Santa Maria in Aracoeli
Santa Maria in Aracoeli—Basilica di Santa Maria in Ara Cœli al Campidoglio—rose on the highest summit of Rome’s Capitoline Hill, at roughly 48 meters above sea level. Long before the medieval church, this spot was tied to antiquity through the Temple of Juno Moneta, though its remains were never certainly identified. The church’s foundation was laid on the site of a Byzantine abbey mentioned in 574, and the building you’re thinking of took shape as a Gothic-leaning church formed around the 1300s. From 1250 to 1798, it served as the headquarters of the General Curia of the Order of Friars Minor, while also functioning as one of Rome’s principal civic churches. Even its religious identity carried civic weight: it remained the designated church of Rome’s city council, linked to the ancient title Senatus Populusque Romanus. …
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