According to legend, San Lorenzo in Panisperna is located on the spot at which martyr St. Lawrence of Rome was grilled to death. It was constructed (by one account) at the beginning of the fourth century during the reign of Constantine. San Lorenzo’s…

Much of the land contained within the Roman city walls remained uninhabited with little activity beyond farming for hundreds of years. Because of the dense concentration of people near the Tiber during the Middle Ages, new religious centers were…

Along the Via Appia near the Baths of Caracalla is the Church of San Sisto Vecchio, dedicated to Pope Sixtus II. Rebuilt in the early 13th century under the order of Popes Innocent III and Honorius III, the church housed a nunnery founded by Saint…

Santa Maria in Aracoeli is a basilica that sits at the top of the Capitoline Hill at the site where the Tiburtine Sybil was said to have announced the coming of Christ. The Mirabilia Urbis Romae, a 12th-century guidebook to Roman monuments, claims…