The Waldensian Church in Piazza Cavour

The Waldensian Church completes the perimeter on the north-east side of Piazza Cavour, (dominated to the south by the monumental Palace of Justice). The church was built between 1910 and 1913 in the new neighbourhood of Prati di Castello to house church premises and apartments. It was planned in the hybrid liberty style of the time, recalling the Romanesque model of the united church, and it was the first religious building in Rome to be built with reinforced concrete. Its facade facing St. Peter’s, the very heart of Roman Catholicism, might then have been seen as an act of confrontation, instead it marked the presence of Protestantism in the capital of Italy. The church, in its hundred-year history, has become an essential reference point in the discussions and dialogue between Christian denominations.