The visit to the Santi Quattro Coronati complex is a stride back to Roman Middle ages. Getting closer, you realize its a real fortress, built all around the ancient basilica and the buildings of the nearby convent. Going in through the solid portal defended by the bell tower, you enter two courtyards in sequence and then the basilica decorated by beautiful Medieval and Reinassance frescoes. The most extraordinary part of this complex are some marvelously decorated rooms in the convent: for example, the room of the Calendar shows fragments of a fresco from the first half of the XIII century with personifications of the Months holding parchments, where the calendar was written, and scenes of the human activities typical for each month; St. Sylvester’s Chapel, has a medieval painting cycle with stories of pope Sylvester (314-335) and the frescoes by Raffaellino da Reggio (before 1588) in the presbyterium. On the first floor of the Torre Maggiore there is the Aula Gotica, the most eminent room in the Cardinal’s palace, where he had parties and banquets and he was administrating justice. Amazing exemple of gothic architecture, unique in the city of Rome, it strikes visitors because of the incredible paintings decorating its walls, a real masterpiece from the XIII century: here we can see the personifications of the Months with their typical activities; the Liberal Arts represented as girls dancing around popular men who were the ones who practiced them and are sitting on a throne; the Seasons, painted as men of different ages flanked by Winds; Virtues and Beatitudes, represented as women wearing military clothing, with a character from the Old or the New Testament or a Saint on their shoulders and stepping on two little characters who are the opposite Vice and someone popular because of that vice; King Salomon, the Judge par excellence, Mithra killing the bull and the personifications of the Sun (Christ) and of the Moon (Church).
