Santi Quattro Coronati: The Nuns' Wheel & the Emperor's Bargain
Why is it significant?
Pass under the squat bell tower into the first courtyard, then into a second, and you will feel the noise of the city fall away behind you. With its high walls and narrow gate, this place looks less like a church than a castle... and for a time in the Middle Ages, that is exactly what it was.
Key Facts
| Place | Santi Quattro Coronati: The Nuns' Wheel & the Emperor's Bargain |
|---|---|
| Address | Via dei Santi Quattro 20, 00184 Roma RM, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.88810, 12.49850 |
| Part of Walk | Rome in Layers: The Quiet Celian Hill, San Clemente & the Lateran |
| Generated | Generated |
Pass under the squat bell tower into the first courtyard, then into a second, and you will feel the noise of the city fall away behind you. With its high walls and narrow gate, this place looks less like a church than a castle... and for a time in the Middle Ages, that is exactly what it was.
The Four Crowned Martyrs who give the church its name were, according to tradition, stonecutters and soldiers killed for refusing to carve or worship a pagan idol. That is why for centuries Rome's stonemasons and sculptors claimed them as patrons. The church was rebuilt in the early twelfth century after the Norman sack of 1084, smaller than before, which is why the courtyards feel oddly vast for the building.
Today it is home to a community of enclosed Augustinian nuns. If you want to see its greatest treasure, find the door to the oratory in the courtyard, ring the bell, and speak to a wooden wheel set into the wall. A voice you will never see answers you, the wheel turns, and a key appears. That key opens the Oratory of San Silvestro.
Inside, the walls are covered with frescoes painted in 1246, as fresh as comics. They tell a legend. The emperor Constantine is sick with leprosy; Saints Peter and Paul appear to him in a dream; Pope Sylvester baptises and cures him. Then, in the final scenes, the grateful emperor hands the pope his tiara and leads the pope's horse on foot, like a groom.
That was no innocent picture. It was painted at the height of the war between the papacy and the emperor Frederick the Second, and its message was blunt: emperors serve popes. Painted propaganda, behind a nuns' wheel. Before you leave, ask whether the cloister is open, one of the oldest in Rome, with a fountain in the middle. Then walk east along Via dei Santi Quattro. Before long, the tallest obelisk in the world will appear ahead of you.