Basilica di Santa Maria in Domnica alla Navicella

Roma Capitale records an ancient diaconia, probably founded in the seventh century on the Roman remains of the barracks of the fifth cohort of the Vigiles. The epithet in Domnica is of uncertain origin: possibly from the name Ciriaca, from dominicum for early Christian places of worship, or from the praedia dominica. The present appearance is largely due to Paschal I, who rebuilt the church from the foundations in the ninth century and decorated it with the apse mosaic, in which he appears at the Virgin's feet among ranks of angels. Between 1513 and 1514 the titular cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, the future Leo X, had the façade rebuilt to a design by Andrea Sansovino, who also designed the portico of five arches on piers and Tuscan pilasters with lion protomes alluding to the pope's chosen name. The campanile on the right flank keeps a thirteenth-century bell. The plan is basilican, three naves on eighteen antique granite columns with Corinthian capitals; the coffered wooden ceiling was made in 1565 and 1566 for Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, with a heraldic frieze below it designed by Giulio Romano; the frescoes under the mosaic are of the seventeenth century.