Saints Peter and Paul loom play prominent roles in the story of the City where their place as co-founders remain as important as those of Romulus and Remus. San Sebastiano is part of their story. Built on this site in the 4th century three miles outside of the City walls, the church named, not accidentally, in honor of the Apostles, was called the Basilica Apostolorum, constructed in 367 AD by Pope Damasus over parts of the catacomb below. The Roman state fiercely persecuted Christians during the 253-259 reign of the emperor, Valerian. To secure the bodies of the two apostles, Christians removed them from the original burial sites and sequestered them in this catacomb until they returned 60 years later during the reign of Constantine who had in 313 AD legalized the Christian religion throughout the Empire. Graffiti asking for their prayers and intercessions attests to the likely presence of the bodies of the apostles in the catacombs below.
The catacombs under the church also contained the relics of three martyrs in early centuries, Saints Sebastian, Qurinus and Eutychius. The soldier-martyr Sebastia was killed during the Christian persecutions of Emperor Diocletian. He had entered the Roman army in 283 and quickly rose in rank to become a captain of the Praetorian Guard.
Compassionate in his dealings with Christians he and other officers eventually converted to their faith. When, in 286, he discovered that Sebastian had become Christian, the emperor commanded that he be led to a field on the Palatine Hill and shot to death with arrows. The archers left his body covered with arrows, but, miraculously, he survived. A widow, Irene of Rome, discovered him, brought him to her house and attended to his wounds. Once recovered, Sebastian returned to the emperor and berated him for persecuting Christians. Diocletian again ordered his death. Soldiers seized him, clubbed him to death, and threw his body into the Cloaca Maxima. A pious lady, Lucina to whom Sebastian had appeared in a dream revealing the place where she could find his body, buried him in the catacombs over which current the basilica now stands.
Over the centuries countless numbers of pilgrims have visited his shrine including many of the Church’s best-known saints: Jerome, Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena, Charles Borromeo, Philip Neri, John Paul II who is buried under the altar of St. Sebastian in St. Peter’s.
When Saracens in 846 sacked the City and pillaged much of the environs, including the basilica, Pope Nicholas I ordered its restoration and renamed it in honor of St. Sebastian. In front of the church lies a courtyard facing the Via Appia Antiqua, a remnant of an earlier Medieval atrium.
The stucco, façade of two stories results from a 1608 rebuilding of the 15th century portico re-using six columns from the original. Three entrance arches incorporate ancient granite Ionic columns, pairs of pink and grey, some from Egypt. The entablature above the arches contains an inscription commemorating the Borghese patronage of the reconstruction, visible also in the Borghese coats of arms bearing an eagle and dragon on the second story. At the very top is yet another Borghese coat of arms, that of Pope Paul V. On the walls of the loggia, remain faded remnants of frescoes
by Antonio Caracci. The church has but one entrance and this with an attractive molded doorcase.
San Sebastiano has the form of a Paleo-Christian basilica.
It features a single nave leading to the apse and sanctuary at the far end.
The nave of five bays has no side aisles, but along its walls stand recessed side chapels.
Over the nave lies a flat coffered wooden ceiling, intricately carved, painted and gilded in red, blue, green white and gold and includes Borghese dragons and eagles interwoven in its intricate details centered around a carving of the saint.
At the end of the nave stands a triumphal arch, undecorated except for stucco winged putto’s heads and notched moldings. Side arches contain galleries for musicians. Dedicated to Pope Stephen I the high altar, created from a 5th century sarcophagus with three reliefs depicting scenes from the life of Christ, contains his relics. The sanctuary includes a dome with an octagonal drum, cupola, and tall lantern.
In the first niche at the entrance of the basilica sits a beautifully carved bust of Christ, Il Salvator Mundi, Bernini’s last work, sculpted in 1679, the year of his death. It rests on a porphyry plinth, a custom of ancient Roman sculpture. Art experts made their attribution of it to him only in 2001.
Next to it sits the Chapel of Relics commissioned in 1672 by Cardinal Francesco Barberini. In it a cabinet contains a remarkable
number of relics with an even more amazing list of their sources: Jesus’ crown of thorns and body parts of St. Peter (finger, rib, tooth), St. Paul ( tooth), St. Andrew (head),; St. Fabian ( head and arm),Pope St. Callistus (head), Pope St, Stephen I (head), St Roch (head), Saints Nereus and Archilleus (heads), St. Valentine (head), St. Sebastian (arrow and stone to which he was tied).
Over the altar remains the original basalt stone footprints of Christ left on the road after his encounter with St. Peter on the Via Appia, transferred here from the Domine Quo Vadis chapel located on the Via Appia.
The Albani Chapel on the right side of the nave represents virtually a separate structure with its own architectural plan, designed by Carlo Fontana at the beginning of the 18th century and dedicated to the pope, St. Fabian. The interior reflects the plan of a Greek cross with short arms and a dome supported by a drum with four windows and a large oculus. Across the nave from the Chapel of the Relics stands the 17th century Chapel of St. Sebastian. Its altar contains his relics and is positioned directly above his tomb in the catacombs below. Under the altar encased in glass is a sculpture of the saint wounded by arrows.
The Chapel of the Crucifix once served as the sacristy of the church but was redesigned by Carlo Fontana in the early 18th century. The first doorway on the left side of the nave opens to steps leading down to the catacombs. Immediately to the left of the church entrance remains a 4th century inscription composed by Pope Damasus in honor of the martyr St. Eutychius, a remnant found in the catacombs by 20th century archeologists. Above it rests a 15th century small white marble tabernacle created by Mino da Fiesole.
