Tour Santa Susanna

You are looking at one of the very few Roman churches completely covered in frescos!

There has been a building on this site for 2000 years and for the last 1700 years, it has been a house of Christian prayer. In or around the year 280 AD, a family built a Roman house on this site. The house was like many residences of its time, a one story structure with a central court yard and rooms facing along the sides. Because the structure was called, the “double house,” we believe it had two courtyards rather than one. The house was built for two brothers named Caius and Gabinus who were both priests. Gabinus had a daughter named Susanna. Before Constantine made Christianity the religion of the state in 316 AD, the Christian community could not own property. Therefore Christians gathered for eucharist at the home of one of their members. We call these structures “domus ecclesiae” or house churches! This was a house church, made all the more significant when in 283 AD Caius was elected Bishop of Rome. The family lived here until they were martyred in 293 AD. Susanna was actually martyred in the house, so that she both lived and died here.

Following their martyrdom it is hard to say what happened to the property. After 320 AD, the Christian community began identifying former house churches throughout the city, a process that would continue for the next three centuries. With the weight of the new Christian state behind them, these sites were transformed into Roman basilicas. About 330 the first basilica was constructed on this site and the bodies of Gabinus and Susanna were brought back from the catacombs of Saint Callistus and buried in the church. As Caius was a pope, his body remained in the papal crypt of the catacombs! The original Constantinian basilica was tee-shaped with a central nave with twelve columns on each side, leading into a side aisle. All that are left of these two side aisles are the two side chapels of the church.

As you look up the central aisle you see a confessio, or a railing and staircase that leads down into the crypt where the martyrs are buried. In the year 796, the pastor of this church was elected Pope Leo III, the fourth pastor of Santa Susanna to become pope. Pope Saint Leo III would renovate Santa Susanna, adding the great apse in the back of the sanctuary. Today there is a fresco of Susanna entering into heaven, but originally there was a great mosaic of Christ. Pope Leo and the Emperor Charlemagne were on one side of Christ, and Susanna and Felicity were on the other. Leo had a great devotion to Saint Felicity of Rome and brought here body back from the catacombs. She was buried next to Susanna and Gabinus in the crypt.

The great mosaic was severely damaged by an earthquake in the twelfth century. It was covered over during the renovation of 1585. Today in the apse we see the fresco of “Susanna Entering Into Heaven” by Caesare Nebbia (1536-1614) who also painted the two frescos of Susanna on each side of the high altar.

The present church was rebuilt between 1585 and 1602 under the direction of Cardinal Rusticucci who was then Cardinal Priest of Santa Susanna, and the sister of Pope Sixtus V, Princess Camilla Peretti. The Church was stripped, the double set of twelve matching columns were taken out and the side aisles were demolished. All that remains of the side aisles are the present side chapels. The two side apses built by Leo III were also demolished. When Pope Sixtus V died in 1590, he was eventually succeed by Pope Clement VIII who fired the artists Sixtus had working on the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. Cardinal Rusticucci hired them all in 1592 and in six years they frescoed the entire church, completing all the back fresco in 1598. Carlo Maderna was also put to work designing the great carved ceiling and the new facade. When the facade was completed in 1602, Baldassare Croce completed the last fresco in the Susanna cyle on the back wall of the church. This Rennaisance restoration is the present church that you see today.