Sant'Anselmo all'Aventino

Located on the Aventine Hill, next to the splendid Villa Magistrale of the Sovereign Order of Malta, the church was built in a simple and elegant Romanesque style despite being from the late 19th century.

Sant'Anselmo stands on the remains of a Roman domus, probably that of Pactumeia Lucilia, from which comes the splendid mosaic (II - III century AD) with "Scenes from the myth of Orpheus" kept in the monastery.

Its history begins in 1893, when, on the initiative of Pope Leo XIII, the Benedictine Order entrusted the architect Francesco Vespignani on a project by Abbot Ildebrando De Hemptinne for the construction of a complex, which included the place of worship and the adjoining international college. The works finished in 1900, and the church was then dedicated to Sant'Anselmo, Doctor of the Church and Archbishop of Canterbury.

After a tree-lined path is the entrance to the building, preceded by a quadriportico. Here, on one side of a rectangle of lawn, stands a suggestive bronze statue of the Saint, the work of the Swiss sculptor Albert Wider.

The church, to the right of which stands the large bell tower with three, four and five-mullioned windows, was renovated in the early 1950s to a design by the Swiss architect Fritz Metzger and has a rigorous interior with three naves, separated by two rows of Ionic columns, surmounted by a wooden ceiling.

Marcus Du Four, a Belgian iconographer monk, is the author of the cross, created in 2010, hanging above the central altar, while the mosaics in the apse are due to the German monk Radbous Commandeur. The decorations depict two angels holding up the jewelled cross with a drape and, in the centre, the image of a young, beardless Jesus - to whom God's hand stretches out with a crown - flanked by Saints Benedict and Anselm.

The church is well known for the emotional Gregorian chants performed by the Benedictine monks during the liturgical celebrations, besides being one of Rome's most famous churches for weddings.