Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme

One of Rome's seven major pilgrimage churches, founded around 325 AD by Saint Helena (mother of Emperor Constantine) inside her own palace, the Sessorian. She returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land bringing what tradition holds to be three fragments of the True Cross, a nail from the Crucifixion, two thorns from the Crown of Thorns, and the Titulus Crucis (the wooden inscription that hung over Christ's cross) — all displayed today in the Chapel of the Relics. The original floor was reportedly covered with soil from Jerusalem (hence the name 'in Jerusalem'). Free entry; the relics are the focus of any visit.