Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli

The Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli sits at the top of the Capitoline Hill, above a staircase of 124 steps that starts from Piazza d'Aracoeli. The address you'll find written around isn't just one. The website of the parish of San Marco Evangelista al Campidoglio, which administers the basilica as a rettoria, lists Piazza dell'Arce Capitolina 12, 00186 Roma. The Turismo Roma listing gives Scala dell'Arce Capitolina 14. You'll also see Scala dell'Arce Capitolina 12. These are three variants of the same spot on the hill. Entry to the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is free. It's a place of worship, not a museum, and there's no ticket office. The Mass times listed on the Turismo Roma listing are Monday to Saturday at 8.00 and Sunday and holidays at 8.30 and 12.00. The opening hours for visiting the church, however, are not published by any official source. The rettoria's contacts are the phone numbers 06 69763837 and 06 69763839 and the email basilica.aracoeli@gmail.com. It's better to call in the morning before you climb up, especially if you're coming from outside Rome for something specific. To get there, take the metro line B, Colosseo stop, then walk 10 minutes along Via dei Fori Imperiali. Or take buses 44, 81, 83, 170, 175, which pass through Piazza Venezia. That's the right stop, and it's 200 meters from the steps. Booking: it's not needed, it doesn't exist, and nobody sells it. If someone offers you a ticket to enter Aracoeli, you're talking to the wrong person.

One practical thing matters more than everything else, and you should know it right away because it's the reason many people give up: at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli you're not obligated to climb the 124 steps. There's a second, side entrance that you reach from Piazza del Campidoglio. Go up the ramp on the left of the Palazzo Senatorio and enter from the side of the church. It's the old entrance to the Capitoline, the one the friars and Romans have always used, and the climb you still have to do is a fraction of the frontal one. The details come later, but if you have tired knees, a stroller, an elderly parent, or simply 42 degrees in August, go up to the Capitoline by Michelangelo's cordonata and turn left.

If you're building a day on the hill, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli fits in with the Capitoline Hill and the Capitoline Museums, which are 50 meters apart door to door, and with the rest of the area you'll find in the attrazioni turistiche section.

Where the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli Really Is and Which Side to Enter From

The Capitoline has two peaks and a saddle between them. On the saddle today is Michelangelo's piazza, with the Palazzo Senatorio at the far end. On the peak toward the Tiber is the Capitolium proper, where the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus stood. On the other peak, the one toward the Quirinal and the Forum of Trajan, stood the Arx, the citadel, and the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli sits right on top of it today. This explains everything. It explains why it's so awkward to reach, why it dominates the way it does, and why its facade looks in one direction while the monumental piazza lies in the other. The basilica wasn't built next to the Capitoline. It was built on top of the most defensible point of the hill, the one ancient Romans kept as the city's last reserve.

The urban consequence is what you see when you arrive from Piazza Venezia: two staircases running side by side that are not the same thing. The one on the left, steep and straight, with low, long steps that break your stride, is the Aracoeli staircase from 1348, and it leads to the basilica's main door. The one on the right, wider and with a gentle slope, is the Capitoline Cordonata designed by Michelangelo in the mid-16th century, and it leads to Piazza del Campidoglio. These are two eras, two patrons, and two ideas of the city placed side by side: the medieval stairway of the people climbing to the church and the Renaissance ramp of power climbing to city hall. Seeing them together is the most instructive thing you can do on the Capitoline, and it costs nothing.

In our view, the Aracoeli staircase is more beautiful than the cordonata, and nobody says so, because the cordonata carries Michelangelo's signature and the books stop there. But that crooked, lopsided staircase, made of marble stolen from other buildings, with steps that aren't all the same, tells us much more about how Rome rebuilt itself on top of itself.

The two entrances need a bit more detail, because this is the most frequent question. The side entrance to the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli opens on the left flank of the church. You reach it from the small staircase that climbs to the left of the Palazzo Senatorio, once you are already in Piazza del Campidoglio. It's an old passage, not a modern invention for tourists. The lunette with the Madonna and Child above that opening is attributed to Jacopo Torriti, a late thirteenth-century mosaicist. In the entrance corridor there are funerary monuments of the first order, including the tomb of Cecchino Bracci, who died in 1545, whose design tradition attributes to Michelangelo, and the tomb of Pietro Manzi, bishop of Cesena, by Andrea Sansovino, dated 1504. Translated: the convenient entrance is also the one that comes with the beautiful things attached. It's not a fallback.

Here's one thing that will save you a mistake: the side entrance is not always open. It depends on the rectory's hours and on celebrations. If you find it closed and have no other choice, the 124 steps are there. But try there first, because on most mornings it's open.

The 1348 staircase of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli: 124 steps, a vow and a plague

The staircase dates from 1348 and is the most famous thing about the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, more famous than the church itself. There are 124 steps. The reason it exists is one of the few Roman stories in which the date matches a European catastrophe: 1348 is the year of the Black Death, the epidemic that from 1347 onward emptied the cities of the Mediterranean and continental Europe. The staircase was born as a vow, as a thank-you to the Virgin for the end of the contagion. On the nuance, the sources don't say exactly the same thing. The Turismo Roma listing describes a vow made so the plague would end, while Roma Segreta calls it a thank-you to the Virgin for saving the city from the plague. Vow before, or thanks after, the meaning is the same: 124 steps paid for by a frightened city.

Paid for how? Roma Segreta writes that the staircase cost 5,000 florins and that the money came from Roman citizens. It's the most interesting detail, and it almost never appears in guidebooks. The Aracoeli staircase is not a papal work and not an imperial one. It was a collection. The formal client was the free Commune of Rome, the hand paying was that of the Romans, and the result was the first major medieval public project on the Capitoline Hill. Who designed it: the Turismo Roma entry names Lorenzo di Simone Andreozzi, while other sources only say it was commissioned by the free Commune without naming a designer.

The material is spolia marble, that is, marble taken from ancient buildings already in ruins. Tradition says it came from the Temple of Serapis on the Quirinal, a colossus from the Severan period, of which a few ruins remain behind Palazzo Colonna. The Turismo Roma entry speaks more generally of fragments of recycled Roman marble, including ancient sarcophagi. If you climb slowly and look down instead of up, on some steps the veining, the cut and the thickness give away the piece's second life. It's the most honest way to understand what the Middle Ages were like in Rome: not an era that builds from nothing, but one that takes apart and reassembles.

The inauguration is linked to the name of Cola di Rienzo, the notary who in 1347 had himself acclaimed as tribune and tried to refound the Roman republic on the Capitoline. That he was the one who inaugurated it is reported in agreement by the sources, including the page of the parish that runs the basilica. Keep that in mind as you climb: those steps were born in the exact year Rome tries again to be a city with a government of its own, and the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is the stage for that attempt.

Over time, every possible piece of Roman folklore gathered on the staircase. And it's real, documented folklore, not a gimmick. The staircase was climbed on its knees, like a secular Holy Staircase, by women looking for a husband, by women who wanted a child, by mothers asking for milk, and by people who wanted to win at the lotto. The mix of Marian devotion and lottery numbers is so Roman it doesn't even need explaining. If you're looking for the real Scala Santa, the one with 28 steps that you really climb on your knees, it's on the other side of the city, at Holy Stairs near San Giovanni.

There's also the story of Prince Caffarelli, who in the seventeenth century, fed up with foreigners sleeping on the steps of the Aracoeli, supposedly drove them off by rolling barrels full of stones down the staircase. It's an anecdote from Roman scholarly tradition. No archival source is recorded that documents it, so it should be taken for what it is, a story, not a police report.

Why it's called Ara Coeli: the legend of Augustus and the Sibyl

Here we need to be clear, because this is the point where almost all guides cheat. The story that follows is a medieval legend. It is not a historical fact, it is not an archaeological hypothesis, and no ancient source documents it. It is a tale written down centuries later, meant to explain a name. Better to know that first, so you can enjoy it for what it is: one of the most beautiful narrative inventions of medieval Rome.

The story appears in the Mirabilia Urbis Romae, a guide to Rome compiled starting in the 12th century for pilgrims. It is an extraordinary text and at the same time a treasure trove of imaginative etymologies. According to that story, the emperor Augustus asked the Sibyl who would be greater than him, and then he had a vision: a woman with a child in her arms, and a voice saying Haec est ara filii Dei, this is the altar of the Son of God. The Sibyl explained to the emperor that the woman was Mary, mother of Jesus. The text of the Mirabilia adds that the vision took place in the chamber of the emperor Octavian, where the church of Santa Maria in Capitolio now stands, and that for this reason the church was called Altar of Heaven, Ara Coeli.

What is true in all this. The name is true: the basilica was originally called Santa Maria in Capitolio, and the form Aracoeli is attested from 1323. It is true that the story circulated and that people believed it. Everything else is false, or more precisely, unprovable: no source from the Augustan age speaks of visions of Augustus on the Capitoline, and the Sibyl who converses with the emperor is late antique and medieval Christian material, not Roman imperial. It needs to be said clearly, because the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli deserves to be told well. It is already remarkable enough without needing to pass off a legend as chronicle.

The interesting part, and this is true history, is why the legend was born. It served to christen the Capitoline. The hill was the religious center of pagan Rome, the place where Jupiter stood, the place where triumphs climbed. A Christian city that finds that hill in its midst has to do something with that memory: either erase it or convert it. The legend of the Ara Coeli converts it, and does so with elegance, by having the most famous emperor of all say that the true master of the hill was coming. The Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is the architectural result of that narrative operation.

From the Capitoline Arx to Juno Moneta: what was there before the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli

Beneath the basilica is the north summit of the Capitoline, that is, the Arx. As to what exactly stood up there in Roman times, scholars have essentially two hypotheses, and neither is settled. The first, and the most repeated, is the temple of Juno Moneta, vowed according to tradition in the 4th century BC and linked to the story of the geese of the Capitol. It was in the area of that temple that money was struck in the Republican era, and from Moneta comes the word we use every day. The second hypothesis is the Auguraculum, the platform from which augurs observed the flight of birds to take omens before public decisions. The two do not rule each other out: the Arx was a sacred enclosure with several functions.

It is often said that the basilica stands on the ruins of the temple of Juno Moneta, but the sources present that as one hypothesis among others, alongside the Auguraculum, and not as an established fact. Not enough has been excavated beneath the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, and until it is, the question remains open. It is said to be the temple of Juno Moneta, but it is said as a hypothesis.

What is certain, instead, is the continuity of the site as a decision-making point for the city. On the Arx, omens were taken before assemblies. On the Capitoline, from 1143 onward, the Roman people re-established the Commune and set up their own Senate there. Around 1195 the first Palazzo Senatorio was built. And in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, a little higher up, popular assemblies were held. 1,500 years, three religions, a single function: people climb up there to decide. To explain to a foreigner what the Capitoline is in one sentence, this is enough.

If the subject of Roman Juno interests you, a detour outside the city to the sanctuary of Juno Sospita in Lanuvio is worthwhile. It is the great Latium sanctuary of the same goddess, and it clears up many things about the relationship between Rome and the cults of the Alban Hills.

The Franciscans and the church of the Roman people

The first construction of the church is traced back to the 6th century. Around the year 1000, the complex is a Benedictine abbey. The decisive turning point is 1250, when Pope Innocent IV grants the site to the frati minori, that is, the Franciscans, who still officiate at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli today. They are the ones who rebuilt it in the form you see, a layout still called Romano-Gothic, which is a rarity in Rome: three naves on ancient columns, a round arch, a modest transept, three apse chapels at the back. There is no French vertical thrust and no cross vault that soars high up. It is Italian Gothic, that is, broad, low and sober.

Giving the hill to the Franciscans in the 13th century was not a trivial choice. The Friars Minor were the new order, the one that preaches in the squares and to the people, and putting them on the Arx meant placing the preacher next to the Senate. From that moment on, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli became the civic church of the Romans: the people gathered there, the assemblies of the free Commune were held there, and the Te Deum of thanksgiving at year's end for the Roman people was celebrated there, a custom that has come down to us.

The most accurate way to put the whole story is this: compared with St. John Lateran, which is the pope's cathedral, and with Saint Peter's, which is the basilica of the universal papacy, the Aracoeli is the church of the people of Rome and its civic institutions. The three basilicas tell of three different powers in the same city. If you want to understand Rome without reading 300 pages, go see all three in the same month and look at who is inside.

The practical consequence is that the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli lacks the sumptuousness of the papal basilicas. It is not covered in gold, it does not have the baldachin, and it does not have the baroque machine that overwhelms you as soon as you walk in. It has a floor full of worn tombstone slabs, columns that are not all alike, chapels of Roman families, and a gilded ceiling that looks like it was lent by another church. It is exactly this lack of uniformity that makes it readable: every piece got there for a different reason and in a different century.

The reused columns and the inscription a cubiculo Augustorum

Walk into the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli and do one thing before looking at anything else: look at the columns. They are ancient, they are salvaged, and they are not all alike. The marble changes, the diameter changes, the capitals change, and in some cases you can see that the shaft has been shortened or raised to get it back to the right height. This is not carelessness: it is how people built in Rome in the Middle Ages, taking from the ruins what they needed and putting it together. Every column in the nave came from a different Roman building, and no one knows anymore which one.

About one of them, though, something is known, and it is the thing that gives you chills. On the third column from the left is carved the phrase a cubiculo Augustorum. Roma Segreta reports it and writes that the inscription would suggest the column comes from the emperor's bedroom. Be careful reading it: a cubiculo, in epigraphic Latin, indicates the role of an attendant of the imperial chamber, a servant or a court official. It is the job title of someone assigned to the chamber of the Augusti, on the Palatine. So the column, in short, comes from a setting tied to the imperial apartments.

And here is the thing that drives anyone who loves this basilica crazy: the place where the medieval legend puts Augustus's bedroom and the vision of the Ara Coeli is exactly this, and in the nave there is a column that says a cubiculo Augustorum in writing. It is not proof of the legend, to be clear: the column is reused material, it most likely comes from the Palatine, and it says nothing about the Capitoline. But it is easy to imagine how a stone like that, read by a friar of the 13th century, could have looked like written confirmation of what everyone was already telling. The legend of the Ara Coeli and that column have probably fed each other for centuries.

Regarding the number of columns, there is no reliable figure: Roma Segreta literally writes 122 columns dividing the interior into three naves, a figure that is not compatible with the layout of the church and that looks very much like a typo for 22. No official source confirms either number: count them yourself, they are right there, and if you count while walking slowly down the nave, you are doing exactly the right kind of visit. Also on the spelling: Roma Segreta writes a cubicolo Augustorum, with an o, while the correct Latin form is a cubiculo.

One last thing about the columns, and it is a detail architects appreciate: look at how the friars solved the problem of the different heights. Raised bases, added plinths, mismatched capitals. It is reuse engineering, and it is the same logic that produced the staircase with marble from the Temple of Serapis. In the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, reuse is not an aesthetic stopgap: it is the language of the building.

The wooden ceiling of Lepanto

Look up. The gilded coffered ceiling of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is the last thing you would expect in a medieval church, and in fact it came much later. It is a ceiling from the second half of the 16th century and celebrates a naval battle: Lepanto, October 7, 1571, the victory of the Holy League over the Ottoman fleet.

The two main sources complement each other on dates and authors. The Turismo Roma entry dates the work to between 1572 and 1575 and names Flaminio Boulanger along with his collaborators. Roma Segreta links the ceiling to the papacy of Gregory XIII and to the triumph of Marcantonio Colonna, the commander of the papal squadron at Lepanto, who was received in Rome with honors fit for an emperor. Often you only read about a coffered wooden ceiling from the 16th century, with no names and no dates: the most precise information is 1572-1575 and Boulanger, according to Turismo Roma.

Why a ceiling for Lepanto here, and not at St. Peter's. Because the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is the church of the Roman people and of the Capitoline Senate, and Marcantonio Colonna's triumph was a civic triumph, celebrated with the ancient ritual of the climb to the Capitol. Colonna climbs the hill like a Roman consul returning from a won war, and the church at the top of the hill puts on a gold ceiling for the occasion. If you are looking for visible proof that in the 16th century Rome was consciously performing its own antiquity, that ceiling is the proof.

Take your time looking at it and look for the naval details and the coats of arms. The best light is mid-morning, when it comes in through the high windows of the central nave. In the late afternoon the ceiling goes dark and becomes a dark patch, and you lose all of it. This is the kind of tip you won't find in guidebooks, because nobody goes twice at the same hour.

The Bufalini Chapel and the Frescoes by Pinturicchio

In our view, the most important work in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is the Bufalini Chapel. It is right on the right as soon as you enter through the main door, it is the first on the right aisle, and it is dedicated to Saint Bernardino of Siena. The frescoes are by Bernardino di Betto, known as Pinturicchio, and tell the Stories of Saint Bernardino.

The sources don't agree on the date: the encyclopedia entry gives 1485, while the Turismo Roma entry gives 1486. Still, we are in the mid-1480s, that is, at a crucial moment: Pinturicchio is young, he comes from the Perugian milieu of Perugino, and this chapel is considered one of his first important works on his own in Rome, before the great project of the Borgia Apartments in the Vatican.

The patron was called Niccolò di Manno Bufalini, a jurist from Città di Castello, and the chapel takes its name from him. The reason for the commission is the detail that makes this cycle different from all the others: Bufalini wanted to celebrate the peace made between his family and the Baglioni of Perugia, that is, the end of a feud. Saint Bernardino of Siena had been the great preacher of peace between factions, the friar who entered divided cities and had the symbols of hatred burned in the piazza. Painting his stories in a chapel paid for to seal a family reconciliation is not decoration: it is a contract made visible.

What to look at specifically. The Funeral of Saint Bernardino, on the altar wall, with the crowd, the miracles on the bier, and the perspective construction of the open space onto the landscape. The very thin Franciscan saint, who is an almost clinical portrait. The chapel's Cosmatesque floor, which is among the best preserved in the entire basilica and which nobody looks at because everyone has their eyes up. And the light: the chapel is dark, it has coin-operated lighting, and if you don't put in a coin you see a gray wall. Bring one-euro coins.

If Rome's 15th-century art interests you, the Dominican basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, 10 minutes from here, is the other Gothic church in Rome and has the Carafa Chapel by Filippino Lippi: the two chapels can be read very well in sequence in the same afternoon.

Donatello's Slab for Giovanni Crivelli

On the inner façade, that is, on the entrance wall, on the left, there is a marble tomb slab leaning against the wall. It is by Donatello and is the slab of Giovanni Crivelli, archdeacon of Aquileia, dated 1433. Donatello was in Rome between 1431 and 1433, and it is during that Roman stay that this piece originates.

Note that the slab was not made to stand upright. It was a floor slab: it lay on the ground, people walked on it, and the relief was calculated to be seen from above at a foreshortened angle, by passersby. Today it is leaning against the wall, and that optical calculation is thrown off. The surface looks flatter than Donatello intended. If you stand to the side and look at it at an angle, up close and from below, you partly recover the original effect. It's a small exercise that's worth the trip.

Why it was raised is easy to understand: the floor slabs wear down. The floor of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is full of medieval and Renaissance burials, reduced to ghosts by the passage of feet, with faces erased and inscriptions unreadable. Saving Donatello's tomb by setting it upright was an act of conservation, and it came at the price just described. It's a good example of how every restoration is a choice between two kinds of damage.

The Santo Bambino: the original stolen in 1994 and today's copy

This is the story Romans know and that almost no international guide tells in full. In the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, a small wooden statue of the baby Jesus, the Santo Bambino, was venerated, which everyone in Rome affectionately called er Pupo. According to tradition, it was carved in the 15th century from the wood of an olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane, in Jerusalem, and over the centuries it was covered with ex votos, jewels, rings and chains offered by the faithful.

The devotion was not a marginal folkloric matter: the statue was taken to the homes of the seriously ill, and popular belief attributed healing powers to it. Anyone with a serious illness at home would send for the Bambino dell'Aracoeli. It's a practice that has lasted through centuries of Roman history and has entered the language and habits of the city.

In February 1994 the statue was stolen. It was never recovered. In its place today, in the dedicated chapel, there is a copy, and what is striking is that the copy has started receiving ex votos again: the faithful have continued to bring gold and notes as before, without interruption. Roma Segreta confirms the theft of 1994 and the replacement with a copy.

As for the circumstances of the theft, meaning the exact sequence of events, the time, the point of entry, the investigation and any possible leads, no verified information is available. The fixed points are: a 15th-century statue according to tradition, olive wood from Gethsemane according to tradition, theft in February 1994, never recovered, current copy venerated. Be wary of anyone who tells the rest with too many details.

Our opinion: the story of the Santo Bambino is the most intense thing inside this basilica, more than Pinturicchio and more than Donatello. Because it is the only case in Rome where the void left by a theft has itself become an object of devotion. People kneel before a copy that is openly declared as one, knowing that it's a copy, and they keep writing to it. If you're looking for a way to understand what Roman popular religiosity really is, that chapel explains it in 30 seconds.

Children's letters to the Bambinello and Christmas at Aracoeli

On the altar of the Bambinello, in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, there is a bundle of letters. Children write them, and they arrive from all over the world. Roma Segreta says it word for word: on the altar there are the letters sent to it from every part of the world. It's a custom that has lasted for generations: people write to the Bambinello dell'Aracoeli the way they would write to Babbo Natale, with the difference that no one asks for toys. They ask that someone be healed, that grandpa get better, that Dad find work. The letters are not opened.

As for how this collection is organized, meaning who receives the letters, where they end up and whether they are kept, no official source from the rectory is available.

The other Christmas custom of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is the one involving the pulpit. Along the central nave there is a small metal pulpit, and Roman children climb up on it to recite the Christmas poem, traditionally before repeating it at home on Christmas Eve. Anyone who grew up in Rome or raised children there knows it well. During Advent it's a scene that fills the nave with families, grandparents with phones in hand and terrified children who forget the second stanza.

Then there is the presepe. The Chapel of the Presepio is the second on the right side of the nave, built in the second half of the 16th century. The figures you see are from the 19th century: they were commissioned from the Paduan sculptor Luigi Ceccon by Duke Grazioli and donated in 1863, and before being installed they were displayed at Palazzo Grazioli to large crowds. In that chapel, at Christmas, the Santo Bambino used to be displayed before it was stolen.

And there is the year-end Te Deum of the Roman people, celebrated here. It is not an ordinary service: it is the city's civic thanksgiving, the direct heir of the assemblies of the free Commune mentioned earlier. If you're in Rome on December 31 and want an hour that doesn't resemble anything else, this is it.

Straightforward advice: if you come to the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli between December 8 and January 6, expect crowds, and arrive early. If instead you hate crowds, the absolute worst time to climb up here is the afternoon of the days between Christmas and Epiphany.

The Cosmatesque floor, the pulpits and the icon of the Madonna

The floor of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is Cosmatesque, that is, made with the technique of the families of Roman marble workers active between the 12th and 13th centuries: discs of porphyry and serpentine cut from ancient columns sliced into rounds, very small tesserae, geometric bands running along the nave. It dates from the 13th century and set into it are dozens of tombstones from different periods.

It isn't intact, and the reason is a specific episode that needs to be told. In 1797, during the French occupation, the friars are driven off the hill and the church is turned into a stable. Horses on a Cosmatesque floor. The damage to the medieval decoration was enormous and partly irreversible. The restorations begin in 1799. When you walk down the nave and see areas of floor that look patched, you're often looking at the mending of that very wound.

Then there are the two Cosmatesque pulpits, that is, the inlaid marble ambos, from the early 13th century, attributed to Lorenzo di Cosma and his son Jacopo. They're among the oldest things you'll see in the church and they're worth a two-minute stop each: look at the cut of the tesserae and try to work out which ancient column each disc came from.

On the high altar is the icon of the Madonna, a Byzantine image that sources place between the 10th and 11th centuries, of the type called Advocata, that is, the Virgin interceding with hands joined. It's one of the oldest paintings in Rome and for the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli it's what the icon of the Salus Populi Romani is for Santa Maria Maggiore: the piece around which the church is organized. Above the entrance portal, on the facade, there is instead a lunette with a mosaic of the Madonna with the Child between two angels.

On the dating of the icon, sources vary between the 10th and 11th centuries, and it's a matter for specialists. The scholarly literature exists, the basilica had a publication dedicated to the icon in 2009.

The 25 chapels of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, one by one

The Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli has 25 chapels and altars spread across the three naves and the transept. There are a lot of them, and the risk is wandering around at random. Here's the list in the order you come across them, so you can use it as a map while you walk. The first nine are on the right nave, starting from the main entrance.

• 1. Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, the first on the right as soon as you enter.
• 2. Chapel of the Nativity Scene, second half of the 1500s, with the figures by Luigi Ceccon donated by Duke Grazioli in 1863.
• 3. Chapel of Saint Anthony of Padua.
• 4. Chapel of Saint Anne.
• 5. Chapel of Saint Paul, with frescoes attributed to Pomarancio.
• 6. Chapel of the Ascension.
• 7. Chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel.
• 8. Chapel of Saint Margaret of Cortona, with 1700s canvases including those by Marco Benefial dated 1732.
• 9. Chapel of the Madonna of Loreto.

Then you reach the right transept, where the big piece is.

• 10. Tempietto of Saint Helena, rebuilt in 1833 in its present form. It's the spot where tradition places the ara of the Ara Coeli, that is, the altar of the Augustan legend. Saint Helena, mother of Constantine, is here because she's the figure who in the Christian legend links Rome to the discovery of the Cross in Jerusalem.
• 11. Chapel of the Bambinello, the one of the Holy Child and the letters.
• 12. Chapel of Saint Gregory the Great.

At the center, the presbytery area.

• 13. High altar, with the Byzantine icon of the Madonna.
• 14. Altar of the Sacrament.

You continue into the left transept and then down the left nave toward the exit.

• 15. Chapel of Santa Rosa da Viterbo, the Franciscan saint of the Lazio city that you can explore in the Viterbo entry.
• 16. Chapel of San Francesco.
• 17. Chapel of San Pasquale Baylon.
• 18. Ancient entrance toward the Capitoline Hill, that is, the side passage described above, with the lunette attributed to Jacopo Torriti, the tomb of Cecchino Bracci, and that of Pietro Manzi by Andrea Sansovino of 1504.
• 19. Chapel of Saints Lorenzo and Diego.
• 20. Chapel of San Pietro d'Alcantara.
• 21. Chapel of San Matteo.
• 22. Chapel of the Crucifix.
• 23. Chapel of San Gerolamo.
• 24. Chapel of the Pieta.
• 25. Bufalini Chapel of San Bernardino, with the cycle by Pinturicchio.

To be honest: nobody looks at 25 chapels with the same attention, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. If you have 40 minutes, the recommended route is: Bufalini Chapel, Donatello's plaque on the counterfacade, the third column from the left, the Lepanto ceiling, the high altar with the icon, the Chapel of the Bambinello, the little temple of Sant'Elena, and the exit from the side toward the Capitoline Hill. Eight stops, 40 minutes, and you've really seen the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.

Burials, monuments and the artists who worked here

The Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is a catalog of Roman funerary sculpture between the Quattrocento and Settecento, and it's worth running through the names because the level is high and people walk right past them without stopping.

The funerary monument of Cardinal Ludovico d'Albret is by Andrea Bregno and is dated 1465: Bregno is the great Lombard sculptor active in Rome in the second half of the Quattrocento, the one who gave the typical form to the Renaissance wall monument in Rome, and this is one of his reference pieces. The tomb of Cardinal Matteo d'Acquasparta, the Franciscan cardinal that Dante mentions in the Paradiso, is by Giovanni di Cosma, that is, from the Cosmati workshop: it's a medieval monument with a canopy, mosaic and recumbent figure, and it's the best way to understand what Roman tombs looked like before the Renaissance arrived.

Then there are, in no particular order, the frescoes of Pietro Cavallini, that is, of the major Roman painter between the Duecento and Trecento, the works linked to the name of Benozzo Gozzoli, the Madonna col Bambino e dedicante, known as the Madonna del Rifugio, from the Viterbo school of the Quattrocento, the canvases by Marco Benefial of 1732 and by Vincenzo Milione of 1771, the works of Gerolamo Muziano, Marco Pino da Siena, Francesco Pichi, Marzio Ganassini, the architectural interventions of Martino Longhi il Vecchio and Pier Paolo Olivieri. Also buried here is the composer Emilio de' Cavalieri, one of the fathers of recitar cantando, that is, one of the inventors of what would become the melodrama.

On music, here's a detail few people know: the choir organ was inaugurated in 1848 and was a gift from Prince Carlo Torlonia. The Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli has a documented organ history, with dedicated technical literature, and if you're the type who goes to church to hear what the organ sounds like, this is one of the few places in Rome where it's worth finding out about services with organ music.

In the corridor toward the Capitoline Hill, as mentioned, is the plaque of Cecchino Bracci, the boy who died in 1545 and for whom Michelangelo wrote a sequence of funeral epigrams, and to whose monument tradition links his design. A clarification: Michelangelesque attributions in Rome are slippery ground, and this one is recorded here as tradition, not as documented attribution.

And then there are the families: Serlupi, Orsini, Frangipani, Caffarelli, Grazioli, the surnames that made and unmade Rome. The chapels of a civic church like this one are not decorative whims: they are the way the great houses reserved a spot, literally, inside the identity of the city. The Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli reads very well as an armorial in three dimensions.

A curiosity about the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli

The first curiosity concerns a word we all use every day without knowing it. On the Arx Capitolina, that is, beneath the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, tradition places the temple of Juno Moneta. In that area, during the Republican era, the money of the Roman state was minted. From Moneta, an epithet of the goddess, comes the word moneta, and by a roundabout route also the English money. If you're climbing those steps with some cash in your pocket, you're heading toward the place that gave its name to money. Few places in the world can claim a linguistic first like that.

The second curiosity is nastier and concerns the relationship between the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli and the Vittoriano. The monument to Vittorio Emanuele II was begun in 1882 and inaugurated in 1911, and to build it a piece of the city was razed to the ground, including convent buildings connected to the basilica. The left flank of the church, the one facing the Vittoriano, today is almost crushed against the white Botticino marble. Rome sacrificed a piece of Aracoeli to build the monument to a united Italy. Neither of the two things tells the story of the other.

Third curiosity, and this one is pure contemporary entertainment: the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli appears in the final mission of a very well-known video game set in Renaissance Rome, which over the last 15 years has brought a surprising number of people in their twenties up here with the look of people recognizing a place they've never been. Notice this: they're the ones who walk in and look straight up at the ceiling.

One thing nobody tells you about the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli

It's dark. Much darker than you expect and than it looks in the photos circulating online, almost all of which were taken with long exposures or brightened in post-production. Inside the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, on an ordinary day, you can see very little, the side chapels are black and without coins in the lighting units you can't tell a fresco from a dirty wall. Bring €1 and 50-cent coins. That's the thing nobody tells you, and it radically changes the visit.

The second thing nobody says is that the church doesn't have reliably published hours, and the actual opening depends on the services and on the availability of the friars. It's a rectory, not a civic museum: there's no custodian opening at nine sharp because a sign says so. No official schedule appears to be published. Anyone selling you certainty on this point is making it up.

The third thing, and it's a warning: the front staircase is harder than it looks. Not because of the number, 124 steps can be done. It's the geometry: the steps are low and very deep, which forces an unnatural stride, and halfway up you realize you're using muscles you never use. Going down, with the wrong shoes or after rain, the ancient marble becomes slippery. As said at the beginning, there's the side entrance from the Campidoglio, and sometimes using it is simply the smart choice.

The advice I give you for visiting the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli

The advice is one, in the form of an itinerary, because the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli has to be fitted in well to work.

Go up the cordonata, not the staircase. Get to Piazza Venezia, take Michelangelo's gentle ramp, reach Piazza del Campidoglio, and from there enter the basilica through the side passage to the left of the Palazzo Senatorio. Save your legs, enter on the side where the Torriti lunette and the Sansovino and Bracci tombs are, and you'll find yourself inside without having already spent everything.

Do the short, proper loop. Bufalini Chapel with the Pinturicchio, coins in the light unit, Donatello's plaque on the inner facade wall, third column from the left with the inscription, Lepanto ceiling viewed calmly, high altar and icon, Chapel of the Bambinello with the letters, Tempietto of Sant'Elena. 40 minutes.

Leave by the main door at the top of the 124 steps and walk down on foot. Do it in this order: go up the easy way and come down the scenic way. The view from the threshold, with the rooftops toward Piazza Venezia and the Ghetto, is the real reward of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, and going down, the low steps hurt much less.

Timing. Mid-morning, between 10 and 11.30, when light enters through the high windows and lights up the golden ceiling. Avoid early afternoon in summer, because the climb from Piazza d'Aracoeli is completely exposed to the sun and there isn't a single tree.

Rule of conduct. It's a church where services are held. If you go in during Mass, stay at the back and don't wander through the chapels. This always applies, but it applies more here, because the Basilica has a community of elderly, very devoted worshippers and it isn't a passing-through place for them.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely mentioned

That this was, for centuries, the chamber of the Roman Parliament. Everyone knows it and almost no one says it, because in guidebooks the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli always ends up in the churches category and never in the institutions category. Yet in the Middle Ages the popular assemblies of the free Comune were held inside. The Roman people gathered under these columns to decide for themselves, and the church functioned as a civic hall before it was a place of worship.

The reason is geographic and lies entirely in the history of the hill: the Comune di Roma was revived in 1143, the first Palazzo Senatorio dates to around 1195, and the Franciscans arrived in 1250. Within a century the Capitoline Hill became the seat of city government, and the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli, which occupies its summit, became the great hall of that government. There was no other indoor space capable of holding so many people.

The consequence still visible today is the Te Deum on December 31, the year-end thanksgiving of the Roman people, which is celebrated here. It is not a parish service: it is a liturgical remnant of a constitutional function. When you enter, try to imagine the pews removed and the nave full of men shouting over a decision. It is much closer to the historical truth of this building than the postcard image.

Our opinion is firm: the fact that the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli remained the church of the Romans and never became a papal basilica is the reason it is so little visited by tourists today and so loved by those who live here. It's a stroke of luck. Go there before someone notices.

The right photo to take of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli

The right photo is not the facade. The facade of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli is in bare, unadorned brick, and photographed head-on it gives you nothing: it looks like a warehouse with three doorways. The right photo is a different one.

Shot number one, the best. Climb all 124 steps, reach the top, and turn around. Frame looking down, with the staircase plunging in perspective and Rome opening up at the bottom. Stand slightly off-center from the axis, so the central railing cuts the image diagonally. It's the photo that captures both the effort of the climb and the reward of the view, and it works at any hour. The best light is late afternoon, when the sun comes in low from the right and the steps take on relief.

Shot number two. From Piazza d'Aracoeli, below, step back until you fit in the same frame the Aracoeli staircase on the left and the Capitoline cordonata on the right. Two stairways, two centuries, two ideas of Rome in the same frame. It's the shot that explains the Capitoline better than any caption, and oddly, very few people take it, because everyone concentrates on a single staircase.

Shot number three, inside. The Lepanto ceiling, shot from the center of the nave, with a row of capitals from the ancient columns kept at the bottom of the frame. The contrast between the sixteenth-century gold and the reused Roman marble is the exact portrait of what this building is. You need a steady hand or a support, because the light is low and the flash here is useless as well as rude.

Rules. Photos in church are taken with respect: no flash, no bulky tripods, no shots of people at prayer, and during services you stop. At the Bufalini chapel, also consider the courtesy of leaving the light on for those who come after you. It costs one euro and earns you paradise, which is on theme here.

Some important events that took place here in history

6th century. Sources date the first construction of the church on the summit of the Arx to this century, under the name Santa Maria in Capitolio.

Around the year 1000. The complex is a Benedictine abbey.

1143. The Roman people re-establish the Comune on the Capitoline. The hill once again becomes the political center of the city, and the basilica becomes its assembly space.

1250. Pope Innocent IV grants the site to the Franciscans, who still officiate at the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli today and who give it its current Roman-Gothic form.

1323. The name Aracoeli is attested in place of the earlier Santa Maria in Capitolio.

1341, between April 8 and April 17. Francesco Petrarca is crowned poet on the Capitoline by senator Orso dell'Anguillara. The ceremony concerns the hill and the Roman Senate.

1348. Year of the Black Death. The 124-step staircase is built, commissioned by the free Comune, paid for according to the sources with 5,000 florins raised among the citizens, and inaugurated by Cola di Rienzo.

1433. Donatello, in Rome since 1431, sculpts the tomb slab of Giovanni Crivelli, archdeacon of Aquileia.

1465. Andrea Bregno creates the funerary monument of Cardinal Ludovico d'Albret.

1485 or 1486. Pinturicchio paints the Bufalini Chapel frescoes with the Stories of Saint Bernardino of Siena, commissioned by Niccolò di Manno Bufalini to seal the peace between the Bufalini and the Baglioni of Perugia. The sources disagree on the date.

1504. Andrea Sansovino signs the tomb of Pietro Manzi, bishop of Cesena, in the passage toward the Campidoglio.

1571-1575. After the victory at Lepanto on October 7, 1571, and Marcantonio Colonna's triumph on the Capitol, the gilded wooden ceiling is made. According to Turismo Roma, it was made between 1572 and 1575 by Flaminio Boulanger and collaborators.

1797. French occupation: the friars are driven out and the church is turned into a stable. Serious damage to the Cosmatesque decoration.

1799. Restoration work begins.

1833. The small temple of Sant'Elena is rebuilt.

1848. The choir organ is inaugurated, a gift from Prince Carlo Torlonia.

1863. Duke Grazioli donates the figures for the nativity scene, the work of the Paduan sculptor Luigi Ceccon.

1882-1911. Construction of the Vittoriano erases convent buildings connected to the basilica and changes the relationship between the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli and the city below forever.

February 1994. The Santo Bambino is stolen. It has never been found. A copy has been placed in its spot, and it immediately started receiving ex voto offerings again.

Who Has Passed Through the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli

Cola di Rienzo, the notary who in 1347 has himself acclaimed as tribune and tries to refound the Roman republic. He inaugurates the staircase in 1348 and speaks to the people on the hill. His statue stands today at the foot of the stairs, on the left, and you'll see it as you arrive.

Donatello, who is in Rome between 1431 and 1433 and leaves here the slab for Giovanni Crivelli.

Pinturicchio, who signs one of his first major Roman works in the Bufalini Chapel.

Andrea Bregno and Andrea Sansovino, that is, two of the three or four sculptors who defined the Renaissance funerary monument in Rome.

Pietro Cavallini, the Roman painter between the 13th and 14th centuries, whose frescoes have left traces in the basilica.

Marcantonio Colonna, the papal commander at Lepanto, whose triumph on the Capitol is the reason for the gilded ceiling.

Emilio de' Cavalieri, a composer between the 16th and 17th centuries, buried here, one of the inventors of recitar cantando.

Cardinal Matteo d'Acquasparta, Franciscan, theologian, a figure cited by Dante in the Paradiso, whose Cosmatesque tomb is one of the most beautiful things in the church.

And then the Romans, generation after generation: the women who climbed on their knees, the children who recited poetry from the pulpit, the families who sent for the Santo Bambino when someone at home was seriously ill. An honest list of who has passed through the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli starts with them and puts the artists after.

How to Really Visit the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli: Duration, Route, Silence

Actual time needed: 30 minutes if you go straight to the list above, one hour if you start reading the floor inscriptions, 20 minutes if you only come in to see the church from the door and look at the ceiling. You don't need a guide, there's no required route, there's no ticket office, and there's no official audio guide. You go in, you walk around, you leave.

Silence is the real rule. The Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli has no staff to scold you, and that's exactly why the behavior of visitors is what sets the atmosphere. Phones on silent, voices low, shoulders covered as in any church in Rome. In the hot months there may or may not be a check at the entrance, but common sense applies anyway: tank tops and very short shorts in a church where services are held are a bad look, not a minor technicality.

There's no coat check, and there are no public restrooms inside. The closest and safest facilities are in the Capitoline Museums, which charge admission, or in the bars on piazza Venezia and via del Teatro Marcello. It's the kind of information nobody writes down, and it becomes urgent at the wrong moment.

A note on group visits: if you're more than 10, enter through the side opening and stay together at the back of the nave before spreading out. The church has acoustics that amplify everything, and a group that comes in talking through the main door can be heard all the way to the apse.

With Children at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli

This is one of the churches in Rome that works best with children, and the reason isn't the art: it's that there are stories to tell. The statuette that was stolen and never found. The letters that arrive from all over the world and are never opened. The staircase built so the plague would end. The column that comes from an emperor's bedroom. The geese of the Capitol, which, according to legend, are nearby. With an eight-year-old, 40 minutes in here pass in a flash if you tell them the stories while you walk.

The metal pulpit in the central nave, the one for Christmas poems, is a detail that always strikes them. Explaining that Roman children climb up there in December turns an object into a scene.

Practical details: a stroller on the front staircase is not allowed, so you need the side entrance from the Campidoglio. There are no changing tables in the church. There's no organized educational program and no ticket office, so there's no reduced rate to ask for: entry is free, children included. If you're looking for other ideas in the same vein, see the my trip section to plan your day.

Accessibility: the truth about the steps

When it comes to accessibility, half-truths do real damage. The front staircase of 124 steps is not accessible to people with mobility problems, and it isn't even with a strong companion: deep steps, no continuous handrail across the full width, irregular ancient marble.

The route to take is the other one: you reach Piazza del Campidoglio, which can be reached by the cordonata with its gentle slope, and from there you take the basilica's side passage. There is still a flight of steps to the left of Palazzo Senatorio: it's much less, but it's not zero. Wheelchair users should plan on needing assistance.

A useful piece of context, from the Turismo Roma listing: the Capitoline Museums have an accessible entrance from the square with a mobile ramp, a platform lift and elevators. It helps you comfortably reach the level of the square, which is the point from which you then try the side access to the church.

For the internal accessibility of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli, meaning any level changes between the nave, transept and presbytery, and whether there are equipped facilities, no official listing is on record: it's best to call the rectory at 06 69763837 and 06 69763839 and ask before planning your trip.

How much it costs and how to save

The Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli is free. There's no ticket, no mandatory donation, no paid reservation. It's a place of worship, and the only real expense is coins to turn on the lights in the chapels, which you should definitely plan for: two or three euros well spent.

Watch out for two traps. The first: if someone offers you a priority entry or a ticket for the basilica, you're not buying access, because access is free. The second: the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli is not part of the Musei Capitolini and isn't included in any museum card, because it isn't a municipal museum. The Capitoline ticket is for the Capitoline Museums, not for the church 50 meters farther on.

On saving in the area, one useful fact: the Musei Capitolini are open every day from 9.30 to 19.30, with last entry one hour before closing, and on December 24 and December 31 they close at 14.00. Tickets are bought through the official channel of the civic museum system. Combining a free morning at Aracoeli with a paid afternoon at the Capitoline Museums is still the most efficient way to spend a day on the hill.

What's around within a 10-minute walk

The Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli sits right at the exact center of the densest spot in Rome. Here's what you can reach on foot without ever going over 10 minutes.

50 meters: the Capitoline Hill with Michelangelo's square and the Capitoline Museums, which are the oldest public museum in the world and house the Capitoline Wolf, the Dying Gaul and the colossal head of Constantine.

Two minutes: the Vittoriano, with the Brasini wing and the panoramic terrace, that is, the bulky neighbor mentioned above.

Three minutes: the National Museum of Palazzo Venezia, across Piazza Venezia, with its decorative arts collections and the large 15th-century palace.

Five minutes downhill toward the Forum: San Pietro in Carcere, that is, the Mamertine Prison, the underground chamber where tradition places the imprisonment of Peter and Paul. It's one of the most impressive places in the city, and it's literally under your feet while you're in the basilica.

Seven minutes: the Imperial Forums Museum at the Mercati di Traiano, which is the best way to understand how imperial urban planning worked, with views from above of the monumental squares.

Eight minutes toward the Tiber: Santa Maria in Cosmedin with the Mouth of Truth, another medieval church with a Cosmatesque floor and Romanesque bell tower, which pairs very well with Aracoeli.

10 minutes: Largo Argentina with the republican sacred area, and in the opposite direction the Colosseum at the end of via dei Fori Imperiali. Toward via del Corso you'll find the Galleria Colonna and the stroll along via del Corso.

When to Go and When to Avoid the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli

The best time is a weekday morning between 10 and 11.30, in spring or autumn. High light on the ceiling, few people, a bearable climb.

The worst time is the early afternoon in July and August. The staircase faces south, there's no shade, the marble gives back heat and you reach the top cooked. If you go in summer, go early in the morning or after 18, and in any case from the Campidoglio.

December is the month when the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli is both at its liveliest and at its most crowded: nativity scene, poems read from the pulpit, letters to the Bambino, the Te Deum on the 31st. If you come for the Christmas atmosphere, come, but be aware that from the afternoon on there's a line inside as well.

During Mass you can enter but not wander around. The times listed by Turismo Roma are Monday to Saturday at 8.00, and Sunday and holidays at 8.30 and 12.00. If you want to visit calmly on Sunday, go around 10.30, between the two services.

In the rain: the marble steps become slippery, especially going down. This isn't a token warning. It's the reason Romans come down the cordonata when it rains.

Quick Questions About the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli

How much does it cost to enter the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli?

Nothing. Entry is free because it is a place of worship and not a museum. There's no ticket office, no reservation, no reduced fare to ask for. The only suggested expense is coins for the chapel lights.

What are the opening hours?

No official opening hours have been published. The Mass times listed on the Turismo Roma page are Monday-Saturday at 8.00, and Sunday and holidays at 8.30 and 12.00. For the actual opening hours, call the rectory: 06 69763837 or 06 69763839.

How many steps are there on the Aracoeli staircase?

124. The staircase dates from 1348 and was built as a votive offering and thanks to the Virgin, linked to the Black Death, with salvaged marble from Roman buildings.

Can you avoid the staircase?

Yes, and it's the most useful advice. You reach piazza del Campidoglio by Michelangelo's cordonata, which has a gentle slope, and enter through the side passage to the left of the Palazzo Senatorio. Only a few steps remain instead of 124.

Do you need to book a visit to the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli?

No. There's no reservation and no ticket. Anyone who sells you one is selling you something you don't need.

How long does the visit take?

30 minutes for the essential tour, an hour if you read the floor slabs and stop in the side chapels. 20 minutes if you only go in for the ceiling and the view from the door.

Can you take photos inside?

Yes, with the usual rules: no flash, no bulky tripod, no photos of people praying, and you stop during services.

Is the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli wheelchair accessible?

The front staircase is not, in any way. From the Campidoglio the side access is much more practical, but it still involves a flight of steps to the left of the Palazzo Senatorio, so assistance is needed. No official information sheet on interior accessibility is available: ask the rectory before you set out.

What happened to the Santo Bambino?

It was stolen in February 1994 and has never been found. In its place today is a copy, which has started receiving votive offerings from the faithful again, just like the original.

What was the Santo Bambino made of?

According to tradition, of olive wood from the Garden of Gethsemane, carved in the 15th century and gradually covered with precious votive offerings. In Rome they called it er Pupo, and it was taken to the bedside of the seriously ill.

Is it true that children write letters to the Bambino?

Yes. On the altar of the Bambinello there are letters arriving from all over the world, as Roma Segreta reports. It's a custom that has lasted for generations, and the letters are not opened.

Where are Pinturicchio's frescoes?

In the Bufalini chapel, the first on the right as you enter through the main portal. They depict the Stories of San Bernardino da Siena. The date varies between 1485 and 1486 depending on the source. Bring coins for the lights, otherwise you'll see darkness.

Why is the chapel called Bufalini?

After the name of the patron, Niccolò di Manno Bufalini, who had it decorated to celebrate the peace between his family and the Baglioni of Perugia. San Bernardino was the preacher of reconciliations between factions, and the theme of the cycle is a political choice as well as a devotional one.

Where is Donatello's work?

On the entrance wall, on the left: this is the tomb slab of Giovanni Crivelli, archdeacon of Aquileia, from 1433. It was a floor slab, now leaning against the wall, which is why the relief looks flatter than it was conceived.

What is the inscription a cubiculo Augustorum?

An inscription carved on the third column from the left of the nave, which refers to the staff in charge of the emperors' chamber. It suggests that this reused column comes from a context linked to the imperial apartments. It does not prove the legend of the Ara Coeli, but it is easy to see why in the Middle Ages it seemed to confirm it.

How many columns are there in the basilica?

No reliable number is on record: the only source that gives one writes 122, a figure that does not hold up and looks like a typo. They are all ancient, reused, and all different from one another.

Why does the ceiling celebrate Lepanto?

Because after the victory of October 7, 1571, the papal commander Marcantonio Colonna received a triumph on the Capitol, with the ancient ritual of climbing the hill, and the church at the top of the hill put on a gilded ceiling for the occasion. Turismo Roma dates the work to between 1572 and 1575 and names Flaminio Boulanger.

Is the legend of Augustus and the Sibyl true?

No, it is a medieval legend, written down in the Mirabilia Urbis Romae starting in the 12th century. It tells that Augustus saw a woman with a child and heard the voice Haec est ara filii Dei, and that the Sibyl explained to him that it was Mary. It served to explain the name Ara Coeli and to Christianize the Capitol. No ancient source confirms it.

What is the difference between the Aracoeli staircase and the Cordonata of the Campidoglio?

The staircase dates from 1348, is medieval, steep, and leads to the door of the basilica. The Cordonata is 16th-century, designed by Michelangelo, with a gentle slope, and leads to Piazza del Campidoglio. They sit side by side and can be seen in the same view from Piazza d'Aracoeli.

Is the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli included in the Capitoline Museums ticket?

No. It is not a civic museum and is not part of any card. Entry to the church is free and separate from the Capitoline Museums ticket, which is open every day from 9.30 to 19.30, with last entry one hour earlier.

Who runs the basilica today?

It is served by the Friars Minor, that is, the Franciscans, who have held the site since 1250. Administratively it is a rectory of the parish of San Marco Evangelista al Campidoglio, according to the parish website.

Is it suitable for children?

Very much so, if you tell it to them: the stolen statuette, the letters that arrive from all over the world, the staircase built during the plague, the pulpit of the Christmas poems. There are no organized educational tours, no changing table, and a stroller requires the side entrance.

Is there a bathroom or a cloakroom?

No, neither. The closest restrooms are those of the Capitoline Museums, which do require a ticket, or the bars in piazza Venezia.

Do you wait in line to get in?

Normally no, never. The only exception is the Christmas period, when the nativity scene and the Bambinello bring many people in the afternoon.

Is it worth climbing the 124 steps at least once?

Yes, but on the way down. Climb from the Campidoglio, visit the church, and exit through the main portal: the view from the threshold at the top of the staircase is the best moment of the whole visit, and going down costs infinitely less than going up.

What do I see if I only have 10 minutes?

Bufalini Chapel with Pinturicchio, the Lepanto ceiling from the center of the nave, the Bambinello chapel with the letters. Then exit through the main door and look at Rome from up there.

The Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is the only place in Rome where civic power, popular devotion, and first-rate art share the same space without any of the three having won: a golden ceiling paid for by a naval victory, a floor worn down by the feet of 800 years, a chapel painted to close a feud, a stolen statuette that still receives mail. There are no lines, no ticket, and no one to explain anything to you. Climb up from the Campidoglio, bring two coins for the light, stand still for 10 minutes at the center of the nave with your heads tilted back, then leave through the main door and look at the city from above the 124 steps.