Santa Francesca Romana

Listen for a moment. Beyond the voices and footsteps on the old paving, a church bell sounds from a slim brick tower. The bricks are warm and rust-coloured, and set into them are small round discs of glazed pottery. On a sunny morning those discs catch the light like coins. You are standing at the eastern edge of the Roman Forum, where the ground rises toward the Colosseum, and this is the church of Santa Francesca Romana.

Most visitors walk past it. Their eyes go to the Arch of Titus close by, or to the great curve of the Colosseum just beyond. But this church sits on one of the most layered pieces of ground in the city. Under and around it lie the remains of the Temple of Venus and Roma. That temple was one of the largest in ancient Rome, and it was planned under the emperor Hadrian. The church grew inside that old sacred space.

The church did not always carry this name. For centuries it was called Santa Maria Nova, which means New Saint Mary. The name only makes sense when you know about an older church down in the Forum, Santa Maria Antiqua, or Old Saint Mary. In the ninth century, an earthquake damaged that older church badly. Its role, and many of its treasures, moved up the slope to this site. So the new church took over from the old one.

Now look up at the bell tower again. It dates from the twelfth century and is built in the Romanesque style. Romanesque simply means the round-arched building style common in Europe before the Gothic period. The tower rises in neat storeys, each one opened by small arched windows. Those pottery bowls set into the brick were a fashion of the time. They added colour and a little glitter to a plain wall... and many of them have survived for hundreds of years.

The front of the church tells a different story. The facade is pale stone, calm and balanced, with columns and a triangular pediment on top. It was added in the early seventeenth century, during the Baroque period, when Rome was rebuilding and redecorating many of its churches. So in one glance you see two ages side by side — a medieval tower and a Baroque front. This mix of periods is typical of Rome. Very few buildings here belong to only one century.

The woman who gave the church its present name lived in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Her name was Frances, and Romans still call her Francesca Romana — Frances of Rome. She came from a noble family and married young. She raised children, lost children, and lived through plague, war, and the troubled years when the popes had left Rome. She spent her life caring for the poor and the sick of the city.

Frances also founded a community of women who lived a religious life without full vows of a nun. They became known as the Oblates of Tor de' Specchi, after the place where they lived, not far from here. After her death she was buried in this church. When she was declared a saint in the early seventeenth century, the people of Rome began to call the church by her name. Her remains still rest in the crypt below the altar.

Here is something most visitors never expect. Frances of Rome is the patron saint of drivers. Legend has it that her guardian angel walked ahead of her at night with a light, so that she never lost her way. In the twentieth century, a pope named her the protector of motorists. On her feast day in March, cars and taxis have traditionally gathered near the church to receive a blessing. Imagine engines and holy water, here beside the Colosseum.

Inside, let your eyes go first to the apse — the curved space behind the altar. Its mosaic dates from the twelfth century. It shows the Virgin Mary seated on a throne, holding the Christ Child, with saints standing on either side. Small pieces of gold glass make up the background. When light falls on them, the whole surface shimmers gently. Take a moment to step closer and see how each tiny piece is set at a slightly different angle.

The church also keeps a very old image of the Virgin, an icon that is linked by tradition to the older church in the Forum. Icons are painted images used for prayer, often in a style that comes from the Byzantine East. Restorers found that an even earlier painting lay beneath a later one. So this single panel carries more than one layer of history, much like the ground under your feet.

There is a second surprise in the church, and this one is pure legend. In the wall of the south transept, look for a stone slab with two shallow hollows. According to an old tale, the apostles Peter and Paul knelt here and prayed against a magician named Simon Magus. The story says that Simon was flying above the Forum, and that their prayers made him fall. The marks in the stone are said to be the prints of their knees.

The church holds one more important figure. Pope Gregory the Eleventh is buried here. In the fourteenth century, the popes lived for many decades in Avignon, in France, and not in Rome. Gregory brought the papacy back to Rome in 1377. His later monument in the church shows his return to the city in carved relief. It is a quiet reminder that Rome almost stopped being the home of the popes.

Before you leave, step back outside and look again at the brick tower against the sky. Behind you lie the broken columns of the Forum. In front of you stands the Colosseum, and all around you is the noise of modern Rome. This small church has stood between those worlds for more than a thousand years. As you walk away, listen once more for its bell... and notice how the little discs of pottery still catch the light.