Churches: Rome boasts a total of more than 350 churches. Below you will find, in no particular order, the most important. For more information, click on the link.

ll Gesu: From 1527 to 1590, over 50 new churches were built in Rome. One of these was Il Gesu, the mother church of The Society of Jesus, which was founded, in 1540, by St Ignatius Loyola.The Jesuit Order was characterised by its discipline and obedience. It was referred to as a ‘Company’ and its leader was a ‘General’. The church, which was begun in 1568, became a model for a particular type of Counter Reformation church. It was designed by Vignola for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who, it was said, owned the three most beautiful objects in Rome: his family palace, his daughter, and the Gesu. The facade is thought to have been completed by Giacomo della Porta from Vignola’s design.

The church was expressly designed to host a large congregation, all of whom should be able to hear the sermons, which were a central feature in Counter-Reformation religious life. In Rome, prior to this, sermons were usually given only during Lent and Advent, but the Jesuits made year-round preaching one of their principal activities. The interior is opulently decorated in keeping with the Jesuits' belief in attracting worshipers through grand spectacle.....

SS Cosmas and Damian: The delightful little church of Saints Cosmas and Damian  was originally built by Pope St Felix IV in the 6th century (527). It was the first Christian building to incorporate the remains of pagan structures, in this case the audience hall, or library, of Vespasian’s Temple of Peace and the Mausoleum of Romulus. The 6th century mosaics in the apse acted as a model for those in later churches.

The saints were brother physicians from Syria, who were famous for working miraculous cures and for treating the poor gratis. This aroused suspicion and they were martyred. One of their most famous medical feats involved an early form of transplant. The cancerous leg of a Christian was replaced by the leg of a recently dead Moor. The Christian walked and the diseased leg attached itself to the dead body and decayed with it. The brothers were martyred in 303, during one of Diocletian’s last persecutions.

The ancient church and convent were restored and re-modelled in the 1630s by Orazio Torriani and Luigi Arigucci under the reign of Pope Urban VIII, whose bees are prominently displayed throughout the church.

On the ancient brick wall, to the left of the main entrance, was once attached a huge marble, scaled map of Rome, the Forma Urbis Romae. The monumental map, 18m high by 13m wide, depicted Rome at the beginning  of the 3rd century AD. The map is known, today, by the thousand or so fragments that have survived....

San Agostino: The church of San Agostino is an early example of Renaissance architecture (1479-83) in Rome. It was built for Cardinal d’Estouteville and houses the tomb of Saint Augustine's mother, Santa Monica. The interior was modified in the 18th century. Just inside the entrance is a statue of the ‘Madonna del Parto’, an example of how a pagan statue was re-cycled by Sansovino (1521). The foot of the Virgin has been worn smooth by women praying to become fertile. It was also common for the relatives of a woman having a difficult labour to come and light a lamp in front of this image.

In the nave, on the third pillar to the left, is Raphael’s painting of the prophet ‘Isaiah’. But the showpiece of San Agostino is Caravaggio’s ‘Madonna dei Pellegrini’, in the first chapel on the left.....

San Clemente:  San Clemente  is one of the oldest as well as one of the most beautiful churches in Rome. It is, in fact, two churches, one sitting on top of the other. The lower church, in turn, sits on buildings from both Imperial and Republican Rome. A visit to the church is to step back in time over 2,000 years.

The basilica at street level was built around 1100 under Pope Paschal II and replicated, in form, the earlier church. There is a nave and two aisles divided by marble and granite columns, a mosaic pavement and a white marble choir, which was transferred from the earlier church. For centuries this was thought to be the church that St Jerome visited in 392.

However, there exists a second church dating back to the 4th century, which was filled in and forgotten for eight centuries. In 1857, an amateur archaeologist, Father Joseph Mullooly (since 1677 the church has been administered by Irish Dominican monks), dug his way through the rubble and made the discovery of his life. He had succeeded in unearthing the church mentioned by St Jerome, as early as 392.

This was not an end to his discoveries, for below the newly excavated church, he came across an even older Roman building. Later excavations revealed yet a fourth building of the 1^st century, destroyed by fire in 64AD....

San Giovanni in Laterano:  A Latin inscription on the top of the façade, proclaims San Giovanni in Laterano (in translation) as: ‘The Mother and Head of all the Churches in the city and the World’.

San Giovanni in Laterano is Rome's cathedral and was the first Christian Basilica to be built in Rome following the Edict of Milan, in 313. The Edict freed Christianity from persecution giving it parity with paganism. However Constantine gave Christianity a significant edge by placing the resources of the state at its disposal for church building and favouring the Church with Imperial Authority. By the end of the 4th century Theodosius had banned pagan worship and closed all pagan temples.

It was the central church in Christendom until the Popes moved to Avignon at the beginning of the 14th century. On their return to Rome, focus shifted to the Vatican and St Peter's. 

Built and rebuilt over a thousand years, the church we see today was constructed during the reign (1585-90) of Pope Sixtus V. Thankfully, the Pope retained the lovely early 13th century cloister (Entrance fee), one of the most beautiful in the city. The mosaics are the work of the Vassalletto family.

The Papal Altar, at which only the Pope may say Mass, was designed in the late 1360s, but heavily restored in the middle of the 19th century. In the upper part are reliquaries statues of St Peter and St Paul in silver gilt, which it was once believed, contained the heads of the two apostles. In the confessio is the tomb of Martin V. It was in this church, in 1417, that the Pope declared the end of the Great Schism....

San Luigi dei Francesi: San Luigi dei Francesi  is the church of the French community in Rome and is dedicated to Saint Louis, one of the patron saints of Paris.

In the 13th century, Louis was the French king. He fought in the Crusades and brought back several relics from the Holy Land, including the Crown of Thorns (now in Sainte Chapelle) and a fragment of the True Cross. He was later canonised.

 Today, people mostly visit the church to see the Contarelli Chapel, which was decorated by Caravaggio with three stupendous paintings depicting the ‘Life and Death of St Matthew’....

San Pietro in Vincoli: San Pietro in Vincoli, or St Peter in Chains, was originally known as the Titulus Eudoxiae, as it had been built in the middle of the fifth century to house part of the chains, which had bound St Peter during his imprisonment in Jerusalem. In Rome, St Peter was again imprisoned and bound by chains. The two sets of chains were donated to the church by the Empress Eudoxia, hence the original name.

The chains, which were supposed to have miraculously united when placed next to each other. were mentioned at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and their fame spread throughout the Christian world. Many churches of St Peter in Chains sprang up bearing, as a relic, filings from these chains.

The church also houses Michelangelo’s statue of ‘Moses’ (1514-16), which was supposed to be part of Pope Julius II’s monumental tomb, planned to stand in St Peter’s. The statue was placed here in 1544, the only part of the original tomb that he ever completed. Other components (unfinished) are to be found in Paris and Florence. The rest of the monument is said to be by pupils; the statue of the pope by Tomasso Boscoli is a far cry from what Julius II would have wished....

San Prassede:  The church of San Prassede, which we see today, was built, in the 9th century, by Pope Paschal I.

We now enter the church from the via S. Prassede, but it is worth visiting the original entrance in via San Martino ai Monti, which comprises two antique columns of granite supporting a gable.

According to legend, the original titulus was built over the house where Santa Prassede sheltered persecuted Christians. Many were actually killed in front of her. She collected their blood with a sponge and placed this in a well where she was later buried. In the nave there is a porphyry disc to mark the spot. A stone tablet on one of the right nave pillars commemorates the remains of about 2,300 martyrs, which the Pope had brought here from the catacombs.

The greatest treasure is the Chapel of San Zenone, the most exquisite little chapel in Rome, which is decorated with mosaics. Its medieval name was fittingly the ‘Orto del Paradiso’ or ‘the Garden of Paradise’. The Chapel was built as the resting-place of San Zeno and Pope Paschal I’s mother, Theodora.

The church was restored in the 16th century by St Charles Borromeo, who would say Mass in the Chapel of the Flagellation, so-called because of the column of oriental jasper, supposedly the one against which Christ was scourged. The column was brought to Rome in 1233 by Cardinal Colonna, titular Cardinal of the church and Papal legate to Constantinople.

In the apse, the mosaic contains an image of the Pope holding a model of the church. Above him is a square halo and an image of a red phoenix, a symbol of the resurrection. The square halo indicates he was alive at the time and destined for sainthood....

 Sant' Ignazio: Named after the founder of the Jesuit Order, St Ignatius Loyola, the church of  Sant' Ignazio was built between 1620 and 1656.

The church was originally part of the Roman College, one of the Society’s earliest educational institutions, which was founded in 1551. By the early 17th century the College’s Chapel had become too small for its 2,000 students. Gregory XV, a college alumnus and the pope who had canonised Ignatius, in 1622, persuaded his fabulously rich nephew, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, to fund the building of a new church.

It is most famous for its trompe l’oeil fresco of the interior of a dome. It was painted by the Jesuit painter, Fra Andrea Pozzo (1681-1701), and suggests the existence of a dome that is not really there! A disc, set halfway along the nave, is the place to stand for the best view.

But the real artistic glory can be seen in the ceiling of the nave in the form of a magnificent fresco of ‘The Apotheosis of St Ignatius’ (1691-4) by the same artist. The spectator stands and stares up at a recreation of heaven where the saint is receiving the Light of the Word of God as it proceeds from Christ. The attic story contains personifications of the four quarters of the world liberated from heresy and idolatry through the missionary work of the Jesuit order.....

Borromini’s church closes the fourth side of the courtyard of the Palazzo della Sapienza. It was begun for Pope Urban VIII (a member of the Barberini family, whose coat of arms was made up of three bees) and completed under the pontificate of Alexander VII (whose coat of arms consisted of three small mounds surmounted by a star).

This original, if eccentric, architect came up with an extremely ingenious design, which is based on two equilateral triangles, interpenetrating to form a six-pointed star. While we know that the plan was originally intended to symbolize the bee of the Barberinis, head, body and four wings, Borromini must also have had in mind that the six-pointed star is the star of David, the accepted symbol of wisdom and therefore appropriate to the church of the Sapienza......

Santa Cecilia in Trastevere:  According to tradition,  the ancient titular church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere  is said to have been built over the house where eponymous martyr had lived with her husband, Valerian or St Valerianus. Part of this dwelling still exists and may be seen under the present church.

It was here that the saint is also said to have undergone the first stage of her martyrdom (230), by attempted suffocation in the caldarium of the baths. She emerged unscathed. She was then beheaded, but the executioner botched his work and she lived for another three days. Cecilia was a member of a very distinguished and ancient Roman family and her martyrdom caused a great stir in society.

The courtyard in front of the church is a garden planted with roses and lemon trees. In the centre stands a marble basin. Rising from the water, upon a pedestal, is a Greek cantharus, a type of vase. The fountain enabled people to make a ritual ablution prior to their entering the church.

Santa Maria degli Angeli:  One of Michelangelo's last commissions was to transform what remained of the Baths of Diocletian into the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

The church comprises the huge central hall (100m long, 27m wide and 28m high) of the original Baths, which were built at the beginning of the 4th century.  The eight monolithic granite columns, each 14 metres high, are original. The brick ones date from the period of re-modelling.

Michelangelo placed the entrance on the short side of the hall, but, 200 years later this was changed when the architect, Vanvitelli re-oriented the church. The latter moved the entrance to the long side and transformed the nave into a transept. To compensate for the loss of length, he built an apsidal choir on the north-east side.

The vestibule occupies what was once the tepidarium and contains the tomb of the painter Salvatore Rosa. The transept occupies the central hall of the baths and gives the best idea of the magnitude of the ancient building. The chancel occupies the old frigidarium.....

Santa Maria dell' Aracoeli:  Santa Maria dell' Aracoeli was originally known as Sancta Maria in Capitolio. Its present name derives from the tradition that an oracle, during the time of the emperor Augustus, foretold the birth of a son of God, to whose honour, the Emperor raised an altar on the Capitol, an altar to heaven (ara+coeli).

The Franciscans took over the church, in 1250, rebuilding it with a variety of ancient Roman columns. The first chapel on the right is decorated with frescoes by Pinturicchio, illustrating the life of a famous Franciscan, St Bernadino of Siena.The wooden ceiling is richly coffered and commemorates the Battle of Lepanto (1571) credited with saving Christendom from the Turks. It was donated by Marcantonio Colonna, who fought with the troops of the Holy League.

Legend also says that on this spot in 39BC on the day that Christ would be born a fountain of pure oil sprang from the earth signifying the grace of God. The event is said to have happened inside a taberna meritoria, a tavern where retired soldiers met, and lasted for an entire day. In imperial times Trastevere was a centre for oriental and particularly Jewish people. The present church stands on the site of several earlier ones and dates back to the 12th century during the time of Innocent II (1130-43), who came from the Papareschi, a famous Trastevere family....

Santa Maria Maggiore: The church of Santa Maria Maggiore is the fourth of the great patriarchal basilicas (the other three being St John Lateran, St Peter’s and St Paul’s Outside the Walls). Built in the 5th century, after the Council of Ephesus (431) had decided to promote the veneration of the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God, the church was once known as Santa Maria della Neve, St Mary of the Snow, on account of the story of its foundation.....