Santa Cecilia in Trastevere
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Santa Cecilia in Trastevere
Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is a 5th-century church in Rome, Italy, in the Trastevererione, devoted to the Roman martyr Saint Cecilia.
The first church on this site was founded probably in the 3rd century, by Pope Urban I; it was devoted to the young Roman woman Cecilia, martyred it is said under Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (A.D. 222–235). Tradition holds that the church was built over the house of the saint.[1] The baptistery associated with this church, together with the remains of a Roman house of the early Empire, was found during some excavations under the Chapel of the Relics. By the late fifth century, at the Synod of 499 of Pope Symmachus, the church is mentioned as the Titulus Ceciliae. On 22 November 545, Pope Vigilius was celebrating the feast of the saint in the church, when the emissary of Empress Theodora, Anthemius Scribo, captured him.
Pope Paschal I rebuilt the church in 822, and moved here the relics of St Cecilia from the Catacombs of St Calixtus. More restorations followed in the 18th century.
The cardinal priest who is currently assigned to Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is Gualtiero Bassetti. His predecessors include: are Pope Stephen III, Pope Martin IV (1261-1281), Adam Easton (1383),[2] Pope Innocent VIII (1474-1484), Thomas Wolsey (1515), Pope Gregory XIV (1585-1590), Michele Mazzarino (1647), Giuseppe Doria Pamphili (1785), Mariano Rampolla (1887-1913), and Carlo Maria Martini (d. 2012).
Since 1527, a community of Benedictine nuns has lived in the monastery next to Santa Cecilia, and has had charge of the basilica.
The inscriptions found in Santa Cecilia, a valuable source illustrating the history of the church, have been collected and published by Vincenzo Forcella.
