Medieval Rome: Santa Maria in Trastevere.
When one thinks about Rome, the late Middle Ages are not exactly the first period that comes to mind, nor the most defining one for the Eternal City. When one thinks about Medieval art in Rome, one usually thinks about mosaics and not frescoes. One wouldn’t be wrong. When we think of the Italian Middle Ages, we imagine the great cycles of frescoes in Florence, Siena or Assisi, we think of Lorenzetti and Giotto and their first attempt at realism, we think of their stunning blue backgrounds, we think of their golden altarpieces which are still remindful of Byzantium in a way, for most people, our idea of Medieval Italian art is somewhat clear. When we think of late Medieval Rome, we have to remember that much of it has since been lost, modified, hidden - frescoes were not unheard of, we have fine late Medieval frescoes at the Lateran, at the nearby S. Quattro Coronati and recently they found some fragments of Pietro Cavallini’s frescoes in S. Maria in Aracoeli and in Santa Cecilia in Tr
