Santa Maria in Cosmedin – home to St. Valentine

It’s not one of Rome’s station churches, but Santa Maria in Cosmedin was one of my stops as Lent began this year because of the coincidence of Valentine’s Day falling on Ash Wednesday. A college English professor once advised me that in literature love and death are always intertwined, and this year’s liturgical calendar seems to add an exclamation point to the theory. What does all of this have to do with Santa Maria in Cosmedin, a twelfth century Roman church a stone’s throw from the Circus Maximus?

Well, Santa Maria in Cosmedin is home to the relics of St. Valentine. And, given his current appearance, I’d say Valentine drives home Ash Wednesday’s message pretty well. Not much is known about his life; Valentine was third century Roman priest martyred for continuing to minister to his flock in the midst of persecution. A note near his altar says the saint has been turned to not only for love, but as an intercessor in times of plague.

The church itself is rather fascinating. The current building, with its stubby façade and soaring bell tower, dates from the 12th century but was built on the site of an eighth century diaconia. Diaconia were the Catholic Social Services hubs of their day, centers where various forms of charity were distributed to the needy. Today the church is home to Rome’s Melkite community.

Santa Maria in Cosmedin has a wonderful eclectic feel inside — repurposed Roman columns, Cosmatesque floors, medieval frescos, a crypt dug by Pope Hadrian in the 8th century out of the ruins of an ancient temple to Hercules. Unfortunately the church interior often gets passed up because of what’s in the porch outside — the Bocca della Verità, the Mouth of Truth, made famous by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in the film Roman Holiday. The marble disk was once a rather imposing drain cover. According to legend, the Mouth of Truth is an ancient lie detector. Dare to tell a lie when you’ve put your hand inside the mouth, and it will bite it off.

I’ve never actually seen the Mouth of Truth chomp off a hand. Maybe he only speaks Latin, so people these days are getting off easy…