Santa Cecilia in Trastevere

Santa Cecilia St. Cecilia (English) Sancti Ceciliæ (Latin)
Façade of Santa Cecilia, a 1725 project by Ferdinando Fuga, with the 12th century belltower.
Basic information
Location	Rome, Italy
Affiliation	Roman Catholic
District	Lazio
Province	Rome
Ecclesiastical or organizational status	Titular church
Leadership	Gualtiero Bassetti
Architectural description
Architectural type	Church
Groundbreaking	5th century

Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is a 5th-century church in Rome, Italy, in the Trastevere rione, devoted to the Roman martyr Saint Cecilia.

The first church on this site was founded probably in the 3rd century, by Pope Urban I; it was devoted to the young Roman woman Cecilia, martyred it is said under Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (A.D. 222-235). Tradition holds that the church was built over the house of the saint. The baptistery associated with this church, together with the remains of a Roman house of the early Empire, was found during some excavations under the Chapel of the Relics. By the late fifth century, at the Synod of 499 of Pope Symmachus, the church is mentioned as the Titulus Ceciliae. On 22 November 545, Pope Vigilius was celebrating the Feast of the saint in the church, when the emissary of Empress Theodora, Anthemius Scribo, captured him.

Pope Paschal I rebuilt the church in 822, and moved here the relics of St Cecilia from the Catacombs of St Calixtus. More restorations followed in the 18th century.

The Cardinal priest who is currently assigned to the Titulus S. Caeciliae is Gualtiero Bassetti. Among the previous titulars are Pope Stephen III, Pope Martin IV (1261-1281), Adam Easton (1383), Pope Innocent VIII (1474-1484), Thomas Wolsey (1515), Pope Gregory XIV (1585-1590), Michele Mazzarino (1647), Giuseppe Doria Pamphili (1785), Mariano Rampolla (1887-1913), and Carlo Maria Martini (d. 2012).