Santa Maria in Trastevere

Whenever I find myself walking through Trastevere I invariably end up in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, either intentionally or because all roads seem to lead there. In the piazza it is hard not to be drawn to the church, which dominates the scene with its 16th century bell tower and 12th century gilded mosaics standing out against a light blue sky on a clear morning when they catch the light fully. The interior of the church is ruled by the mosaics in the apse and gold ceiling, but what draws my attention are the columns. No two on one side are the same, but they match across the nave. Each column is a massive monolith. They range in color from smooth gray to marbled red and along each side no two capitals are identical, although all are Ionic or Corinthian.

All of the columns were removed from the Baths of Caracalla and brought here under restorations by Pope Innocent II from 1130-43 AD. For me this raises a question that is brought up over and over again in Rome. Every building here is in some way or another built from, attached to, or on top another with a seeming disrespect for what came before it. For all the attempts we make today to preserve what is still standing, great artists and architects of the past, while they revered the ancients and their use of proportions and masterful building skills, they thought little of tearing down what had stood for as long 1500 years. The Colosseum was used as a rock quarry until the 1860's and its stones served largely as the foundations for the New St. Peter's, the bronze from the dome of the Pantheon was torn out and melted down to make cannons for Castel Sant'Angelo and the columns in this quiet church were dragged across town at the bidding of a Pope who needed the support of a French King (Louis VI) to strengthen his claim to the Papacy. Of the few things that have come down to us directly from Roman times still intact almost all of them have done so because they were at one point mistaken as a piece of Christian history, not pagan, and therefore worthy of reverence and not destruction. The best example is the statue of Marcus Aurelius, standing in the Campidoglio, which was mistaken as Constantine, the first Christian emperor, and therefore preserved.

One of the oldest Basilicas in Rome, the basic floor plan of Santa Maris in Trastevere dates back to 340 AD and there was a smaller house-church there as early as 220 AD. And even before that, in 38 BC, there was a miraculous eruption of an oil spring that ran all the way to the river and was later interpreted as an announcement of the birth of Christ. It was partially reconstructed in the 5th century and again in the 8th century. What we see today was built largely in 1130-1143 under Innocent II, the column thief. The facade and portico, which extends beyond the facade, were restored in 1702 by Carlo Fontana.