The church was built in 1309 through the transformation of the oratory where the image depicting the "Madonna with Saints Peter and Paul" was venerated, growing the religious cult of the Virgin Mary called "of the roses" due to the flowers in her hand.
So, the oratory was dedicated to Santa Maria della Rosa and the facade put on the current side of the Church at the portal with the jambs decorated with roses coming out from the mouth of the dragon.
In 1333 a new extension definitively shifted the orientation of the oratory that leaned to the west Roman walls while the other sides were supported by round arches. The right side took on its present appearance: a rare example of the Gothic style in Lucca.
The facade left unfinished was completed at the end of the fifteenth century with a portal that you can tie to the school of Matteo Civitali. The interior of the church, three naves by columns and vaults, is of the fifteenth century too. On the main altar is preserved fourteenth-century Madonna of the Roses, considered among the most prestigious paintings of Lucca.
The church of Santa Maria della Rosa was regularly visited in the last years of his life, between 1900 and 1903, by Saint Gemma Galgani, who died at the age of 25 due to tuberculosis. Every year in the church she is remembered on April 11, the day of her death, and it is still possible to gather in prayer close to the original bench where Saint Gemma used to pray.
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