Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli site features

Santa Maria in Aracoeli announces itself as a bare brick wall at the top of an enormous flight of steps, and the contrast with the inside is the whole experience. The façade is unfinished brick with almost no ornament — from the piazza it reads as the back of a building rather than the front of a basilica.

The climb is the approach, and it is severe. 124 marble steps rise in one straight, steep, unbroken run with no landings to speak of, so there is nowhere to pause and the top is always visible and always distant.

At the top, turn round before going in. The view takes in the domes of Sant'Andrea della Valle and St Peter's across the roofs.

Inside, the darkness and the width arrive together. The church is three naves divided by columns, and the columns are reused — every one different from the others in stone, diameter and capital. Nothing matches, and once noticed it is impossible to stop seeing.

The ceiling is the opposite of the façade. A deep coffered timber ceiling, gilded and painted, runs the length of the nave and throws back what light there is.

Look down, because the floor is a burial ground. The cosmatesque pavement is crowded with tombs and funerary slabs, inlaid in coloured stone and worn smooth by feet. Among them is the slab of the archdeacon of Aquileia, Giovanni Crivelli, made by Donatello, who was in Rome between 1431 and 1433.

Two chapels hold painting worth crossing the nave for. In the Cappella Bufalini is a fresco cycle by Pinturicchio on San Bernardino da Siena; one chapel keeps remains of painting attributed to Pietro Cavallini; and there are further frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli.

And there is an absence that the church still organises itself around. The Santo Bambino was the most venerated object here until it was stolen in 1994.

The staircase

124 marble steps, 1348, a vow against the plague, built from the Temple of Serapis's own stair and inaugurated by Cola di Rienzo. Treated as a Scala Santa and climbed on the knees.

The reused columns

Three naves divided by columns all different from one another.

The Cappella Bufalini

A fresco cycle by Pinturicchio on San Bernardino da Siena — who nearly died on this staircase, accused of heresy.

Donatello's floor slab

The tomb of the archdeacon of Aquileia, Giovanni Crivelli, made by Donatello during his Roman stay, 1431–1433.

Cavallini and Gozzoli

Remains of painting attributed to Pietro Cavallini in one chapel, and further frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli.

The cosmatesque pavement

Inlaid floor rich in burials and funerary slabs.

The missing Santo Bambino

By tradition carved from the olive wood of Gethsemane, credited with raising the dead and healing the gravely ill. Stolen in 1994, never found.

The view from the top

Over the domes of Sant'Andrea della Valle and St Peter's.