A Trio Of Churches in Trastavere

Our main goal in Trastavere was to see three churches, a couple of which we had visited hurriedly way back in 2011. All three are of considerable antiquity--Trastavere was, among other things, the Jewish quarter, where Christianity would have first arisen--the St. Mary in Trastavere is on a site dating back among Christians to 112 AD. Anyhow, it was mostly the medieval mosaics, and a Bernini sculpture, apart from the antiquity, that attracted us.

St. Mary in Trastavere

On the porch

Love the way they sometimes post the old signs and messages

Interior

Here it's the mosaics, medieval, Byzantine

Jesus and mom, enthroned

Under the famous gospel writer Marcus, the prophet Isaiah

Apostles depicted as sheep

The interesting columns and capitals, said nowadays to have been taken from the
Baths of Caraculla; faces of Isis and Serapis were hammered off in the 19th century,
obscuring their real origin, the Temple of Isis and Serapis; conquerors nearly always
try to eradicate all traces of the competition, unless there were martyrs on the site

Interesting painting of Council of Trent 

Moving right along now--in 2011 we didn't have phones or Google Maps--the
Church of San Francesco di Ripa--notable for its many tombs and monuments,
but chiefly for...

Bernini's Ecstasy of the Blessed Lodovica Albertoni

Compare with the far superior Ecstasy of St. Theresa; it's a fair question, I think,
how Bernini got his models into this state

And finally, the Basilica of St. Cecilia

One of the most poignant of all religious sculptures, I think

Maderno's early 17th century sculpture of St. Cecilia, as her body was found in
1600

And more medieval/Byzantine mosaics

Jesus working on a new sekrit digital sign

Let's go bowling, Dude