San Lorenzo in Damaso (Saint Lawrence in the House of Damasus) is a basilica

Basilica

The Latin word basilica , was originally used to describe a Roman public building, usually located in the forum of a Roman town. Public basilicas began to appear in Hellenistic cities in the 2nd century BC.The term was also applied to buildings used for religious purposes...

 church in

Churches of Rome

There are more than 900 churches in Rome. Most, but not all, of these are Roman Catholic, with some notable Roman Catholic Marian churches.The first churches of Rome originated in places where Christians met. They were divided into three categories:...

 Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, one of several dedicated to the Roman deacon and martyr Saint Lawrence

Saint Lawrence

Lawrence of Rome was one of the seven deacons of ancient Rome who were martyred during the persecution of Valerian in 258.- Holy Chalice :...

. Known since antiquity (synod of Pope Symmachus

Pope Symmachus

Saint Symmachus was pope from 498 to 514. His tenure was marked by a serious schism over who was legitimately elected pope by the citizens of Rome....

, 499) as Titulus Damasi, according to tradition San Lorenzo in Damaso was built by Pope Damasus I

Pope Damasus I

Pope Saint Damasus I was the bishop of Rome from 366 to 384.He was born around 305, probably near the city of Idanha-a-Velha , in what is present-day Portugal, then part of the Western Roman Empire...

 in his own house, in the 380s.

Donato Bramante

Donato Bramante

Donato Bramante was an Italian architect, who introduced the Early Renaissance style to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his most famous design was St...

 rebuilt the church in the 15th century, by order of Cardinal Raffaele Riario

Raffaele Riario

Raffaele Sansoni Galeoti Riario was an Italian Cardinal of the Renaissance, mainly known as the constructor of the Palazzo della Cancelleria and the one who invited Michelangelo to Rome. He was a patron of the arts...

, within the restoration works of the close by Palazzo della Cancelleria

Palazzo della Cancelleria

The Palazzo della Cancelleria is a Renaissance palace in Rome, Italy, situated between the present Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and the Campo de' Fiori, in the rione of Parione...

. The last restoration was necessary after a fire that damaged the basilica in 1944.

Immediately to the right of the entrance is the memorial of Alessandro Valtrini, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian artist who worked principally in Rome. He was the leading sculptor of his age and also a prominent architect...

 in 1639.

The first chapel to the right houses a Virgin with Saints Filippo Neri and Nicolò by Sebastiano Conca

Sebastiano Conca

Sebastiano Conca was an Italian painter.He was born at Gaeta, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, and apprenticed in Naples under Francesco Solimena. In 1706, along with his brother Giovanni, who acted as his assistant, he settled at Rome, where for several years he worked in chalk only, to...

, while the ceiling is frescoed with Eternity appears to San Nicola by Corrado Giaquinto

Corrado Giaquinto

Corrado Giaquinto was an Italian Rococo painter.-Early training and move to Rome:He was born in Molfetta. As a boy he apprenticed with a modest local painter Saverio Porta, , escaping the religious career his parents had intended for him...

. The first chapel to the left has a Last Supper by Vincenzo Berrettini.

In the first nave

Nave

In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...

 to the left, are statues of Saints Francesco Saverio and Carlo Borromeo by Stefano Maderno

Stefano Maderno

Stefano Maderno was an Italian sculptor.-Biography:News about Maderno's life are scarce and often contradictory...

. On the right nave, there is a monument to Gabriella di Savoia Massimo by Pietro Tenerani

Pietro Tenerani

Pietro Tenerani was an Italian sculptor who studied in the studios of both Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen and carried a chaste neoclassical style into the mid-nineteenth century, specialising in pious subjects. His most prominent commission was for the tomb of Pope Pius VIII in Rome....

. The presbytery, modified by Bernini, is the altarpiece of Saints and Coronation of Mary by Federico Zuccari

Federico Zuccari

Federico Zuccari, also known as Federigo Zuccaro , was an Italian Mannerist painter and architect, active both in Italy and abroad.-Biography:Zuccari was born at Sant'Angelo in Vado, near Urbino ....

. In the nave to the left of the presbytery, is the chapel of the Santissima Concezione completed and frescoed (1635-1638) by Pietro da Cortona

Pietro da Cortona

Pietro da Cortona, by the name of Pietro Berrettini, born Pietro Berrettini da Cortona, was the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and also one of the key architects in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture. He was also an important decorator...

. Other works include the monument of Cardinal Trevisan (1505), the Madonna delle Gioie, attributed to Nicolò Circignani, and the monument of Annibal Caro (1566), by Giovanni Antonio Dosio

Giovanni Antonio Dosio

Giovanni Antonio Dosio was an Italian architect and sculptor.He was born in San Gimignano. A student of Ammanati, with whom he realized the Villa dell'Ambrogiana, Dosio worked primarily in Rome and Florence , with some commissions that took him to Naples.During his early years in Rome, where he...

.

The Cardinal Priest of the Titulus S. Laurentii in Damaso is Antonio Rouco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

.

The entrance to San Lorenzo in Damaso is located at 1, Piazza della Cancelleria.