Roaming in Rome's Trastevere

Santa Cecilia

We stuck to the Trastevere district today focusing on churches.  Boy, Mary is a very popular name for a church, adding to my confusion about which church is which and where it is.  The Piazza Santa Maria (see!) near our apartment is the home for Santa Maria in Trastevere, one of the oldest churches in Rome dating back to the 340s.  Most impressive were the mosaics and the coffered ceiling. Just a complete wow.   It retains its Romanesque structure. This is also where the oldest fountain flows that I mentioned 2 posts past. Rumor has it the night Jesus was born oil flowed from the ground where the fountain was built lighting lamps for eternity. Well, for eternity or until modern times when one could verify things with google.  

Our next stop was Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. St Cecilia is the patroness of musicians.  Appropriately, a beautiful organ piece welcomed us as we entered.  Playing the organ was one of the Benedictine Nuns who live in the adjacent monastery and have charge of the basilica.  Cecilia was born into a prominent Roman pagan family.  At some point she embraced Christianity, and took a vow of virginity.  In a nutshell, she got married, he converted and honored her virginity, she angered the pagans, they cut her head off. There is a lovely sculpture of her by Stephano Maderno under the alter.  He did an excellent job showing the cut in her neck.  

Our last church was Cheisa Santa Maria dell Orto (Mary? Again?). This interior was Baroque to the max.  Not one centimeter of surface was free of design.  This church was built in an area of Etruscan encampment. It is also the reference church for the Catholic Japanese community of Rome.  

Finding dinner tonight was an adventure.  We started out at a recommendation that from the obvious line outside would not suit our patience.  So, we made a reservation for the next night and headed off to find a nice touristy spot, which we did.  It was fine.  Really.  How can one go wrong with pasta and Rome.  See pics of the churches and the martyr Cecilia here.