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Audience with the Pope
At on Wednesdays, the pope meets his flock at St Peter's Basilica (in July and August at Castel Gandofolo). For free tickets, write to the Prefettura della Casa Pontificia, 00120 Città del Vaticano. If you're already in Rome, call or visit the Prefettura (%06 698 84 631; h - ) through the bronze doors under the colonnade to the right of St Peter's. When in town, the pope also blesses the faithful in St Peter's Square (Piazza San Pietro) on Sundays at noon - no tickets required.
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Basilica & Catacombe di San Sebastiano
Before going into the catacombs beneath the church, take a moment to explore the interesting 4th-century basilica on top. Much altered over the years, it was built over the catacombs used to safeguard the remains of Sts Peter and Paul during the persecutory reign of Vespasian. Its name, however, is a dedication to St Sebastian, who was martyred and buried here in the late 3rd century.
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Basilica dei Santi Apostoli
Built in the 6th century and dedicated to the apostles James and Philip (whose relics are in the crypt), this church was enlarged in the 15th and 16th centuries and then rebuilt in the early 1700s. The unusual façade with Renaissance arches and portico dates to the early 16th century, while Carlo and Francesco Fontana's baroque interior was completed in 1714. Inside, the main attraction is Antonio Canova's tomb of Pope Clement XIV.
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Basilica di San Paolo fuori le Mura
The biggest church in Rome after St Peter's - which makes it the third-largest in the world - St Paul's Outside the Walls stands on the site where St Paul was buried after being decapitated in AD 67. Built by Constantine in the 4th century, it was largely destroyed by fire in 1823 and much of what you see today is a 19th-century reconstruction.
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Basilica di Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura & Chiesa di Santa Costanza
The apse of the 4th-century Basilica di Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura, built by Constantine, has a 7th-century mosaic depicting St Agnes standing on flames. According to tradition, the 13-year-old Agnes was burnt at the stake by the Emperor Domitian but remained miraculously unharmed. Unfortunately, she was beheaded on the spot where the Chiesa di Sant'Agnese in Agone now stands in Piazza Navona and buried in the catacombs beneath this church.
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Basilica di Santa Cecilia in Trastevere
The last resting place of St Cecilia, the patron saint of music, this much-altered basilica stands on the site of an earlier 5th-century church, itself built over the house where St Cecilia lived and died in 230. Like many Christian saints, Cecilia came to a sticky end. Her executioners first tried to scald her to death by locking her in the caldarium of the baths in her own house.
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Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere
Said to be the oldest church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Rome, it was established by Pope Calixtus in the early 3rd century and subsequently rebuilt by Julius I in 337. Its discreet style, portico embedded with fragments of ancient and medieval sculpture, inscriptions and sarcophagi, blend in with the other buildings on Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. This is also where, in 38 BC, a miraculous fountain of pure oil sprang from the ground.
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Bocca della Verità
A round piece of marble once used as an ancient manhole cover, the Bocca della Verità (Mouth of Truth) is one of Rome's great curiosities. According to legend, if you put your right hand in the carved mouth and tell a lie, the mouth will snap shut and bite your hand off. Apparently, priests used to put scorpions in the mouth to perpetuate the myth and Roman husbands used it to test their wives' fidelity.
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Bocca della Verità & Chiesa di Santa Maria in Cosmedin
The 'Mouth of Truth' is Rome's most famous lie detector: it's a mask-shaped ancient manhole cover known to bite off the hand of fibbers (priests apparently slipped scorpions in there to help it along). If you pass the test, pop into the adjoining 8th-century Chiesa di Santa Maria in Cosmedin for some stunning Cosmati interiors. The church's portico and bell tower were 12th-century additions, while the three columns embedded in the nave were part of an ancient market colonnade.
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Capuchin Cemetery
Long after memories of all the rest of Rome's interiors run together in an opulent blur, visitors vividly recall the particulars of the bizarre and macabre chapels of this cemetery, where the decorative elements - from the picture frames to the light fittings - are all made of human bones.
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Carcere Mamertino
This dark, dank dungeon is the Mamertine Prison, home to anyone who got on the wrong side of the ancient Roman authorities. Holy jail bait St Peter was held here using the chains now in Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli. But even they couldn't stop him from denting the wall with his head and causing a baptismal stream to spring.
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Centrale Montemartini
Antiquity meets Fritz Lang's Metropolis at the striking outpost of the Capitoline Museums. In an ex-power plant, marble Roman deities are juxtaposed with beastly engines and furnaces in a battle of new gods and old. You'll find the collection's highlights in the Sala Caldaia, among them the youthful Fanciulla Seduta and the milky white 1st-century Venus Esquilina, discovered on the Esquiline Hill in 1874.
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Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis
This small church marks where St Peter, while fleeing Rome, met a vision of Jesus going the other way. He asked: 'Domine, quo vadis?' ('Lord, where are you going?'). Jesus replied that he was going to Rome to be crucified for a second time. Inspired, Peter returned to the city to be arrested and executed. In the centre of the aisle are copies of two holy footprints supposed to belong to Christ. The originals are in the Basilica di San Sebastiano.
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Chiesa della Trinità dei Monti
This landmark church was commissioned by King Louis XII of France and consecrated in 1585. Apart from the great views from outside, it boasts some wonderful frescoes by Daniele da Volterra. His Deposizione (Christ being taken down from the cross), in the second chapel on the left, is regarded as a masterpiece of Mannerist painting. If you don't fancy climbing the steep steps, there's a lift from Spagna metro station up to Viale Trinità dei Monti.
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Chiesa di San Bartolomeo
Built on the ruins of the Roman temple to Aesculapius, the Greek god of healing, Isola Tiberina's 10th-century church has been much altered over the centuries. As you see it today, it has a baroque ceiling, a Romanesque bell tower and a marble wellhead, believed to have been placed over the spring that provided healing waters for the temple.
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Chiesa di San Carlo ai Catinari
This 17th-century church with its severe facade and exquisite dome was designed by Rosato Rasati for Cardinal Carlo Borromeo. 'Catinari' refers to the bowl makers whose shops dotted the neighbourhood. Inside, there are altarpieces by Pietro da Cortona and Guido Reni, and a richly decorated 16th-century crucifix on the sacristy altar by Algardi.
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Chiesa di San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane
It might not look it, with its filthy façade and unappealing location, but this tiny church is a masterpiece of Roman baroque. It was the first church designed by Borromini and bears all the hallmarks of his tortured genius. The elegant curves of the façade, the play of convex and concave surfaces and the dome illuminated by hidden windows ingeniously transform a minuscule space into a light, airy interior.
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Chiesa di San Francesco d'Assisi a Ripa
The overriding reason to visit this otherwise unexceptional church is to gasp at one of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's most daring works. In the Beata Ludovica Albertoni (Blessed Ludovica Albertoni; 1674) is a work of highly charged sexual ambiguity showing Ludovica, a Franciscan nun, in a state of rapture as she reclines, eyes shut, mouth open, one hand touching her breast.
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Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini
At the head of Via Giulia, this 16th-century church was commissioned by Pope Leo X (a member of the Florentine Medici clan), as a showcase for Florentine artistic and architectural talent. Jacopo Sansovino won a competition for its design, which was executed by Antonio Sangallo the Younger and Giacomo della Porta, while Carlo Maderno completed the elongated cupola in 1614.
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Chiesa di San Gregorio Magno
Towering over Via di San Gregorio, this church stands on the site where Pope Gregory the Great is said to have dispatched St Augustine to convert the British to Christianity. Originally it was the pope's family home but in AD 575 he converted it into a monastery. It was rebuilt in the 17th century and the interior was given a baroque face-lift a century later.
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Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Lucina
Little remains of the original 5th-century church that was built here atop an ancient well sacred to Juno. The exterior, with its Romanesque bell tower and long columned portico, dates to the 12th century, while the elaborate interior is 17th-century baroque. Look out for Guido Reni's Crocifisso (Crucifixion) above the main altar, and a fine bust by Bernini in the Cappella Fonseca, the fourth chapel on the southern side.
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Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi
The church of Rome's French community since 1589, the Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi is one of the capital's art heavyweights. Built by Domenico Fontana and designed by Giacomo della Porta, its interior is a master class in baroque bombast, with no less than three paintings by Caravaggio - the so-called St Matthew cycle.
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Chiesa di San Martino ai Monti
In the 3rd century this was already a place of worship - Christians would meet here, in what was then the home of a Roman named Equitius. In the 4th century, after Christianity was legalised, a church was constructed and subsequently rebuilt in the 6th and 9th centuries. It was then completely transformed by Filippo Gagliardi in the 1650s.
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Chiesa di San Nicola in Carcere
This church was built in the 11th century on the site of three Republican-era temples. Marble columns from the temples were incorporated into the church's façade and interior and are still visible today. If you're not claustrophobic, check out the excavations beneath the church, where you'll find the foundations of the temples and remnants of an Etruscan vegetable market that also stood here.
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Chiesa di San Paolo entro le Mura
With its stripy neo-Gothic exterior and prominent position on Via Nazionale, the American Episcopal church of St Paul's Within the Walls is something of a landmark. There's not a whole lot to see, but it's a quiet spot for a breather and there are some unusual 19th-century mosaics. Designed by the Birmingham-born Edward Burne-Jones, they feature the faces of his famous contemporaries.
