Santa Maria in Traspontina
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Santa Maria in Transpontina (Saint Mary's in the Transpontine-district), Carmelite church on the Via della Conciliazone in Vatican City, Rome.
Pope Alexander VI demolished an ancient Roman pyramid on the same site (believed in the Middle Ages to be Romulus's tomb, and portrayed on the bronze doors to St Peter's Basilica and in a Giotto triptych in the Vatican Museums) for the construction of the first church. This church was then demolished in 1527 to clear the line of fire for the cannons of the Castel Sant' Angelo during the Sack of Rome.
A replacement church was begun in 1566, though the papal artillery officers insisted that its dome be as low as possible to avoid a recurrence of the previous problem. This meant that the new church's dome was built without a supporting drum. It has various chapels, including one to Saint Barbara (the patron saint of gunners) and one containing the two columns to which Peter and Paul were said to have been bound prior to their martyrdom in the circus of Nero nearby.
