As far as paleochristian churches go, Santa Sabina on the Aventine hill is hard to beat. Although heavily restored throughout the ages, it maintains all the characteristics of the earliest churches in Rome.

The layout is the standard converted Roman basilica, basically a covered public space, with its wide central nave and two narrower aisles to the side, separated by a colonnade, apse at one end, and large windows up top. (photo 3) The columns here were supposedly taken from the T-emple of Juno, so here too this church, as many others, follows the made-with-scavenged-Roman-bits script. It also keeps the unadorned simplicity of those early churches (most others are extremely decorated), as well as the beautiful and simple original mosaic floor, also rare to see.

Of interest is the 1500 year old cedar door (photo 1), intricately carved and still in incredible shape given its years. In the upper right hand corner is the earliest representation in Rome of the crucifixion.

Not all here is old, early and proto-. Times change and the new works its way into age-old activities. In photo 2 the Dominican priest (this is the order’s founding church) is on his cell phone, ordering a special wax for the marble mosaic floor.