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The Church of St Mary of the Assumption in San Lorenzo Nuovo: the Perspective Backdrop of the Ideal City
The Church of Santa Maria Assunta, or "of the Convent" as it is known, is located in San Lorenzo Nuovo, at the western end of Via Umberto I, the street that traverses Piazza Europa. Designed by the architect Francesco Navone, it was completed in 1784 together with the adjoining Capuchin convent. In the 18th-century urban layout of the town, the church closes the view opposite the parish church of San Lorenzo Martire, forming an ideal cross intersected by the Via Cassia.
A Short-lasting Convent
The Capuchins inhabited the complex for only twenty-six years. In 1810, the Napoleonic suppression of religious orders forced them to leave San Lorenzo Nuovo. From that point, the convent passed to the Confraternity of the Gonfalone, and today forms part of the parish patrimony. The cloister, still visible, preserves its original structure.
The Interior
The nave presents a single aisle with three side chapels on each side. On the walls, several paintings by Father Fedele da San Biagio — a Capuchin friar and painter active in the second half of the 18th century - can be admired. The unusually large size of the church — for a convent building — can be explained by the urban role assigned to it by that Navone: it was not a simple place of monastic worship, but the monumental backdrop of the east-west axis of the new village.
