page_title: San Giacomo Scossacavalli
section_title: Renaissance
hierarchical_section_title: San Giacomo Scossacavalli / History / Renaissance
caption_attribution_description: English: Piazza Scossacavalli with the church of San Giacomo and the Fountain of Carlo Maderno
context_page_description: San Giacomo Scossacavalli was a church in Rome important for historical and artistic reasons. The church, facing the Piazza Scossacavalli, was built during the early Middle Ages and since the early 16th century hosted a confraternity which commissioned Renaissance architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger to build a new shrine. This was richly decorated with frescoes, painted by mannerist artist Giovanni Battista Ricci and his students. The church was demolished in 1937, when Via della Conciliazione was built and the piazza and central part of the Borgo rione were demolished. Many decorative elements still exist, since they were preserved from demolition.
context_section_description: In 1520 the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament (Italian: Confraternita del Santissimo Sacramento) was entrusted with the church's care. The confraternity originated in Borgo in 1509. On a windy evening of 1506, a Carmelite coming from the old Santa Maria in Traspontina church (lying near Castel Sant'Angelo), followed by a lay brother bearing a candle, was bringing the sacramental bread to a sick person. Since the wind had extinguished the candle, the layman went into a nearby shop asking for fire, so that the priest was left alone. At the sight of the lone priest bearing the blessed Sacrament, several passers-by were moved, gathered around him and accompanied him, bearing a baldachin and torches. The group grew, and on 3 September 1509 its members formed a compagnia. The Carmelites assigned it to a chapel in Santa Maria in Traspontina, and in 1513 Pope Leo X (r. 1513–21) acknowledged the association, which in 1520 moved to San Giacomo.
  The members wore clothing made from white hessian fabric (Italian: sacchi). It had a small figure on the left shoulder: a vermilion chalice and an image of Christ with open arms. The confraternity was committed to provide a doctor and barber to the poor of the parish, and each Holy Thursday in the church it exhibited a wax sculpture of the crucified Christ. An annual procession went to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Pigna, the Pauline Chapel in the Apostolic Palace and finally to St. Peter's. In 1578 Pope Gregory XIII (r. 1572–85) made the association an archconfraternity. The association's duties and privileges increased; each year beginning in 1580, the brothers gave four poor parish girls a white dress and twenty-five scudi as a dowry. In 1590, Pope Sixtus V (r.1585–90) gave the archconfraternity the privilege of setting free each year a person condemned to death..
  Shortly after their assignment to San Giacomo, the brethren started to reconstruct it, choosing as architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, but due to lack of funds its facade was still unfinished in 1590. That year Ludovico Fulgineo, ecclesiastical referendary and governor of the archconfraternity, died, leaving his inheritance to the association. Thanks to his legacy, two years later, the construction was finished. In 1601, an oratory dedicated to Saint Sebastian was built behind the church.
caption: Piazza Scossacavalli with San Giacomo and the fountain of Carlo Maderno in a 17th-century etching by Giovanni Battista Falda
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