Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri

Turismo Roma records that in 1561 Pius IV, prompted by the Sicilian priest Antonio Lo Duca, decided to build a church inside the Baths of Diocletian, and that the commission went to Michelangelo, then 86 years old. Michelangelo worked the church into the Roman rectangular hall, over 90 metres long, without altering it, used the natatio for the apse, and made the concave brick facade out of an exedra of the calidarium. After his death on 18 February 1564 the work continued under Jacopo Del Duca, his pupil and Lo Duca's nephew.

The floor carries the Meridiana, or Linea Clementina, inaugurated in October 1702 under Clement XI and made by Francesco Bianchini: a bronze line about 45 metres long set in a band of marble. Luigi Vanvitelli reworked the church in 1750 and built the facade toward Piazza Esedra, which was demolished in 1911 to bring the niche of the calidarium back into view. In 1998 the Comune di Roma gave the basilica a new monumental organ by Bartolomeo Formentelli of Verona, and in 2001 Narcissus Quagliata installed a stained-glass dome 5 metres across at a height of 23 metres, which also works as a meridian.

The basilica publishes its own hours: Monday to Friday 8:00-13:00 and 16:00-19:00, Saturday, Sunday and holidays 10:00-13:00 and 16:00-19:00. Mass is at 18:30 Monday to Saturday; on Sunday at 9:00 in English, 10:30, 12:00 and 18:30 in Italian, and 17:00 in Spanish. Confessions are heard daily from 10:00 to 12:00 and after each Mass. The basilica has been closed for restoration and announced its reopening on these hours for Sunday 6 September; check the parish's site before travelling.