, interacting with the other charitable institutions that had settled in the area around Via Giulia and Via dei Pellegrini, internally it was highly heterogeneous. In addition to the patroness of the church, regional cults were promoted in the individual chapels, such as those of Our Lady of Pilar or Saint Raymond of Peñafort, the Immaculate Conception, and – from the 19th century – Saint James the Greater. 
This transdisciplinary research project is dedicated to the complex dynamics at play within the community, the changes and ruptures in its history, the shifting alliances and rivalries that impacted how this history unfolded, and the role of artistic patronage, material culture, and public display in the formation of collective identities.