The churches of Rome

Rome sports more than 900 churches. Here are the best.

St. Peter's Basilica

- The capital of Christendom and most magnificent basilica on Earth is a late-Renaissance/early-baroque masterpiece of architecture and decoration.... » Full Story

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- This early medieval church's mosaics, marbles, and Masolino frescoes would be worth a visit in of themselves. But the real show here is that you can head downstairs to see Rome's layer effect at work, exploring church layered upon church layered upon pagan temple and ancient Roman streets.... » Full Story

Santa Maria Maggiore

- One of Rome's four great ancient basilicas was built in the 5th century and sports fantastic, glittering mosaics.... » Full Story

San Pietro in Vincoli

- The rusty chains under the altar are supposedly those that imprisoned St. Peter, but what everyone really comes here to see is Michelangelo's Moses.... » Full Story

Santa Maria in Aracoeli

- The medieval Italian version of the Stairmaster: clambering up every last steep one of this church's 124 steps to see the miraculous baby Jesus statue inside... » Full Story

Santa Sabina

- This gorgeous, rarely visited church on the Aventine Hill retains some of the earliest depictions of Christianity's major artistic themes in the world on its carved 5th-century doors.... » Full Story

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Santa Maria in Cosmedin

- It's not the glittering mosaics, 12th-century bell tower, or cosmatesque pavement inside that draw the crowds to this medeival church; it's the ancient Roman sewer-covering inside the portico, a grotesque face with a gaping mouth called the "Mouth of Truth," into which Gregory Peck-wannabes trust their hands and brazenly tell lies while Audrey Hepburn types shriek with horror as the men pretend that the mouth chomps off their hands for fibbing. Rent Roman Holiday and you'll see what I mean.... » Full Story

Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

- Rome's only Gothic church, fronted by a whimsical Bernini statue of a baby elephant carrying a tiny Egyptian obelisk. Inside are a chapel frescoed by Filippo Lippi and Michelangelo's muscular Risen Christ.... » Full Story

San Luigi dei Francesi

- A trio of Caravaggio paintings line the back left chapel of France's national church in Rome.... » Full Story

Sant'Agostino

- Another Caravaggio, Adoration of the Shepherds (though frankly, they look a bit more like janitors), decorates the church's left aisle.... » Full Story

Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza

- Borromini's masterpiece of a baroque church—a complex interplay of concave and convex lines topped by a swirly elliptical lantern that looks for all the world like soft-serve ice cream—is hidden away in the courtyard of a nondescript university building, making your "discovery" of it that much more surprising and special.... » Full Story

San Ignazio di Loyola

- Dome? What dome?... » Full Story

Sant'Andrea della Valle

- Opera buffs will remember this as the setting for the first act in Tosca, though its baroque architecture and Domenichino paintings are also a draw.... » Full Story

Santa Maria del Popolo

- This little gem of a church at the very northern edge of the city center is one of my favorite in all of Rome, and it acts as a primer of Italy's Renaissance and early baroque movements... » Full Story

Santa Maria Immacolata Concezione - No one comes here for the church itself, they come of the creepy Capuchin Crypt underneath, where the walls of four chapels are mosaicked with teh bones of dead monks.... » Full Story

Santa Maria in Trastevere

- Rome's first church named for the Virgin, its frescoed façade floodlit at night, the apse covered with mosaics by Pietro Cavallini, its cosmatesque floor inlaid with swirling patterns of marble chips.... » Full Story

Santa Cecilia in Trastevere

- You'd never know from the bland baroque interior that, by slipping a modest bribe to the nuns, you can get inside the cloistered section to see one of Rome's last remaining medieval masterpieces of fresco by Pietro Cavallini.... » Full Story

San Francesco a Ripa

- Bernini was the master of racy, nearly erotic religious themes.... » Full Story

San Giovanni in Laterano

- Rome's cathedral—no, it isn't St. Peter's—is one of the great basilican churches of Rome... » Full Story

San Paolo Fuori le Mura

- One of the four great basilicas in Rome, badly damaged by fire but beautifully restored, and well worth the trek out here for its lovely cloisters... » Full Story

Santa Maria Maggiore

- One of Rome's four great ancient basilicas was built in the 5th century and sports fantastic, glittering mosaics.... » Full Story

Santa Maria degli Angeli

- Michelangelo was commissioned to take a section of the ancient Baths of Diocletian and adapt it to become a church. It's a shame a later architect came along and moved the entrance over to one of the transept arms and spoiled the effect.... » Full Story

Santa Maria della Vittoria

- The last chapel on the left is a theater stage with the commissioners and the sculptor, Bernini, looking from box seats down on the main scene below, where a smirking angel is about to pierce St. Theresa in Ecstasy (and what a very erotic ecstasy it is) with a glowing spear of Heavenly light... » Full Story