Features, colours, patterns, symbols: old and new, Paganism and Christianity. Discovering the change through the glittering jewel-coloured mosaics of three churches.

3 hours - walking tour

St Pudenziana is one of the oldest churches of Rome (IV cent AD) built on top of a wealthy house belonging to the senator Pudente. An unproved tradition reports that he and his daughters Pudenziana and Prassede were converted by St Peter himself who lived in the house for seven years. The masterpiece is the mosaic decorating the apse, still showing classical elements connected to the Roman art.

Everything “looks” Roman also inside the Basilica of St Mary Major where the vast layout is still perceptible and, together with the indoor architecture, makes the space as Roman looking as a pagan audience hall. The mosaics lining up the walls of the main nave are among the oldest and the most important of the early Christian art. The figures featuring there, their gestures, their cloths do look Roman.

The glory of the early Christian Rome and the rise to the power of the Papacy were revived in the church of St Prassede. The former Christian community center was replaced by a new building laid out in the IX cent AD, according to a plan very similar to the early St Peter basilica. Gorgeous mosaic decorations are in the apse and inside St Zeno’s Chapel: boldly outlined shapes, imperial looking garments richly decorated, inexpressive faces, motionless gestures and postures. The best Byzantine-style in Rome.