Chiesa di Sant'Omobono

The church is located in the area of the Foro Boario where the temples of Fortuna, Mater Matuta and the Porta Triumphalis were located: these structures were excavated alongside the church between the 1930s (during the Capitol scraping phase) and the 1960s, and can still be seen today in the archaeological area of Sant'Omobono. Its foundations are set, precisely, on the remains of the temple of Mater Matuta.

The first early Christian church dates from the 6th century and was originally titled San Salvatore in Portico (referring to the nearby Portico di Ottavia). Between the 12th and 13th centuries it was restored and repaved , with cosmatesque inlays. Rebuilt in 1482, it was given in 1575 to the University of Tailors and dedicated to the patron saint of farsettai, St. Homobono precisely. In the same church took up residence the Confraternity of the Shoemakers and those of the Tailors and Giubbonari. The last restoration, with repaving, was in 1940.

The difference in height between the street level of the archaeological area and the church building level-which today is raised a couple of meters above the modern street level, to which a recent staircase connects it-is an interesting and plastic example of how the ground level of ancient Rome was submerged, over the centuries, by four to five meters (in some cases even more) of rubble and debris, on which construction continued uninterruptedly, and then went back to excavation.

After the demolitions of the twentieth century and the construction of the Tiber embankments, the area surrounding the church is now almost uninhabited, except for the small surviving residential block between St. Theodore Street under the Palatine, the Roman Forum, Consolation Street and the Jugario Forum, and what is now Petroselli Street.

On the other hand, the area was, until the early 1900s, built up, albeit modestly, and populated, being one of the points of access to the Roman market for producers coming from the Appian Way and the Via Ostiense, which converged at Piazza Montanara (which has also disappeared), at the Teatro di Marcello. Its commercial relevance was evidenced by the fact that in the mid-19th century the Via di S. Omobono, from the Bocca della Verità to Monte Caprino, had as many as six taverns, an inn and a café.

From St. Omobono, it is possible to:

go up to the Capitol from Monte Caprino or from Via della Rupe Tarpea
go to visit Santa Maria della Consolazione, San Nicola in Carcere, Santa Maria in Cosmedin and the Mouth of Truth
go in two minutes to Tiber Island, the Ghetto or Circus Maximus.