The right wall of the nave of the Santa Maria Maggiore is a bit better off than the one on the left. Here 15 of the original 21 wall mosaics from the fifth century have been preserved. The mosaics tell stories from the Books of Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua.…
I am really fond of the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. The wall mosaics in the basilica with stories from the Old Testament are of unparalleled beauty. They date from the fifth century and once there were 42 of them. Unfortunately renovations and neglect have caused the loss…
What a disappointment! I had hoped to get onto the ancient Via Latina from the Via Demetriade, but the archaeological terrain with the remains of the road turned out to be closed off with a fence. And that fence happened to be locked. I therefore took a couple of photos…
In the summer of 2018 I made a highly enjoyable walk along the famous Via Appia and published an extensive report about it on this website. Part of my walk happened to be a small piece of the less well-known Via Latina. Back then I already decided that one day…
The Museo Nazionale Romano opened its doors as early as 1890. The immense collection of the museum is currently distributed across four locations: the Palazzo Massimo and Palazzo Altemps, which have been discussed previously, the Crypta Balbi and the Baths of Diocletianus. The baths can be considered the museum’s original…
The Palazzo Altemps was named after the German cardinal Mark Sittich von Hohenems (1533-1595). The cardinal’s mother Chiara de’ Medici was a sister of Pope Pius IV, who sat on Saint Peter’s throne between 1559 and 1565. Pius IV will chiefly be remembered as the pope who presided over the…
The nineteenth-century Palazzo Massimo is currently the main seat of the prestigious Museo Nazionale Romano, which is completely dedicated to Roman civilisation. The museum has much to offer to visitors, basically too much for a single visit. This means it is virtually impossible to write a post about the museum…
I cannot deny that I feel exceptionally privileged. In January of this year I had the former private chapel of the Pope all to myself. This chapel is one of the very few remnants of the old Lateran palace, which was demolished and replaced at the end of the sixteenth…
It is highly unlikely one will find hordes of tourists at the church of San Pancrazio. This is easily explained, as the church is very far from the historical centre of Rome and does not possess any great artistic treasures. What the church did have in terms of art was…
A beautiful location, a church stripped to the bone. I think that would be a good summary of the current state of the Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore on the Piazza Navona. The church was one of two Spanish national churches. In the past it was known as San Giacomo…
It is not easy to say when exactly modern Spain came into existence. Was it in 1469, when Isabella of Castile married Ferdinand II of Aragon? Or perhaps in 1479, when Ferdinand inherited the throne of Aragon from his father John II and the two spouses Isabella and Ferdinand jointly…
The name of the church of Santa Caterina a Magnanapoli is a bit of a jawbreaker. Moreover, it is far from clear what exactly the Magnanapoli part refers to. Although the name seems to be a reference to the Campanian city of Napoli, it may just as well be the…
The seventeenth-century church of Santa Maria in Campitelli was specifically built to house an icon, the Madonna del Portico. This icon is famous for two reasons. Not only is it credited with having stopped a plague in the 1650s, it is also quite special because of the way it was…
Saint John the Baptist is the patron saint of Florence. Therefore is was self-evident that, when the Florentine community in Rome decided to build a large new church at the beginning of the sixteenth century, this church was going to be dedicated to Saint John. The San Giovanni dei Fiorentini…
I was unable to take a good picture of the church of Santa Maria in Monticelli. The church is on a street that is not very broad and full of parked cars. Photographers who try to take a few steps back quickly find themselves with their backs against a fence.…
I had a bit of a laugh when I read in one of my sources that the church of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini has “perhaps one of the scruffiest church frontages in the Centro Storico”. The façade of the church is indeed quite remarkable. The travertine has changed colour and…
The church of San Bernardo alle Terme is dedicated to the famous French saint and abbot Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153). The ‘alle Terme’ part of the name refers to the Baths of Diocletianus – Thermae in Latin – which were built in the fourth century. The large train station of…
The Santi Ambrogio e Carlo is undeniably the largest church along the famous Via del Corso. The gigantic edifice is dedicated to two saints that have close ties with the city of Milan and the region of Lombardy, i.e. Ambrosius (ca. 340-397) and Carlo Borromeo (1538-1584). The dedication to the…
People standing in front of the church of Sant’Anastasia will probably not realise that this is one of the oldest churches in the city. The history of the church possibly goes back to the first quarter of the fourth century, when Christianity had just become an allowed religion (religio licita)…
The richly decorated church of Sant’Antonio dei Portoghesi is dedicated to Saint Antonius of Padova (1195-1231). As I have written previously, the saint’s real name was not Antonius and he was not from Padova either. He had in fact been born as Fernando Martins in the Portuguese city of Lisbon.…