Basilica of St. John Lateran

The Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio was founded by Pope Simplicius between 468 and 483 and is dedicated to Saint Stephen, a martyr whose body had been found a few decades earlier in the Holy Land and transported to Rome. The church was embellished by Popes John I and Felix IV in the 6th century. In 1130, Innocent II added three transverse arches to support the dome. In 1454, Pope Nicholas V entrusted the ruined church to the care of the Hungarian Pauline Fathers. The church was restored by Bernardo Rossellino. In 1579, the Hungarian Jesuits took over from the Pauline Fathers.

The present Basilica of San Clemente was built in the 12th century as part of a Dominican convent. An old basilica existed there but it is assumed that its state must have been ruinous at the time of its demolition. Numerous subsequent interventions modified its internal and external appearance; the present appearance was finally defined during an important restoration carried out between 1713 and 1719, commissioned by Pope Clemente XI and carried out by the architect Carlo Stefano Fontana.

A first church was built here in antiquity, mentioned in the acts of the synod of Pope Simmaco in 499. Pope Paschal I (817-824) had the basilica rebuilt in 818-822, endowing it with mosaics. The appearance of the present church of Santa Maria in Domnica, however, owes much to a reconstruction in the 16th century, when the church was closely linked to the Medici family.