Anastasios
If you are visiting Rome, a visit to the Basilica of San Clemente al Laterano, not far from Saint John in Lateran, is certainly well worth a visit. As we learn from the website of the Basilica, the church is full of history: “The Basilica of San Clemente is 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. It is named after Pope St Clement, the third, successor of St Peter in the See of Rome, who died about 100 AD.
Until a hundred years ago, it was commonly thought that the present church was that to which St Jerome referred when he wrote in the year 390, that ‘a church in Rome preserves the memory of St Clement to this day.’
But in 1857, Fr Joseph Mullooly, the then Prior of San Clemente, began excavations under the present basilica, uncovering in the process not only the original, fourth-century basilica that lies directly underneath, but also at a still lower level, the remains of an earlier, first-century building. Later excavations, notably those conducted in 1912-1914 by Fr Louis Nolan when a drain was being built between San Clemente and the Colosseum, showed that underneath this third layer of buildings there was still a fourth stratum, containing buildings destroyed in the fire of Nero in 64 AD. The level, therefore, of the valley in which San Clemente lies was about sixty feet lower in the first century than the present level.
After the fire of 64 AD, the gutted buildings were filled in and used as foundations for further houses, at a level that is roughly that of the floor of the Colosseum today. At this third level at San Clemente there are two buildings that are separated from each other by a narrow passageway. The less pretentious of these is a brick building, possibly an ‘insula’ or apartment house, in the courtyard of which there is a small Mithraic temple belonging to the end of the second century.”
Visiting the excavations under the main Basilica is really a travel in time, and we can find memories also about Saint Cyril and his involvement with this church: “According to St Cyril’s own report, in 861 AD, he recovered the body of St Clement in the Crimea, together with the anchor. Invited to Rome in 867 AD by the Pope, St Cyril and Methodius took these remains with them, arriving in 868 AD. The body of St Clement was solemnly escorted to and interred in San Clemente. A year later on 14 February, St Cyril died in Rome. St Methodius asked for permission to take the body back to Greece. When the Pope and people of Rome would not allow this, St Methodius requested that the burial be in San Clemente itself.” We have also here one of the first examples of Italian language in a painting that can be found here.
This Basilica is really rich in history and art. If I remember correctly, Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis used San Clemente as an example for his theory, with the three levels of the buildings that can be still accessed by today’s visitors. (Photo: Wikipedia)
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