San Lorenzo in Damaso

Stand in the small square for a moment and listen. Scooters hum along the Corso Vittorio Emanuele nearby. Voices drift over from Campo de' Fiori, just a short walk away. In front of you rises a long, calm wall of pale travertine, the porous cream-coloured limestone that Rome has used for two thousand years. It looks like a palace, and it is one. But one of its doors opens into one of the oldest churches in the city.

This is San Lorenzo in Damaso. From outside you do not see a bell tower or a church front. The basilica has no facade of its own. Instead, it sits entirely inside the Palazzo della Cancelleria, the great Renaissance palace that fills this side of the square. Many visitors walk past without knowing a church is here. That is the first surprise of this place. A sacred space from late antiquity now hides behind a cardinal's palace.

The story begins in the fourth century. Pope Damasus the First founded a church on this site and dedicated it to Saint Lawrence. Lawrence was a deacon of Rome, martyred in the third century, and one of the most loved saints in the city. The name of the church joins the two men. It means Saint Lawrence in the church of Damasus. Damasus is remembered for another reason too. He composed verse inscriptions to honour the martyrs, and had them carved in an elegant lettering style that scholars still admire.

Tradition also connects this early church with the record-keeping of the Roman church. Damasus is said to have created a place here to hold documents and archives. Nobody standing in the square today can see that early building. For many centuries, its exact form was a matter of guesswork. Then, in the late twentieth century, archaeologists excavated beneath the palace. They found remains of the early Christian basilica under the courtyard, a little away from where the church stands now.

So what happened to the old church? In the late fifteenth century, a powerful young cardinal named Raffaele Riario decided to build a new residence on this site. He was a relative of Pope Sixtus the Fourth. The palace he built is one of the earliest great Renaissance palaces in Rome. Riario did not simply demolish the ancient church. He rebuilt it and folded it into the body of his new palace. The church moved, and it changed shape, but it survived.

There is a famous story about how the palace was paid for. Locals say Riario won an enormous sum at dice in a single night, gambling against a nephew of another pope. It is a good tale, and it is repeated often. Treat it as a legend rather than a fact from the account books. Another story you may hear is that some of the travertine came from the Colosseum. Reusing ancient stone was common in Renaissance Rome, so the idea is plausible, but the details are hard to confirm.

Who designed the palace? This question still divides historians. For a long time, the name Bramante was attached to it. Bramante was the architect who later planned the new Saint Peter's Basilica. Today many scholars think the design is too early for him, and the architect remains uncertain. When you look at the facade, notice the flat pilasters, the shallow columns set against the wall, and the even rhythm of windows. This calm order was new in Rome at the time.

Later the palace became the seat of the papal Chancery, the office that issued official church documents. That is where the name Cancelleria comes from. The building still belongs to the Holy See, the government of the Catholic Church. It holds a special status, so this corner of Rome is not ordinary Italian property. The church inside it remained a working basilica through all these centuries, serving the people of the neighbourhood.

Now walk through the door and let your eyes adjust. The interior you see today is mostly the work of the nineteenth century. Over the years the church passed through several hands. In the seventeenth century, Gian Lorenzo Bernini worked on parts of it. Then, around 1800, during the French occupation of Rome, the church was badly damaged and reportedly used for non-religious purposes. Restorers worked on it in the decades that followed, and a major redesign later in the nineteenth century gave it much of its present look.

This is the second surprise. You entered a Renaissance palace, but the church interior feels later and richer. Look up at the coffered ceiling, with its sunken square panels. Look at the painted walls and the gilding that catches the light from the windows. The space is long and fairly narrow, shaped by the palace around it. Because the church sits inside another building, the light enters in a gentle, indirect way.

One grave here carries the weight of modern Italian history. Pellegrino Rossi was a minister serving Pope Pius the Ninth. In 1848, he was assassinated on the steps of this very palace, during the revolutionary upheaval that swept across Europe that year. His murder helped push the pope to flee Rome for a time. Rossi was buried in this church. So the square outside was not only a place of ceremony. It was also the scene of a political killing that changed the city.

Before you leave, think about the layers under your feet. Down below lie traces of the fourth-century basilica. Around you stand Renaissance walls. On the surfaces, you see nineteenth-century decoration. Not far away, beneath the streets near Campo de' Fiori, are the remains of the ancient Theatre of Pompey. In this part of Rome, almost every building rests on something older. San Lorenzo in Damaso is a clear example of how the city reuses and rebuilds rather than erasing.

When you step back into the square, turn around once more. Look at the long travertine wall and find the door you just used. It looks like any other palace doorway. Yet behind it, a church has kept its name for more than sixteen centuries. As you walk towards the market stalls and the noise of Campo de' Fiori, listen for the bells of nearby churches. Rome is full of quiet doors like this one.