You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.
Crossing the Tiber River, not too very far off from more or less early morning, 21 October 2024
The regional bus depot just across our bridge, facing onto the Corso Vittore Emanuele II
Visit 1 for today: We showed up a few days ago to revisit the paleo-Christian Basilica of Santa Pudentiana (aka Pudenziana), but it was closed, so we're back now. It's understood to be the oldest place of Christian worship in Rome, one of the few ancient Roman buildings in Rome that has never been a ruin, erected over a mid-2nd century house and bath-house, serving as the residence of the pope until the Emperor Constantine legitimated the Christian faith in 313, and with the first basilica constructed on the site in the late 4th century.
The background is that there was a Pudens, son of a Roman senator, who with his wife was among St Peter's first converts in Rome and was mentioned by St Paul in a letter to Timothy as a loyal supporter. It's possible that his house was on this site, and he may have been a Senator himself, with (traditionally) two sons, Timotheus and Novatus, who may have been involved in the operation of the small public bath house (remains of which are still attached to one wall of the church). St Pudens was said to have been martyred under Nero's regime (54-68).
Pudens is said also to have had two daughters, Pudentiana and Prassede (or Praxede), for whom there is no firm early evidence, but in traditions beginning in the 4th century the sisters built a baptistry inside their father's house for converting pagans, used their inheritance to provide for the Christian poor, hid fugitive Christians, and helped in arranging the burials of martyrs.
There are dating issues in this: they are reputed in the traditional saints' collections to have died at the age of 16 years in the year 165. Which is about a century after their putative father's death. St Praxede has her own basilica a few streets over, which we visited the other day and a few times before, but both girls were demoted from the General Roman Calendar in 1969 to the status of being veneration-worthy in their own basilicae but not necessarily universally.
The whole establishment is well below the present street level, and the steps descending into the square courtyard were put there in the 19th century. The Romanesque belltower was added in the early 13th century.
The church is open, hooray. The congregation is presently, by agreements, composed especially of Filipino immigrants many of whom had come to this neighborhood in the 1970s. In 1991 the use of the church was officially opened to a mission with its own Filipino clergy and Filipina religious sisters; some of the services are held in Tagalog, and the others in English, but the agreement does not make this a 'national church' with obligations for responsibility and maintenance.
The figures in the frieze across the architrave above the 11th century portal represent Pastore (said to be the first owner of the basilica), then Pudentiana, Praxedes, and their father Pudens, with a lamb in the centre.
The layout consists of a small single nave with two side aisles that are mostly sequestered by side chapels. The horrible sun blast on the famous mosaic in the conch of the apse is ominous.
The painting here is a nice 16th century anonymous 'Our Lady of Mercy', fittingly in the Chapel of Our Lady of Mercy halfway along the right wall of the nave.
The 'Nativity of Christ' in the same chapel is by Lazzaro Baldi in 1690.
In the Caetani Chapel, the altarpiece of the 'Adoration of the Magi', 1599, by Pier (or Pietro) Paolo Olivieri. The chapel for the Caetani family of Pope Boniface VIII was designed by Capriano da Volterra in 1588 and completed after his death in 1601 by Carlo Maderno.
That's a modern statue of St Pudens, installed in 1980, in a chapel of that name off the ambulatory behind the high altar.
And that illustrates Christ handing the keys to the kingdom over to St Peter, said to be by Giovan Battista della Porta, 1594, in the Chapel of St Peter on the left side of the ambulatory.
Kristin and the custodian are having a pleasant conversation, in which he has promised to take us up into the the medieval 'Marian Oratory', with a balcony alongside the famous semi-circular apse mosaic and with very old, probably 11th century, mosaics in a hidden medieval oratory, now damaged but fascinating anyway. We're urged to make good use of our time until he gets to send off the last of the tourists at 11:30 and close up.
So we're back on the pavement of the Piazza dell'Esquilino, looking up at the back of the St Maria Maggiore.
Impressive, but we're turning left on the Via Cavour, to go by . . .
. . . the Termini, the city's main rail station. (Stay away from there at night, we've been advised. Its safety reputation is in some decline.)
Festive ambiance along the nearby Piazza dei Cinquecento, with . . .
. . . a City Sightseeing Roma official tourbus (in Naples, the most common ones are just called 'Hop On, Hop Off'). The huge Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo, is next door to the left but entirely shrouded over (more Jubilee clean-up?).
Not everyone in Rome is a happy tourist.
So we're proceeding over the road to see if the museum at the Diocletian Baths is open, but . . .
. . . it's not (that photo's shot by daringly holding my iPhone through the gate bars).
Maybe next time (it will certainly still be here . . . but will I?)
It's facing onto the Piazza della Repubblica, with its Fountain of the Naiads (1888-1912), and . . .
. . . the Basilica of Santa Maria of the Angels and Martyrs (degli Angeli e dei Martiri), with . . .
. . . a couple of fashionable young ladies by the entrance.
(Not much to contribute here, we didn't linger.)
Just steps away, still part of the Bath's former complex, that is the 4th century Aula Ottagona of the Museo Nazionale Romano (the legend on the architrave says 'Planetario'. Huh?).
That, across the street, looks like the Chiesa di Santa Susanna alle Terme. But moving on . . .
. . . that marble sandal at the top right belongs to the Fountain of Moses, which is not very impressive, all anger and semi-divine commandments, but we've actually stopped here to . . .
. . . grab a photo of Kristin for our 'Kristin's hand (almost) in the lion's mouth' collection. Now, just across the street, to the . . .
. . . Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria ('baroque church known for Bernini work') just off the Largo di Santa Susanna, with . . .
. . . a school group kindly making room for us inside.
We'll hold up for a moment as they get organized. The church was designed and built by Carlo Maderno, 1608 to 1620, intended for St Paul but after the Catholic armies beat the Bohemian rebels at the Battle of White Mountain in November 1620, essentially kicking off the Thirty Years' War, it was rededicated to the Virgin Mary.
(An expensive way of thanking the Mary the Victor for giving them a hand?)
Holy Family, good.
Looks like maybe a Flight to Egypt?
The altar
The pièce de résistance, Bernini's 'Ecstasy of St Teresa', the altarpiece in the Cornaro Chapel, 1652.
'Our Lady of Mount Carmel Giving the Scapular to St. Simon Stock', by Alfonso Balzico (1825-1901)
The nearby Chiesa di Santa Susanna alle Terme di Diocleziano ('used as the national parish for Rome residents of American origin', 1921 to 2017), with a façade by Carlo Maderno in 1603.
(That changed when Trump was elected? Fake News!)
A parade of churches, resting up
The Chiesa di San Bernardo alle Terme ('of the Baths', i.e. of Diocletian) is an octagonal church built over the remains of a circular tower that formed of the perimeter wall of the Diocletian Baths complex. It was consecrated in 1602 for the French 'Feuillant' order of Cistercian monks. When the Feuillants were disbanded during the French Revolution, the church and monastery were handed over to the Order of St Bernard of Clairvaux; the abbey was later used as an army barracks after 1872 until in 1901 it was demolished to make way for the Via Torino, which now passes by on the right.
The 16th century Feuillants were a reformed branch of the Bernardine order of the Cistercians, founded in 1577 in Feuillans, near Toulouse. After 1630, the Italian branch was known as the Bernardoni; the French branch was suppressed in 1791, but the name was taken up by the 'Club des Feuillants', a conservative, anti-Jacobin political group in 1791 that used the premises of the dissolved Convent of the Feuillants; the members were effectively dissolved in 1792 and tried for royalist treason.
Restorations were made in 1670 under Camillo Mariani, who added stucco statues of saints in eight niches round the walls, depicting 'the saints Augustine of Hippo, Monica, Mary Magdalene, Francis of Assisi, Bernard, Catherine of Alexandria, Catherine of Siena, and Jerome' (Wikipedia).
The two paintings in the little chapels are by Giovanni Odazzi (1663-1731) and are not to our taste.
The structure and the dome are modeled on the Pantheon, we're told; the oculus in the dome provides the only natural light in the whole place.
Enough of that, we're headed back to our friend St Pudentiana, with a shortcut (near that Dagnini sign) into . . .
. . . the Galleria Esedra, between Via Torino and Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, leading back to the Piazza della Repubblica.
Neat, and clean, attractive, but . . .
. . . surprisingly little business. Two people, plus us, and we're just passing through.
Now, hurtling past the Teatro dell'Opera, toward . . .
. . . the Via Urbana again.
Visit 2 today: We're just a few minutes early getting back to the Santa Pudentiana for our guided tour.
That's the coat of arms of Cardinal Alberto di Jorio (1884-1979), a big deal in Vatican administration for many years and Cardinal-Priest of this church 1967-1979, where his tomb is found in the wall.
He was created a Cardinal in 1958 by Pope John XXIII, so that's all good.
The custodian has cleared the place out to close up now, and will meet us up the street and round the back.
That's the Oratorio Mariano behind the dome, which we'll see from the inside, and . . .
. . . here we are.
Oh man! Our guide is very apologetic, but there we are. Space lasers!!
But below we can at least see the altarpiece, 'The Glory of St Pudenziana', by Bernardo Nocchi, 1803.
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All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 17 December 2024. 
