Chiesa di Santa Maria della Visitazione

It was built between 1965 and 1971 based on a design by architect Saverio Busiri Vici, and consecrated on October 22, 1971 by Monsignor Ugo Poletti. The church, already vice-curate since 1959, is a parish seat, established by the Cardinal Vicar Clemente Micara on March 30, 1960 with the decree Qua celeritate. The church was visited by Popes Paul VI, in the seventies, and by John Paul II, on January 20, 1985. Quercioli describes this very original church as follows: It presents itself as a virtuosity of reinforced concrete, proof of the possibilities that it allows. In this case, enormous curved vertical ribs are intersected without a desired symmetry by horizontal shelves, protruding like terraces without railings or like the edges of certain house of cards. The result is a sort of sui generis pagoda. (M. Quercioli, op. cit., p. 581) The church is flanked by a cylindrical bell tower composed of columns and protruding concrete elements that resemble a multi-storey springboard (Quercioli). The vast interior does not feature any significant works and its decoration is almost non-existent. The sculptural group depicting the Visitation, the work of the South Tyrolean sculptor Mussner G. Vincenzo di Ortisei, deserves special mention. The church intends to remember and transfigure the side of Christ with the sternum clearly visible on the façade and with the heart that coincides with the position of the high altar. However, there are other different and opposing points of view on this matter. Overall, the building maintains a desolate appearance of an unfinished construction.