Santa Maria della Scala, Rome

Santa Maria della Scala is a church served by Discalced Carmelite friars, and its story begins with an image of Mary rather than with the building itself. Pope Clement VIII ordered this church for that image; construction lasted from 1593 until 1610. As local tradition has it, the image once hung beside a staircase, where a mother prayed for her dying child.

The child recovered, giving the church its name, “Mary of the Staircase.” The building occupies land once used by a refuge founded for former prostitutes in 1563. The Carmelites assumed control of the unfinished project in 1597.

Its Baroque architecture also shelters an extraordinary medical history. The friars ran a pharmacy here for the papal household, and in the eighteenth century Fra Basilio developed it into a teaching centre for botany and pharmacy. One remedy, theriac, combined 57 ingredients and even used viper flesh.

In 1849, the church and convent became a hospital during the Roman Republic; the patriot Luciano Manara died here from his wounds. The old pharmacy room remains lined with cabinets from the 1700s, now preserved as a museum.