Santa Maria in Trastevere

Trastevere is one of my favorite places in Rome. Like Campo de’ Fiori, in Trastevere I get to see how locals in Rome live in the city. From the beginning of the Rome trip, Trastevere was the place to explore. At the piazza of Trastevere, the church of Santa Maria is located.
To talk about the church, I need to talk about the appearance of the church and where it is located. The church I think is hard to find because it is surround by other building unless you know this is a church. Well, somehow I can tell that this is a church because of the statues on the top of the façade. I could not recognize any of the statues but it looked like they are priests. The Mosaic on the façade was really beautiful. According to the blue guide book in the mosaic, crowned figures with lamps make their way in procession towards the Virgin and Child. The two figures in the mosaic nearest to her are veiled, not crowned, and their lamps are extinguished. From the ground, it was hard to see the details of the mosaic. However, I could still see the figures clearly from the ground. The walls of the church are covered with Roman and medieval lapidary fragments. According to the blue guide book many of the fragments have Christian symbols.
When I entered the church I could see why the background color of the mosaic on the façade is gold. The interior of the church was covered with gold. I am not sure if it’s real gold but if the church wanted to show off its wealthy, I think choosing gold to cover up the wall was a good idea. The walls and ceilings decorations were not that different from other famous churches like the basilica of St. John Lanthern. Probably this church is smaller and less decorated than the basilica. However, still the style of decorating the church was similar. Actually, it was overwhelming for me. I thought this splendid decoration is too much. Especially, the mosaics of the triumphal arch and apse were wonderful but at the same time I thought there are too much things going on this mosaic. The mosaic starts from the ceiling of the semi-dome. Jesus as the center figure, there are St Peter, St Cornelius, St Julius, St Calepodius, St Calixtus, St Lawrence and Pope Innocent II.
There was an interesting thing in the church that I did not find from other churches. There are statues in the church and in front of them there are piles of letters. I thought it was really interesting because mostly you lit a candle and pray. I couldn’t figure out what people usually write on the letters and put them on the statues but I thought it’s really unique about this church.

After the quick tour of this church, I sat down on the chair and thought about all the similarities the churches in Rome share. Splendid interior decorations would be the most common theme that the churches share. After looking at the underground church, built before the catholic is approved, I wondered if this splendid decoration would be necessary especially when there are so many churches in Rome.