Friday the Week of Ash Wednesday

Friday after Ash Wednesday we progress to Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo al Celio ( Basilica of Saints John and Paul on the Caelian Hill).

The church was built in 398, by senator Pammachius, over the home of two Roman soldiers, John and Paul, martyred under the emperor Julian in 362. The church was thus called the Titulus Pammachii and is recorded as such in the acts of the synod held by Pope Symmachus in 499. 

The inside has three naves, with pillars joined to the original columns. The altar is built over a bath, which holds the remains of the two martyrs.

The apse is frescoed with Christ in Glory (1588) by Cristoforo Roncalli (one of the painters called il Pomarancio); while below this fresco are three paintings: a Martyrdom of St John, a Martyrdom of St Paul, and the Conversion of Terenziano (1726) by Giovanni Domenico Piastrini, Giacomo Triga, and Pietro Andrea Barbieri respectively.

Martyrdom of St. John and St. Paul,3by Guercino, 1632

The sacristy features a canvas by Antoniazzo Romano of the Madonna and Child with Saints John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, and Saints Jerome and Paul.

In the second half of the fourth century, Byzantius, the Roman senator, and Saint Pammachius, his son, fashioned their house on the Cælian Hill into a Christian basilica. In the fifth century the presbyteri tituli Byzantii (priests of the church of Byzantius) are mentioned in an inscription and among the signatures of the Roman Council of 499. The church was also called the titulus Pammachii after Byzantius's son, the pious friend of St. Jerome.[1]

In the ancient apartments on the ground-floor of the house of Byzantius, which were still retained under the basilica, the tomb of two Roman martyrs, John and Paul, was the object of veneration as early as the fifth century.[1]

In 1887 Father Germano da San Stanislao lead a search for their tombs brought to light 20 houses, a treasure trove the excavators didn’t expect. The rooms are what you wind through today, dated round the 2nd or 3rd century AD, except that sometime between the 3rd and 4th century AD an “aristocrat” got a hold of the property and transformed all the little houses into one huge house.

The Saints, John and Paul, were martyred on the night of January 26th/27th 361, and buried in secret in their house. This was not only a transgression against the edicts of Emperor Julian the Apostate, but also a violation of Roman burial laws. To prevent disease, all burials had to take place outside city walls. That they were buried here is a strong reminder of the important place relics have held and still hold in Catholic religious practice.