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Santi Marcellino e Pietro al Laterano

Santi Marcellino e Pietro al Laterano

Girolamo Theodoli

Photo: Fiat 500e · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Rome, Italy
Client / Owner
Pope Benedict XIV
Year
Completed 1751
Access
Public
Typology
Spiritual
Style
Baroque

Santi Marcellino e Pietro al Laterano is a parish and titular church on Via Merulana in Rome. The first church was built in the fourth century near the Via Labicana catacombs where Saints Marcellinus and Peter were buried, with a hospice for pilgrims beside it. Pope Gregory III restored it in the eighth century, and Pope Alexander IV rebuilt it in 1256 and moved the martyrs' relics there.

Pope Benedict XIV commissioned the present church, completed in 1751 a little northeast of the old one. Girolamo Theodoli designed the facade. The style mixes Paleochristian and Baroque, with Neoclassical pilaster strips on a cube-shaped exterior and a dome that shows the influence of Borromini. It follows a Greek cross plan and sits below street level.

The state seized the church in 1873. Gaetano Lapis painted the main altarpiece, which depicts the martyrdom of the two saints.

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