Santa Maria in Vincis

Santa Maria in Vincis stood on the western slope of the Capitoline Hill in Rome’s Campitelli rione. It occupied a narrow site on the old Monte Caprino road, a winding path that once dropped steeply toward the Theatre of Marcellus. The church had no independent structure, being built between and above residential buildings on both sides. Its simple rectangular plan aligned east–west, with two small vestibules marking its entrances. The church’s story spans centuries. First recorded in the late 12th-century tax list of Cencio Camerario as Sancta Maria de Guinizo, it remained a parish church into the 14th century. In 1606 the soap-makers’ guild took it over, restored the building, and commissioned a new altarpiece showing their patron, Saint John the Evangelist, symbolising boiling oil used in soap production. By the late 19th century small shopkeepers restored it again, but in 1929 demolition began under Antonio Muñoz to clear the hillside for the new Via del Teatro di Marcello. Today the slope is gone, replaced by broad cross-ramp and steps leading down to the Casina dei Pierleoni. The modern Monte Caprino path follows the old line but lacks the church’s corner and steep descent. Traces survive only in photographs and museum collections: fragments of 9th-century frescoes, the soap-makers’ arch, and two worn medieval tombstones once set in the floor. The site offers no standing walls, yet the vanished corner still hints at how the Capitoline once rose above the street.