A hidden cloister in the heart of Rome has a turbulent past etched on its walls

Rome — A hidden cloister just steps from Rome’s Pantheon is a peaceful place for silent meditation — if only the millions of tourists who drive past know it’s there.

Behind a large wooden door, its frescoed walls are closed to the public, revealing details of the compound’s dramatic history, including papal conclaves and the trial of Galileo Galilei.

In the center are goldfish and turtles surrounded by olive trees, two large palm trees and a tree full of bright oranges used by the friars to make marmalade. Well-fed cats rest in sunny spots on the grass. Another 20 monks live in the convent around the abbot who perform their duties.

“It was designed as a place of prayer, meditation, and therefore in some way to promote prayer and monastic meditation,” said Friar Aucon.

Over the centuries, the site has attracted important figures, including St. Catherine of Siena and the Renaissance painter Fra Angelico, both of whom are buried in the adjacent basilica. It was the scene of historic events, including two councils and the Roman Inquisition.

The name of the basilica next to the cloister, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, refers to its past, a Catholic basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary that was once a pagan temple to Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom.

“This cloister of Santa Maria sopra Minerva is the largest and perhaps the most beautiful in Rome, and it was a great cultural center in antiquity and still is,” said art historian Claudio Strinati.

It was the area where people gathered to vote when Julius Caesar was in power. Later in the late 1200s, Dominican friars built a church on the site. The original cloister was replaced around 1570 by the architect Guidetto Giudetti, a student of Michelangelo.

Covering the walls and vaulted ceilings are some frescoes depicting the mysteries of the rosary and intended to encourage the contemplative life of the Dominican friars living in the convent. Other frescoes, nestled in niches and corners around the cloister, reveal the rich history of the place and the activities of its inhabitants.

The convent served as an office of the Roman Inquisition in the 16th century. Several portraits with medallions on the walls of the cloisters show decapitated Dominican friars, who worked as inquisitors with stumps around their necks and their heads held in their hands.

“Among other things the Inquisition famously tried Galileo Galilei,” Strinati explained.

Standing before the judges of the Inquisition in 1633, Galileo Galilei was forced to renounce his “heretical” idea that the Earth and other planets revolved around the Sun in a side room of the cloister.

The Renaissance painter, Fra Angelico, a Dominican, stayed at the convent while he painted frescoes in the Vatican’s Nicoline Chapel. Fra Angelico was in his 50s but his medallion on the wall of the cloister makes him look much older. In it, wrinkled, in the habit of an old man, he hunched over a painting.

Another medallion shows St. Catherine of Siena, who spent time at the convent and whose tomb is in the basilica next to the cloister. Friar Acon wryly states that while possessing her body, they should have given her skull to the Dominican friars in Siena.

The building was the site of two papal conclaves that elected Pope Eugene IV in 1431 and Pope Nicholas V in 1447. Five popes are buried in the basilica.

According to Strinati, hidden treasures like the cloister next to Santa Maria sopra Minerva make Rome enchanting.

“All history is hidden and so sometimes something is found and all generations, including mine, discover things,” he said. “Later generations will continue to discover why it’s so big and so deep and so mysterious and hidden. And that’s part of its allure.”