The Basilica of Saint Mary Above Minerva (Latin: Basilica Sanctae Mariae supra Minervam, Italian: Basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva) is a titular minor basilica and one of the most important churches of the Roman Catholic Dominican order in Rome, Italy. The church, located in the Piazza della Minerva in the Campus Martius region, is considered the only Gothic church in Rome. It houses the tombs of the St. Catherine of Siena and the Dominican painter Fra Angelico (Blessed John of Fiesole). The father of modern astronomy Galileo Galilei, after being tried for heresy in the adjoining monastery, abjured his scientific theses in the church on the 22nd of June 1633.
The basilica gets its name because, like many early Christian basilicas, it was built directly over (sopra) the foundations of a temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis, but erroneously ascribed to the Greco-Roman goddess Minerva. Behind a modest Baroque facade, is a Gothic interior, its arched vaulting painted with brilliant red ribbing, and blue with gilded stars, a 19th century restoration in the Neo-Gothic taste. The basilica is located on the small piazza Minerva close to the Pantheon, in the rione Pigna.