Explore Rome

The Church of the Gesù on Piazza del Gesù is the mother church of the Jesuit order, begun in 1568 to designs by Vignola, with a façade by Giacomo della Porta, and consecrated in 1584. Its wide single nave and Giovanni Battista Gaulli's ceiling fresco, the Triumph of the Name of Jesus, became a model for Jesuit churches; it holds the tomb of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.

Sant'Ignazio is the Jesuit church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola in the Campo Marzio, built between 1626 and 1650 as the church of the Roman College. Its nave ceiling, painted by Andrea Pozzo around 1685, shows the saint received into heaven in steep illusionistic perspective, and a flat painted canvas by Pozzo over the crossing imitates a dome.

The Pantheon is a Roman temple on Piazza della Rotonda, rebuilt under Hadrian around AD 126 on the site of Agrippa's earlier temple, whose inscription it still carries. Its unreinforced concrete dome, 43 metres across, opens to the sky through a central oculus. Consecrated as the church of Santa Maria ad Martyres in 609, it holds the tombs of Raphael and two Italian kings.

San Pietro in Vincoli is a basilica on the Oppian Hill near the Colosseum, rebuilt in 432–440 to house the chains said to have bound Saint Peter, which are kept in a reliquary below the high altar. It also holds Michelangelo's statue of Moses, the central figure of the tomb of Pope Julius II.

Sant'Agnese in Agone is a Baroque church on Piazza Navona, begun in 1652 on the site where, by tradition, Saint Agnes was martyred in the ancient Stadium of Domitian. Started by Girolamo and Carlo Rainaldi and continued by Francesco Borromini, who designed the concave facade, it has a dome between two bell towers and a crypt shown on guided visits.

The Capuchin Crypt lies beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini on Via Veneto. Along a corridor of about 30 metres, six small chapels are decorated with the bones of some 3,700 people, mostly Capuchin friars, arranged into arches, rosettes and chandeliers. The visit starts in the friars' museum of art and history.

Santa Maria Maggiore is one of the four papal basilicas of Rome and the city's largest church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, built under Pope Sixtus III in the 5th century. Its nave and triumphal arch keep 5th-century mosaics, the 14th-century bell tower rises about 75 m, and Pope Francis was buried in a side aisle in 2025.

The Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome and the seat of the pope as its bishop. Founded in 324, it is the oldest of Rome's four major papal basilicas; Francesco Borromini remodelled the interior in the 1640s, and Alessandro Galilei completed the main facade with its colossal statues in 1735. A cloister and a baptistery adjoin it.

St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City was built between 1506 and 1626 over the traditional burial place of Saint Peter. Bramante, Michelangelo and Carlo Maderno shaped the design; Michelangelo's dome rises over the papal altar and Bernini's bronze baldachin, and Bernini also framed the square with its colonnades. Michelangelo's Pietà stands in the first chapel on the right.

The Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls is one of Rome's four papal major basilicas, founded under Constantine over the traditional grave of the Apostle Paul on the Via Ostiense. After a fire in 1823 it was rebuilt on the old plan; inside are Arnolfo di Cambio's ciborium of 1285 and a frieze of mosaic portraits of the popes.

Sant'Agnese fuori le mura is a basilica on Via Nomentana, built by Pope Honorius I in the 7th century over the tomb of the martyr Agnes and set below the level of the road. Its apse mosaic shows Agnes between two popes; guided tours lead into the catacombs beneath, and the complex includes the 4th-century Mausoleum of Santa Costanza.