Church of the Most Holy Shroud of the Piedmontese at the Argentina

With its 'minimalist' façade on Via del Sudario, the church of the Most Holy Shroud of the Piemontese runs the risk of going unnoticed. The façade is particularly sober and the narrow street is far less busy than the parallel Corso Vittorio Emanuele II to get from Largo Argentina to piazza Vidoni. It is worth a stop, however, for its Baroque interiors and because it bears witness to the ancient character of the Sant'Eustachio district, where many of the 'national churches' founded by the foreign communities living in Rome were located. The church of the Most Holy Shroud was built by the Turin architect Carlo Castellamonte for the Archconfraternity of the Savoians and Piemontese. It was consecrated in 1606 and was enlarged in 1660-90 by Carlo Rainaldi, to whom we also owe the façade. In the 19th century, as the House of Savoy held the crown of Sardinia, it was also given the title of national church of the Kingdom of Sardinia. After the Unification of Italy, when Pius IX's interdict prevented the royal house from using the chapels of the former apostolic palace of the Quirinale, it became a sort of court chapel, the seat of the sacred rites of the Savoy family. Since 1984, the Church of the Most Holy Shroud has been entrusted to the Military Ordinariate of Italy.

Since its origins, the church has been dedicated to the most precious of relics that belonged to the Dukes of Savoy: the Holy Shroud, considered to be the burial cloth that wrapped the dead body of Christ. This explains the special work of art above the high altar, a Glory of Angels with the Eternal Father created in stucco by Pietro Mentinovese around 1688. The sculptural group also includes an original-size reproduction of the Holy Shroud, the work of the venerable Maria Francesca Apollonia of Savoy, a devout daughter of Duke Charles Emmanuel I, who became a Franciscan tertiary.