Ingrid D. Rowland, professor in Rome for the School of Architecture and Department of History, shot an exclusive documentary in English on the Basilica of Saint Clement - Basilica di San Clemente al Laterano.
Taking advantage of the closure to the public for COVID-19 regulations and thanks to the collaboration of the Reverend Father Stephen Hutchinson, prior to the Basilica, this documentary was made possible.
This basilica is extraordinary in its three layers structure. It is a Latin Catholic minor basilica dedicated to Pope Clement I, situated some three hundred yards above the Colosseum, on a road that rises gradually to St. John Lateran from the valley between the Coelian Hill on the south and the Oppian Hill on the north. Archaeologically speaking, the structure is a three-tiered complex of buildings. The present basilica was built just before the year 1100 during the height of the Middle Ages. Beneath the present basilica is a 4th-century basilica that had been converted out of the home of a Roman nobleman, part of which had in the 1st century briefly served as an early church, and the basement of which had in the 2nd century briefly served as a mithraeum. The home of the Roman nobleman had been built on the foundations of republican era villa and warehouse that had been destroyed in the Great Fire of 64 AD.
Originally published by at rome.nd.edu on February 25, 2021.