Nerd Alert!

For my Early Christian and Medieval Art class we went to the church of St. Pudenziana this last Tuesday in central Rome. Our professor is friends with the guard there, so he hooked us up with a special (aka prohibited) tour of the site underneath the church. The church that you see from the street (photo on right) has been renovated up until the 19th century , but there are remains of buildings underground that date back to 1st century BC when it was a Roman house. It was then converted to a Christian church in the early 5th century.

So anyway, five of us adventurers donned hard hats and held hands with Mario, our fearless guide and the only one with a flashlight. Mario kept on telling us in broken English how dangerous it was beneath the church and pointing out the places were the walls had collapsed. And you thought history wasn't exciting! Anyway, there were some neat 1st century AD mosaics along with a road running underneath the church from 70s AD and another higher road from 3rd century AD (we stand on this in the photo below)

Yay history!