We're still in Elba, but these are are last updates about Rome. (Then we'll write up Elba as well!)
This magnificent church lies just beyond the Colosseum on the way to the great basilica of San Giovanni Lateran. It is not huge but has astonishing frescos on the ceiling. You cannot take photos inside it, but if you want to see the details, visit their site and take the virtual tour. The apse mosaic, made of Cosmati work, is particularly amazing and we have some pictures of such work taken in St Giovanni Lateran in the next post. The picture is taken in the calm cloisters outside.
Besides the ornate decorations, the site is fascinating in its depth. The first known place of worship on this site was a temple to Mithras. The shrine is still here, deep beneath the earth. You can walk in the now dark corridors and peer through the grills at the marble and stone statues. Whether by accident or design, one statue stands in a shaft of tunnelled sunlight, bright and white.
The little corridors are the narrow streets of ancient Rome. The temple and associated school lie on one side. On the other are intertwined buildings with herringboned floors and tight-fitting tufa-block walls. One of these was apparently at one time the Roman Mint. Next to it is the remains of a large house.
This is the house of a man called Clemente, believed to be a freed slave. He was an early convert to Christianity and in 1AD his house was a domus ecclesiastes or a house church. Before churches could be built, and in secrecy, believers would gather here for prayer and worship. It is possible that St Peter and St Paul came to this house and walked on these floors.
The house had its own spring, and this is still running. The subterranean rooms are filled with its sound, the sweet water still gushing out of the rock into a channelled basin. Now it runs into even deeper channels, the noise coming up through the gridded floor. You can put your hand into the spring and taste the water, the same as that drunk by those earliest church fathers.
After Constantine legitimised the faith, a very early basilica was built on the site, above Clemente's house. It has a particular fondness for St Cyprien of the Slavs, and fresco remnants adorn corners in his name. You can wander the naves and chapels peering at the fragments of paint and the carved pillars. It is still consecrated space and Mass is celebrated down there.
The current 12th century church is then above the old basilica, with its Renaissance frescos and spectacular marble floors. It is now the base of the Irish Dominican Order in Rome.