Statue of Mary in the Church of St. Dorothy in Trastevere in Rome, June 2012

Santa Dorotea is a Baroque parish church at Via di Santa Dorotea 23, in the northern part of Trastevere near the Ponte Sisto.

The parish is administered by the Friars Minor Conventual, and the patron saint is Dorothy.

This is an ancient church, although rebuilt twice, and is first attested to in a Papal bull of Pope Callistus II in 1123, being referred to under its old dedication of San Silvestro. In 1445 it was recorded under the double dedication of SS Silvestro e Dorotea, the latter being an obscure martyr of Caesarea in Cappadocia (modern Kayseri in Turkey) who may have been killed in the early 4th century if she existed at all. Her relics were enshrined here.

In 1475 the church was rebuilt and given parochial status, and in 1517 St. Cajetan founded the Oratory (or Confraternity) of Divine Love in its sacristy. This is considered to have been a major event in the beginnings of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. In 1566 the church was re-listed under the present dedication. In an adjacent house, the first free public school in Europe was opened in 1592 by St. Joseph Calasanz. In 1727 the parish was suppressed, and in 1738 the church was granted to the Franciscan Conventuals. They demolished it again, and rebuilt it as the chapel of their new convent on the site. The parish was re-erected in 1824, and the church restored and re-consecrated in 1879.

Text from: romanchurches.wikia.com/wiki/Santa_Dorotea