Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin

First recorded in the sixth century as Sancta Maria in Schola Graeca, with the rank of diaconia, and enlarged in 782 by Pope Hadrian I over the Ara Maxima of Hercules, whose Aniene-tufa core still stands in the rear half of the church and inside which the crypt was cut. It took its present form in the twelfth century, after the damage of Robert Guiscard's invasion; the portico and the seven-storey Romanesque campanile of bifore and trifore, 34.20 m tall with a bell of 1289, are the work of Alfano Camerario. The name comes from the Constantinople monastery Kosmidion, invoked by the Greek corporation entrusted with the church, which is also why the surrounding area was called Schola Graeca and this bank of the Tiber Ripa Graeca.