traveldk.com

Few images are more joyous than this 12th-century variation on the tree-of-life, in the Upper Church. Plump cupids, winsome animals and lush foliage evoke a new-found Paradise. The stone and glass squares were taken from a similar work in the destroyed 4th-century church below it.

These frescoes in the Lower Church relate how a wealthy pagan, Sisinius, was struck deaf and blind for suspecting his Christian wife of infidelity. St Clement cures him but incurs his wrath and Sisinius’s furious commands are the first known inscriptions in Italian.

The triclinium, with its platforms along both sides, was used for ritual banqueting, where the male-only congregation imitated the gods’s last meal before they re-ascended to heaven. The altar painting shows Mithras slaying the Cosmic Bull to bring about Creation.

The restored frescoes in the Upper Church by the 15th-century Florentine artist Masolino show vibrant scenes from the life of St Catherine of Alexandria. These provide one of the few opportunities in Rome to appreciate the painting of the early Florentine Renaissance.

These frescoes in the Lower Church show how St Clement saved a boy from drowning.

The enclosure for the choir in the Upper Church, a gift from Pope John II (AD 535– 55), was retained when a new choir was built. It is walled with panels of white marble inlaid with colourful mosaics and carved with early Christian symbols.

This mansion belonged to a man named Clemens, perhaps a relative of an early Christian martyr and of St Clement, or perhaps a freed man of Jewish birth. The 4th-century church was built precisely over the 1st-century site.

This technique, developed by the Cosmati family in the 12th century, involved using fragments of stone from Roman ruins, to create intricate, geometric patterns.

This 12th-century spiralling motif, striped with glittering mosaics of ancient glass, is another magnificent example of work by Cosmati artisans in the Upper Church.

The original entrance was through the quadroporticus , the medieval colonnaded square forecourt. The fountain and the scrolled façade were added in the early 18th century.