Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls site features

You come up from the metro into a forecourt the size of a parade ground. A colonnaded quadriporch wraps it on all four sides, with a colossal statue of Saint Paul in the middle holding a sword, and above the far side the facade rises with a band of gold mosaic across its top that catches the sun and is visible from a long way off.

Inside, the scale takes a moment to register. Eighty granite columns run away from you in rows, dividing the space into five aisles, under a flat gilded ceiling. There is no gloom and no clutter: the floor is polished, the walls are pale, and the building is simply very large and very empty.

A band of faces runs round the whole church. Above the columns, at the same height all the way along both walls and into the side aisles, is a continuous row of mosaic portrait medallions of popes, each in a roundel, each looking out.

At the far end the light changes. The apse is filled with a gold mosaic, and in front of it a pointed marble canopy on four columns stands over the high altar, obviously older and more delicate than everything around it. Below and in front, a sunken confessio drops to the tomb.

Outside, through a door to the side, is a different building altogether. The cloister is small, intricate and shaded, its paired columns twisted, fluted, plain and inlaid — no two pairs the same — under a cornice carved with the heads of lions, oxen and goats that the rain still runs out of.

Arnolfo di Cambio's ciborium

The Gothic ciborium of 1285 over the high altar, beneath which lie the confessio and the apostle's tomb.

The paschal candlestick

To the right of the altar: marble, by Nicola D'Angelo and Pietro Vassalletto, 1170.

The apse mosaic

Commissioned by Innocent III (1198–1216), finished under Honorius III.

Eighty granite columns

Dividing five naves — including six on the entrance wall given by the Viceroy of Egypt to Gregory XVI.

The papal portraits

Mosaics with portraits of popes along the walls of the central nave, continuing into the side aisles, with frescoes of scenes from the life of Saint Paul.

The bronze doors

Given by Pantaleone, a rich Amalfi merchant living in Constantinople, executed by Constantinopolitan artists and inscribed with his prayer that the doors of life be opened to him.

The cloister

Jacopo and Pietro Vassalletto's, called by Turismo Roma one of the wonders of thirteenth-century Rome: paired columns of differing type and form, mosaic and coloured marble, and a cornice of lion, ox and goat heads from whose mouths the rainwater runs. EUR 4.00, and worth it.

The quadriporch

Virginio Vespignani's, end of the 19th century, with Giuseppe Obici's statue of Saint Paul at its centre.

The archaeological area

Dug from 2007: a reception and refectory hall, portico, columns, a well, a bell tower and the colonnade that brought pilgrims from the Porta di San Paolo — about a thousand square metres, previously known only from a tablet of Gregory the Great's time naming a women's monastery with an oratory of Saint Stephen.

The Bible garden

The Benedictines of the Abbey, custodians of the tomb for centuries, grow herbs and trees mentioned in the Bible.