One of the many reasons to follow the Lenten station church pilgrimage through Rome is that, along that unique itinerary of sanctity, one discovers otherwise-hidden jewels of church architecture and design, created in honor of the early Roman martyrs. Perhaps the most stunning of these is St. Praxedes on the Esquiline Hill, hidden behind the vastness of St. Mary Major. As my co-author Elizabeth Lev puts it in Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches (Basic Books), “the little Basilica of St. Praxedes is a surprising treasure chest, its dingy portal opening into an interior of dazzling mosaics.”
That dingy portal is one reason why a lot of Roman visitors, including the most assiduous tourists, miss St. Praxedes, for its exterior suggests nothing of the marvels inside. Indeed, I expect I walked right past St. Praxedes numerous times before entering it for the first time on March 24, 1997, Monday of Holy Week that year and St. Praxedes’ annual turn in the station church rotation.
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