Overview
San Clemente can be defined as a wonderful multi-layered "wedding cake". It consists of the 12th-century upper basilica, the 4th-century lower basilica and underground chambers, a temple dedicated to the god Mithras and a 1st-century Roman domus.
The original basilica was built in the courtyard of a 2nd-century dwelling in which a mithraeum had been created in the following century, and was shortly afterwards transformed into a place of Christian worship that was the site of various councils in the 5th century. The basilica was restored in the 8th century and again in the 9th, destroyed by the fire started by the Normans in 1084 and then buried. In 1108, Pope Paschal II had a new church built. The façade we see today, preceded by a small brick prothyrum and a four-sided atrium on ancient columns, is the result of Carlo Stefano Fontana's 18th-century intervention. Although altered in the 18th century, the upper basilica retains its early 12th-century layout, with three apsidal naves on recovered columns and a beautiful Cosmatesque floor. From the same period are the schola cantorum, the space reserved for the singers or psalmists in the middle of the nave, surrounded by a marble enclosure, the cosmatesque ciborium in the chancel and the episcopal chair in the apse. The striking "Triumph of the Cross", a mosaic in the apse by the Roman school from the first half of the 12th century, depicts the Crucifixion among the acanthus spirals of the tree of life. The chapel of Santa Caterina, at the start of the left nave, contains valuable frescoes by Masolino da Panicale, probably painted in collaboration with Masaccio. From the sacristy, a staircase with remains of 4th-century church decorations and the mithraeum leads to the lower basilica. Here there is a notable fresco in the central nave depicting the "Legend of Sisinnius". On the walls of the same nave there are other frescoes from the 11th and 12th centuries, including the "Legend of Saint Alexius". At the end of the left nave, you descend to the underground chambers, including the 3rd-century Mithraeum dedicated to the God Mithras, with a carved altar.
