Santa Cecilia in Trastevere

Built on the supposed site of the home of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music, who according to tradition was beheaded here in 230 AD. Her uncorrupted body was discovered in 1599; sculptor Stefano Maderno saw it before reburial and made a marble replica that lies under the high altar — one of the most haunting sculptures in Rome, showing her body still in the position in which it was found, with a turned-away head and three sword cuts visible on her neck. Underground excavations reveal Roman houses; a separate ticket gets you up to a hidden choir loft to see Pietro Cavallini's late-13th-century Last Judgment frescoes — the most important Roman painting before Giotto.