Rome - Santa Maria in Trastevere

Santa Maria in Trastevere (the densely populated part of Rome on the right bank of the Tiber) is the oldest church of the Virgin in Rome. According to legend it stands on the spot where a spring of oil flowed 38 years before Christ's birth as an intimation of the future Savior. This may also be the place where Christians were able for the first time to hold services in public.

The building of the church began between 221 and 227, in the reign of Pope Calixtus I, and was completed in 340, in the reign of Julius I. It was rebuilt by Innocent II (1130-43), who came from the Trastevere district, and redecorated in the Baroque period. It is now one of the finest and most imposing churches in Rome. The church has a Romanesque campanile, a facade decorated with mosaics (the Virgin with ten female saints) and a portico containing early Christian sarcophagi and various medieval fragments. Notable features of the interior are the Cosmatesque (marble intarsia) work in the floor, the coffered wooded ceiling, partly gilded by Domenichino (1617), the 22 massive Ionic columns in the nave, and a 15th century tabernacle by Mino del Reame (at the west end of the nave on the right). The mosaics in the apse are masterpieces of medieval art. In the conch (c. 1140) are Christ, the Virgin and saints above a frieze of lambs, and below this are scenes from the life of the Virgin - Nativity, Annunciation, Nativity of Christ, Three Kings, Presentation in the Temple, Assumption (by Pietro Cavallini, c. 1291). The mosaics at the exit of the church were supposed to remind worshippers of the glory of Heaven, portraying the saints against a celestial background of gold.