The cathedral of San Clemente is the cathedral of Velletri, seat of the suburbicarian diocese of Velletri-Segni, and is dedicated to Pope Clement I, pontiff and martyr. According to an ancient tradition, it was born from the conversion into a church of the basilica of the Roman municipium. It was declared a minor basilica on 2 March 1804 by Pope Pius VII and until 1914 it was the proper seat of the cardinal dean of the College of Cardinals.
What to see
The church's appearance is the result of a long history. In the thirteenth century the outer polygonal apse was built; the underground chapel keeps the relics of Saints Eleutherius and Pontian. In 1556 the chapter replaced the old stone choir seats with walnut stalls by Luca Bencivenga da San Gallo, and in 1595 Bishop Gesualdo called in Giovanni Balducci, who painted the martyrdom of Saint Clement in three pictures; Balducci also painted an altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin. On 23 May 1656 lightning brought the bell tower down onto the central nave: since then the marble columns of the old basilica have been replaced by the masonry pillars seen today.
The church has three naves and a coffered wooden ceiling. In the raised presbytery the high altar is covered by a ciborium on four columns of oriental granite with gilded bronze capitals, commissioned by Francesco Barberini; above the baldachin is a fourteenth-century Cosmatesque reliquary in the shape of a small temple, with spiral colonnettes. In 1950 Cardinal Clemente Micara promoted the restoration of the church, damaged in the war, to a design by Giuseppe Zander; in 1951 the Hungarian painter János Hajnal made the apse mosaic, the two archangels on the triumphal arch and the stained glass. In its own chapel the ancient icon of the Madonna delle Grazie is venerated.
Visiting
The old façade has been incorporated into the bishop's seminary since the seventeenth century: today you enter from piazza Micara, through a portal by Troiano da Palestrina from 1512. Opening and service times should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
In the square in front of the church stands the bronze column given to the city by Pope Benedict XVI, who visited the cathedral on 23 September 2007: he was one of fourteen bishops of Velletri who became pope.
