The church of San Pellegrino alla Sapienza, or della Sapienza, stands in Siena on the corner of via della Sapienza and via delle Terme, opposite the Teatro dei Rozzi. Since 2009 the archdiocese of Siena has granted it to the Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy and Malta, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, as the seat of the Orthodox parish dedicated to the Roman martyr Anastasia.
What to see
Here stood the old hospital of the Misericordia, linked to Blessed Andrea Gallerani and suppressed in 1408, with a church dedicated to the Virgin, completely transformed in 1767. Next to it, in the rooms of today's Municipal Library, was the old seat of the University of Siena, from which the church took the name «della Sapienza». In 1816 the parish of the church of San Pellegrino, demolished to create today's piazza dell'Indipendenza, was moved here, and since then it has been called San Pellegrino alla Sapienza.
The façade and the vault are due to the eighteenth-century works. Past the vestibule you enter the single nave, decorated with white and gold Baroque stucco, with six statues of Sienese saints in wall niches, stories of the Virgin frescoed by Giuliano Traballesi on the vault and a Birth of the Virgin by Giuseppe Nicola Nasini on the high altar. Also of note are the Blessed Andrea Gallerani attributed to the workshop of Simone Martini, Saints Peter and Paul by Bartolomeo Bulgarini and the venerated Madonna di Monteguaitano, a small fourteenth-century triptych in ivory and wood from the church of Maria Santissima del Rosario.
Visiting
The church is on the corner of via della Sapienza and via delle Terme and is now an Orthodox parish. Opening and service times should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
In the rooms of the old hospital, beside the church, the library founded by Sallustio Bandini was opened in 1758, and according to the sources beneath the church was the oratory of Blessed Andrea Gallerani, with paintings by Salimbeni and Casolani.
