The Basilica of Santi Cosma e Damiano

Built in the Sixth Century by Pope Felix IV, to whom Emperor Teodorico donated the ancient buildings of the library of the Forum of Peace and the Hall of the Temple of the Divo Romulus. Fusing these two classical structures, the church was dedicated to the brother-physicians, in contrast to the deities Castor and Pollux, whose temple was nearby on the Via Sacra. The church we see today is a result, for the most part, of work done by Urban VIII in the 1600s. Famous for its mosaics from the Sixth-Seventh Centuries in the apse, in the hall on the lefthand side of the church, the 150 pieces of marble making the Forma Urbis, the map of the city, can still be seen.