Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme site features

Santa Croce in Gerusalemme stands at the end of a long open piazza on the eastern edge of Rome, hard against the Aurelian Walls, and the facade does something unusual: instead of a flat front it swells forward in a convex curve, pale travertine against the ochre bulk of the convent either side.

It is crowded with figures and movement. Columns and pilasters bunch towards the centre, a great inscription runs across the entablature, an oval window sits above the door, and along the roofline a balustrade carries standing statues against the sky — the barocchetto romano at its most theatrical, with evident Borrominian derivations.

A much older tower rises behind it. The brick campanile erected by Lucius II in the twelfth century stands to one side, square and sober, with small arched openings — a Romanesque object left standing behind an eighteenth-century stage set.

Inside, the scale changes abruptly. Three naves run back, divided by twelve colossal ancient granite columns — four of them swallowed into pillars in the 1700s remodelling, so the rhythm of the colonnade breaks halfway down.

The apse is painted and the light is high. In the semi-dome are paintings attributed to Antoniazzo Romano, and at the centre the Tomb of Cardinal Francesco Quiñones by Jacopo Sansovino.

The chapel of Saint Helena is the quiet end of the building. Low, mosaic-vaulted, reached from the end of the right nave; the earth of Calvary is said to lie beneath its pavement, and on the altar stands the converted Roman statue.

And behind it all is an oval of ancient brick. The Amphitheatrum Castrense now encloses a monastery kitchen-garden, recreated in 2004, entered through a gate of iron and glass by Jannis Kounellis.

The barocchetto facade

By Pietro Passalacqua and Domenico Gregorini for Benedict XIV: one of the masterpieces of Roman barocchetto, with evident Borrominian derivations.

The campanile of 1144

The fine brick bell tower erected by Lucius II.

The twelve granite columns

Colossal and ancient; four were incorporated into pillars in the eighteenth-century work.

The Quiñones tomb

The Tomb of Cardinal Francesco Quiñones by Jacopo Sansovino, at the centre of the apse.

Antoniazzo Romano in the apse

The semi-dome is decorated with paintings attributed to Antoniazzo Romano.

The chapel of Saint Helena

With a mosaic remade in the sixteenth century by Melozzo da Forlì or Baldassarre Peruzzi from an original of the age of Valentinian III; it is said to hold the earth of Calvary beneath its pavement.

The converted Roman statue

The statue on the altar is a Roman original found at Ostia, transformed into a Saint Helena by the addition of the cross and the substitution of the head.

The Chapel of the Relics

Where the relics brought by Helena are housed — closed 15 minutes before Mass at the High Altar, and during weddings and funerals.

The Shroud copy

A full-size copy of the Shroud, a gift of the Diocesan Shroud Commission of the Archdiocese of Turin in 2003, with the shroud Crucifix by monsignor Giulio Ricci.

Nennolina

The remains of the Servant of God Antonietta Meo (1930-1937), who died at six and a half of osteosarcoma, have rested at the foot of the Chapel since 1999.

The Kounellis gate

Iron and glass, on the monastery kitchen-garden recreated in 2004 in the Amphitheatrum Castrense.