Basilica e Complesso dei Santi Quattro Coronati

Roma Capitale records a foundation in the middle of the fifth century AD on the remains of a Roman domus, named from the tradition of the martyrdom of four Roman soldiers and five stonemasons. The complex was entirely rebuilt after the fire that devastated the city in 1084, and at the start of the thirteenth century the monks' cells, the cloister and the fortified cardinal's palace were added. Decline set in with the move of the papacy to Avignon and lasted until 1564, when Pius IV turned the complex into the Conservatorio delle Zitelle, a girls' orphanage, for the enclosed Augustinian nuns. The interior has three naves under matronea, on columns taken from imperial monuments, and keeps its original Cosmatesque pavement of large marble and porphyry discs and polychrome mosaic. The apse spans all three naves, covering the width of the nave of the first basilica, and is frescoed by Giovanni da San Giovanni with the story of the Coronati.