This first section is a brief explanation of my Italy blog posts, which were inspired by my 2-week trip to Italy in May, 2025. Feel free to skip this section if you’ve read it before.
Dear Reader, If you read my Italy posts in the order in which they’ve come out, it may seem as though we hopped back and forth all over the country, but I have decided not to write these posts sequentially. I want to write about the things that interest me most, as the spirit moves me. For some topics, I may even combine cities. I hope that by doing so, you’ll find it a lot more interesting than if I just give you a tedious day by day description of our itinerary, as if I were your Aunt Mabel forcing you to sit down and watch all her Super 8 films of the family road trip to Niagara Falls from 1966.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about how I’m approaching this travelogue-within-a-blog, please let me know in the comments below!
We had had a very busy day in Rome, seeing one wonder after another, and running here, there, and everywhere. It was late afternoon and we were really tired. We had one more thing to see before finding dinner and calling it a night. We almost gave up on it, though, because it’s a bit off the tourist trail, nowhere near a metro stop, and we had gotten totally lost trying to use Rome’s bus system. We got off at the wrong stop twice, and finally resigned ourselves to trudging up a hill to the destination in question: Santi Quattro Coronati.
There were a few reasons I wasn’t willing to give up on this basilica. It is one of the most well-preserved medieval churches in Rome, it has a stunning cloister, and the frescoes in it are the best of the period that can be found in this lavishly befrescoed city. (Okay, I’m aware that “befrescoed” is not a word. It should be, even though it would have limited use. So I’m making it a word. You read it here first.)
The church has a really interesting history, too. In the Middle Ages, Rome was described by visitors as crumbled ruins, overgrown with plantlife, with cattle roaming the streets, and the square bell towers of medieval churches sticking up above the greenery as far as the eye could see. About 120 of these churches are still hiding in plain sight. Most of them look nothing like they did when they were first built. They have been changed, right down to the facades, to the point where you wouldn’t guess they were medieval at their core, and there are very few old square bell towers left gracing Rome’s skyline. We were about to visit one very notable exception.
The first church on this site was begun by Pope Miltiades in the 4th century. It was one of the first churches in Rome, and archeologists found the remains of a very elaborate villa beneath it. This first church was finished by the 6th Century, and it was considered important due to its proximity to the Lateran Palace, which was the papal residence at the time.
Santi Quattro Coronati means the Four Crowned Martyrs. (Well, saints, technically, but crowned saints are assumed to be martyrs.) They were the reason the church was built. There are conflicting stories as to who these martyrs were. The primary story (and indeed, the one on the sign in front of the church) is that it was built in honor of four stonemasons from the Roman province of Pannonia, a region that now comprises part of Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia. The sign says their names were Simproniano, Nicostrato, Castorio and Claudio, but most other sources say that their names were unknown.
It seems that sometime between 284 and 305AD, during the rule of Emperor Diocletian (who actually wound up being the first emperor to retire, and he did so in what is now Split, Croatia, and you can read more about my visit to that palace here). These stonemasons were asked to carve a pagan idol, Aesculapius, the God of Medicine and Healing, and worship him. They refused to do so because they were Christians, so they were sealed alive in lead coffins and thrown into a river.
Here’s where things get complicated, and how stories get confused over time. Add, to the story above, the following tidbits from various sources:
- There was also a fifth stonemason/martyr, whose name was Simplicius.
- Actually, the names of the stonemasons were unknown, but chosen by Pope Miltiades later.
- The stonemasons were said to have carved other idols before with no objection. Apparently Aesculapius was the last straw.
- The stonemasons were said to be working in a porphyry quarry, but porphyry quarries can only be found in Egypt.
- The four saints were actually Christian soldiers (of the clerk/recordkeeping type) who refused to make sacrifices to the God Aesculapius, (although I’m a bit confused as to why a soldier or a clerk would be asked to sacrifice to a god of medicine and healing in the first place).
- The soldiers’ names were Secundius, Severianus, Carpophorus, and Vittorinus.
- These soldiers were beaten to death two years after the stonemasons.
- Their names were unknown, but revealed “through the Lord’s revelation after many years had passed.”
- At some point, it was decided that all 8 (or 9) martyrs should be venerated together.
- Whether the remains in Santi Quattro Coronati are the 4 soldiers, the 4 or 5 stonemasons, or some combination thereof is debated, but modern scholarship leans toward the 4 stonemasons.
It’s kind of like a centuries’-old game of telephone, where information gets passed from one source to another, and bits get added, subtracted, and combined, to the point where God only knows what the truth is anymore. Regardless, somebody’s bones were brought to the church during the Reign of Pope Leo IV (847-855). To this day, those bones (minus the head of one, for some reason) lie in four sarcophagi in the church’s crypt. May they rest in peace.
When Pope Leo IV put the bones there, he also greatly expanded the size of the church and added its iconic square bell tower. Unfortunately, this large church was burned to the ground during the Norman Sack of Rome in 1084. It was rebuilt much smaller than the original. In fact, the second courtyard was part of the footprint of the original nave.
The old church’s original apse was preserved, though, so when you enter, the front of the church looks out of proportion. Usually, the apse of a church spans about 1/3rd of the back wall of it. This one spans the entire width. In the 13th century, the portion of the complex that was the Cardinal Palace was transformed into a fortress to shelter the popes during conflicts with Hohenstaufen emperors out of Germany.
With additions over the centuries, the entire complex today is comprised of two courtyards, a monastery, a crypt and cloister, the church, the fortified Cardinal Palace, and the Chapel of Saint Sylvester. The most stunning frescoes in the church are in the Chapel, and they date from the year 1247. In 2002, even more stunning frescoes were rediscovered in the Gothic Hall of the monastery. They had been covered over with a thick layer of plaster, possibly for hygienic reasons during the 1348 Black Death.
Once the popes left Rome in the 14th century, the Cardinal Palace fell into ruin. When the popes returned in the 15th century, they moved their residence to the Vatican. Because of this, the church lost its prominence.
In 1564, the entire complex was entrusted to a community of Augustinian nuns, whose order has been caring for it ever since. They also have a convent there. At some point, they also turned it into an orphanage.
No orphanage in Rome at the time would be complete without a Foundling Wheel. I was really looking forward to seeing this one. Foundling Wheels, also known as Baby Hatches or baby boxes, were rotating, upright barrel-like things in the walls of church orphanages. If someone wished to give up their baby for whatever reason, they could do so anonymously by placing the baby in the barrel opening, and then revolving it (gently, one hopes) so that the opening faced inward, then ringing a bell to alert the nuns. The nuns would then take the child and either raise it or find a home for it.
Fun fact: If you are of Italian descent and have the last name Esposito in your family tree, odds are, the first Esposito was once placed in an Italian foundling wheel. It’s a derivation of “depositato” or deposited.
There are still baby boxes all over the world, primarily in hospitals. It’s a great way to avoid infanticide, especially of female babies in countries that require dowries, and these boxes are also used in places where children born out of wedlock are highly stigmatized. Other reasons for using them are that the mother feels emotionally or financially incapable of caring for the child. The United States alone, to this day, has at least 300 active baby boxes.
They are rarely used, but, of course, they’re still controversial. You would think that the pro-lifers would be all for these things, because it gives women one more way to avoid abortions, but they appear to be outraged by them. That lends even more credence to my theory that they’re not really concerned about the life of the child. They just want to make sure the woman is kept poor and less powerful. I support baby boxes, because they provide safe and anonymous surrender options for the child and the mother. It’s much better than leaving the child in a cardboard box on some doorstep in hopes that it will be found in time. But, as per usual, I digress.
There was much to see in this church! Much for us to look forward to. I kept telling myself this as we trudged up the hill.
Santi Quattro Coronati not only looks medieval, but its fortress-like appearance can be a bit intimidating. That would prove to be our downfall and our salvation. I say this because we went in expecting to see frescoes and a cloister and a baby box, but, due to circumstances and our own hesitation, we wound up having a different experience entirely.
Now, this was a Tuesday, not a Sunday, and the guidebook said we were well within the hours that they welcome tourists, so we were expecting to be wandering around a mostly empty church, going from obvious room to obvious room to take in its many wonders, as we had been doing throughout much of Italy.
Not so much. We walked into the first beautiful courtyard and enjoyed the architecture and the ambience. We paused to admire two frescoes that made me really look forward to seeing the even better-preserved ones.
Then we headed into courtyard two. Now, the guidebook says that the Chapel with the frescoes is off to the right of that courtyard. You go in, give a nun your offering, and she allows you in. But we had walked into an intimidating church, and now we were faced by an equally intimidating tall, dark set of doors, which were firmly closed, and had no signs on them, other than the one that said it was the monastery. Should we open them? What if we had the wrong room? What if we weren’t welcome in that area? There was no one around. We dithered around in that courtyard for a bit, trying to decide what to do.
I knew I wanted to see the cloister as well (I do love a good cloister), and that was just inside the church, through a door to your left, where you were to give another nun yet another offering. We decided we’d try the cloister, and if we had any luck there, we would ask that nun about the frescoes. But just as we were about to step into the church, the bell in the tower started to ring. That was a rather cool addition to the overall ambience, but what did it signify? We had no idea. But all of a sudden a few people walked quickly through the courtyards and into the church, so we decided to follow them.
And just as we entered that gorgeous church, a choir of nuns in the apse began to sing. The haunting song echoed throughout the church. I could easily imagine that similar sounds had been emanating from this place for hundreds of years. It was just one of several dozen moments in Italy when I felt as though I had been transported centuries back in time. It’s equally disconcerting and delightful every time it happens.
We stood quietly at the back, enjoying the music and taking in the view. We felt it would be disrespectful to wander around during this… what was this? A service, or just choir practice? We didn’t know. But we knew we were the visitors, here. We didn’t even try to enter the cloister, unfortunately. We figured the nuns were probably busy, what with all that was going on at the moment.
We couldn’t resist taking a few discreet pictures, though. I wish I had thought to get one of the wooden ceiling with the carvings of the four crowned martyrs on it, which has been there since 1580, but I’ll pull one off the internet and include it with our pictures here. To think it still keeps out the rain after all this time!
Then, wanting to preserve this unexpected experience, Dear Husband decided to video, just as he had done in both courtyards. But two different nuns, toward the end, gave us dirty looks. (I now know why everyone I know who has gone to Catholic school has come away a bit traumatized. Those nuns can be scary!) So we decided it was time to beat a hasty retreat.
Here’s a compilation of all 3 videos DH took. In Courtyard 2 you can see the closed door with no sign, that leads to the frescoes and the foundling wheel. If you look closely at the end of the video, you can see one nun looking at us, and then another.
As I left, contemplating how daunting nuns can be, I looked over and saw a tent right up against the church walls. It looked like it had been there a while, but the area around it was tidy. The nuns had not run this person off, but they expected respect, and apparently had gotten it. And I had to admit to myself that these nuns had quite likely entered this order out of a desire to serve, so even if I found them intimidating, I’d like to think their hearts were in the right place. Who knows? So then my thoughts turned to the unexpected experience we had just had, which was absolutely wonderful, but it was tinged with a soupçon of disappointment for the things we had missed as well.
When doing research for this post, I learned that the very best frescoes, the ones rediscovered in 2002, can only be seen a few times a month, by special appointment only, so we wouldn’t have been able to see them in the first place. That took a little bit of the sting out of it. But it would have been nice to see the ones in the chapel. I’ll include a few teaser photos of things that we missed to whet your appetite, and you can find thousands more online. It’s well worth the search.
You never know what life’s going to throw at you, Dear Reader. Sometimes it’s more than you could have hoped for. Sometimes it requires a sacrifice. Sometimes both. But I have to say, I don’t regret having trudged up that hill. That counts for a lot.
Sources:
Four Crowned Martyrs Explained
Santi Quattro Coronati Explained
Wikipedia—Santi Quattro Coronati
Basilica of Santi Quattro Coronati—Atlas Obscura
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