A Jacobite Gazetteer - Rome

Chiesa di Sant' Andrea degli Scozzese

This church is located on Via delle Quattro Fontane just up the hill from the Piazza Barberini. It was formerly the chapel for the Pontifical Scots College which occupied the building next to the church until 1964.

Interior

Royal tribune

On the left and right walls over the sanctuary one can see the gratings which separate the church from the tribunes in which the Royal Family sat when they heard mass here. The gratings appear to be of wood and are hinged.

On the right wall of the church immediately inside the main entrance is a white marble monument to John Stewart, only son of Sir James Stewart, Bt., (called "Earl of Bute") by his second wife Christian Dundas. ¹ The monument has the following Latin inscription: ²

D O M
NOBILISSIMO UIRO
IOANNI STEWART SCOTO
IACOBI COMITIS DE BVTE
FILIO
QVI IVUENIS ADMODVM RELICTA SPONTE PATRIA
AD IACOBI MGNE. BRITANNIE. REGEM
ROMAM SE CONTVLIT
ET IN PRIMARIIS EIVS AVLAE LOCIS
ITA PERANNOS DVODECIM UERSATVS EST
VT PIETATE IN DEVM
FIDE ET OBSERUANTIA IN REGEM
HVMANITATE IN OMNES SINGVLARI
CVM OMNIBVS CERTARET ET AB OMNIBVS PROBARETVR
SED IMMATVRO FATO
III. ID. IAN. A. D. MDCCXXXIX. ÆT. SV. XXXVI.
E UIUIS ABREPTVS
MAGNVM APVD OMNES SVI
MAXIMVM APVD SERENISSIMVM REGEM
DESIDERIVM RELIQVIT
VNICO ET AMANTISSIMO FILIO
PARENS MOETISSIMIA
PONENDVM CVRAUIT

Monument to John Stuart

The church is only open for mass on Tuesday and Friday at 7.45 a.m. Mass is said in Italian.

Notes

¹ According to The Scots Peerage, edited by James Balfour Paul (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1905), II, 299, this John Stewart was born at Rothesay September 6, 1700, and died at Rome, January 11, 1738 (N.S.). Like the members of many Scottish noble families, the Butes took opposing sides in the political conflicts of their time. In 1703 John's father, Sir James Stewart, Bt., received the title of "Earl of Bute" from Princess Anne of Denmark; his descendants by his first wife are the current de facto Marquesses of Bute. Sir James' son by his first wife (half-brother of John Stewart) succeeded his father as second "Earl of Bute" and fought for the Elector of Hannover in the 1715 Rising. Sir James' brother Dougal Stewart was imprisoned in 1708 on suspicion of favouring a Jacobite invasion - but the following year was appointed a Lord of Session by Princess Anne of Denmark. In 1716 Sir James' second wife, Christian (John Stewart's mother), wrote several letters to King James III and VIII, to his mother Queen Mary, and to the Duke of Mar, professing her loyalty and asking for the confirmation of her title as "Countess of Bute". The Duke of Mar replied, "I doubt not of your educating your son [i.e. John Stewart] in the same loyal way". Cf. Calendar of the Stuart Papers, Historical Manuscripts Commission (London: 1904), II, 357-358, 392, 427, 456, 473.

² The inscription is odd in that each of the letters u is spelt as a V, and each of the letters v is spelt as a U.