SS. John and Paul to Celio

Piazza dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo 13. (Open Map)
(75)

Description

The church dates back to the end of C. IV. Senator Bizante ordered the construction of a church on the ruins of the two martyr saints’ house under Giuliano l’Apostata (361-363). Next to the original a little convent was built, which was destroyed and then rebuilt under Pasquale II (1099-1118). Important restoration works took place in the early C. XVIII and in the mid C. XX. 

The façade is subdivided into two parts. The lower part embodies a porch from C. XII dominated by a gallery that was added in 1216. The upper part, backwards, is characterized by an arched polylychnus window on sorting columns. The interior is divided into three naves delimited by sixteen columns dating back to C. IV sided by pilasters. By thefenced high altar, there is the place where the Saints’ corpses were buried.

The church houses works by popular artists like Antoniazzo Romano and Nicolò Cirignani detto il Pomarancio. By the end of the nave to the right, after the nineteenth-century-chapel of S. Paolo della Croce (founder of the Ordine dei Passionisti), one finds the small stairwell leading to the Roman houses where one can still admire frescoes and mosaics dating back to C. II and IV.