San Lorenzo fuori le Mura

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Basilica Papale di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura
(Papal Basilica of Saint Lawrence outside the Walls)
Via del Verano
Rome, April 2013

“The fifth of the major basilicas of Rome. Emperor Constantine erected a church on this site in A.D. 330 over the graves of St. Lawrence and St. Cyriaca. It was remodeled in the sixth century and again in the thirteenth century, and the protico was added. Modern paintings looking like mosaics adorn the façade. The vestibule has many sacrphagi with high relief embellishing them, also frescoes around the walls with stories depicting St. Lawtence, St. Stephen, and Hippolytus. The campanile dates from the twelfth century. In the interior the nave and side aisles are of thirteenth-century construction--grand with their twenty-two antique columns, modern paintings of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen, and the mosaic floor. Here too is the crypt containing the bodies of Lawrence, Justin, and Stephen under the high altar, with its magnificent canopy. In the near vicinty the pilgrim sees the tall column with the martyred deacon on its top.” (St. Lawrence outside the Walls, Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary)

See also: Saint Lawrence outside the Walls