Chiesa di Sant'Ambrogio della Massima

The church is recorded in early catalogues of the city's churches as Sancta Maria de Maxima. By tradition it was built on the site of the house of Ambrose's father, and again by tradition the monastery was founded in 353 by Marcellina, elder sister of Ambrose and Satyrus. The convent stands on the area of the ancient Portico di Filippo, built by Lucius Marcius Philippus, Augustus's stepfather, in 29 BC around the temple of Hercules of the Muses, of which nothing survives. In 1876, after the Cessione dell'asse ecclesiastico, the monastic complex was divided between the Comune di Roma and the Cassinese Benedictines, who serve the church. The convent had extended over most of the block between via di Sant'Ambrogio, piazza Lovatelli and via di Sant'Angelo in Pescheria.