Basilica of Santa Pudenziana

The Basilica of Santa Pudenziana is located in the Monti district, on Via Urbana, a short walk from Santa Maria Maggiore. It stands in the heart of the ancient Vicus Patricius, a residential area of the Roman aristocracy.

The home of the family of Pudens, a Roman senator of the 1st century AD, situated some nine metres below the current street level, was extended during the Imperial period and became a meeting place for the early Christian communities. Here, according to tradition, Pudens welcomed the apostles Peter and Paul.

In 145 AD, Pope Pius I established one of the first places of Christian worship there. In the centuries that followed, the church’s name changed to Santa Pudenziana.

The present-day basilica preserves a unique stratification: from the thermal baths to medieval alterations and late-Renaissance restorations.

The apse mosaic is one of the oldest and most important in Rome. Created after Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410, it depicts Christ enthroned as Emperor and Pantocrator, surrounded by the Apostles dressed as Roman senators. The scene, which is a theological and political response to the collapse of the Empire, would become the model for Byzantine mosaics, featuring the four living creatures of the Apocalypse and the heavenly Jerusalem in the background.