Santi Marcellino e Pietro

The church of the Exorcist was our destination for today’s Station Mass.

As an exorcist in the early church, Peter was too successful.  With his friend Marcellinus they ended up on the radar of the emperor Diocletian, who intervened on their accomplishments.

Thrown into jail, they spoke to their jailer Arthemius, freely offering to cure his sick daughter.  Considering that impossible Arthemius asked if they also thought their God could get them out of prison.  Miraculously released that night, they showed up at his door, whereupon he converted—with about 300 others.

Their high profile required that they be disappeared, so the magistrate took them secretly to the silva negra (black forest), to behead and bury them in secret, but someone disclosed the site of their grave (possibly by the executioner, who subsequently converted), and their bodies were rescued.

Very little (actually, nothing) of the early church where they were buried is still visible today, having had substantial renovations in the 18th century.

As a church that seems higher than it is wide, it’s a little hard to fit into a picture.

Outdoors you’re fine.

But indoors I tried to get enough angle to show the dome above and didn’t manage.

I remember stumbling across Borromini’s church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, where all edges are rounded, and the church also seems higher than deep.  This church definitely follows Borromini; someday you’ll have to get to San Carlo’s to compare the two.