Chiesa di San Pio V

Dedicated to the holy pope protagonist of the Council of Trent, it was designed by the architect Tullio Rossi in 1952 and solemnly inaugurated on February 24, 1962 with the consecration performed by the Cardinal Pro-Vicario Luigi Traglia. The church is the parish seat, erected on December 10, 1951 with the decree of the Cardinal Vicar Clemente Micara Quo aptius atque. Since 1973 it has been the seat of the cardinal title of San Pio V a Villa Carpegna. The parish was visited by Pope Paul VI on March 9, 1969, by Pope John Paul II on October 28, 1979 and by Pope Francis on March 8, 2024. Externally, the church has a light brick wall facing that, in correspondence with the central nave, is decorated with rectangular recesses. The façade is salient and, in the lower part, characterized by a slightly protruding canopy, has three portals; the central one is surmounted by a mosaic by Joseph Franz Strachota depicting Saint Pius V, the Madonna and scenes from the Battle of Lepanto (the Madonna is, in particular, the same as the nearby and older Santa Maria del Riposo, of which there is also a second reproduction at the end of the nave to the right of the altar). The upper part, corresponding to the central nave, is decorated with six idealized pilasters surmounted by a simple marble cornice; in the center, under the rectangular window, the marble coat of arms of Pope Pius XII. On the left side of the church rises the bell tower. The interior of the church has a basilica plan, with three naves divided by pillars painted in fake red marble. The two side naves are lower than the central one and, along the left nave, there are six chapels: the first is the baptistery, with the old baptismal font inside surmounted by a crucifix, with a fresco by Igino Cupelloni depicting the Baptism of Christ in the background. The new baptismal font, flanked by the bronze statue of St. John the Baptist by Goffredo Verginelli, is located at the end of the nave, near the image of the Madonna del Riposo. The back wall of the opposite nave, instead, features the altar used to house the Blessed Sacrament, surmounted by a bas-relief sculpture depicting the Disciples of Emmaus. The central nave, with two rows of windows (square with polychrome glass at the bottom and rectangular with simple glass at the top), ends with the semicircular apse; the latter is largely occupied by the presbytery, raised a few steps above the rest of the church, which houses the high altar in the center and the marble seat with decorative mosaic inserts in a set back position; behind the latter there is an image of Saint Pius V and, higher up, a Crucifix, by Francesco Nagni, flanked by six bronze candle-bearing angels, by Goffredo Verginelli. Other works present in the church are the Via Crucis by Angelo Biancini, a plaster Angel by Duilio Cambellotti; a statue of Saint Catherine of Siena by Antonio Berti; other devotional statues by Alessandro Monteleone and Michele Guerrisi. In the apse, on the floor to the left of the presbytery, there is the church's pipe organ, built in 1994. The instrument is electrically driven with a multiple system and is entirely enclosed within a simple wooden case surmounted by a display consisting of 33 main metal pipes arranged in three cusps of 11 pipes each, with mitre mouthpieces aligned horizontally. The console is located near the sound body and has two keyboards of 61 notes each and a concave-radial pedalboard of 32 notes; the registers and the unions are operated by balance plates placed in a single row above the second manual.