Basilica di Sant'Aurea

The church is first mentioned in connection with restorations ordered by Pope Sergius II in the middle of the eighth century. The present building was begun at the wish of Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville, completed under Giuliano della Rovere and finished in 1483; the parish names Baccio Pontelli as its architect, the same man named for the fortress next to it, and he reversed the church's orientation. The chapel of Santa Monica on the right holds a funerary inscription found near the church in 1945 that records the ancient cult of the saint's body, and a canvas of the Ecstasy of Saint Monica attributed to Pietro da Cortona; the oval Martirio di santa Aurea among the seventeenth-century altarpieces is given to Andrea Sacchi. The apse arch is built of spoliated marble and carries sixteenth-century frescoes, and the modern altar carries two fifteenth-century reliefs. The see has been entrusted since 1966 to the vicar of the diocese of Rome, its cardinalatial title has been held since the twelfth century by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, and twelve bishops of Ostia have been elected pope.