Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem
You’re in front of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme—officially the Basilica Sanctae Crucis in Hierusalem—and it’s one of Rome’s Seven Pilgrim Churches. The church’s identity starts with a powerful legend: around c. 325, it was consecrated to shelter relics of the Passion of Jesus Christ brought from the Holy Land to Rome by Empress Helena, mother of Constantine I. Here’s the clever part of the title: the basilica was meant to have its floor covered with soil from Jerusalem, so the place could feel—symbolically—like Jerusalem itself, much like an embassy is “outside” in a legal sense. Underneath, the story is older. The basilica was built on foundations of the imperial Horti Variani ad Spem Veterem, begun under Septimius Severus and finished by Elagabalus in the third century, on a site that included the Circus Varianus and Eleniane Baths. …
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