Ancient church of Santa Sabina seen in new light

The Basilica of Santa Sabina all’Aventino, one of the oldest churches in Rome, has a new illumination system that literally sheds new light on the most ancient elements of its architecture.

Built in the early 5th century near the Temple of Juno Regina on the Aventine Hill in Rome, Santa Sabina is the oldest basilica in Rome that retains its original design of a Roman secular basilica (a building used for public functions like courts of law and assemblies): a rectangular plan with a colonnaded central nave, aisles on each side and a semi-circular apse. Its 24 columns were taken from the Temple of Juno Regina. It has its original wood door with carved panels from 430 A.D., including one of the earliest surviving depictions of the crucifixion of Christ which is the first known crucifixion to be publicly displayed. Above the door inside the church is the original mosaic  inscription in Latin hexameter.

Changes and additions have been made to the church since then, but unlike many other ancient churches in Rome, Santa Sabina managed to avoid having its character fundamentally altered by Baroque transformations. That ancient architecture has one downside, however. The high, thick walls and small clerestory windows don’t let in much light, and the old system of clunky spotlights was too limited and inefficient to illuminate the darkness.

Small projectors, placed laterally on the window sills, illuminate the central nave and, combined with LED strips placed centrally on the intrados, give light to the upper transennae of the nave. The positioning of the new devices occurred in correspondence with the sources of natural lighting, so as to maintain – even in its absence – the same origin of the light.

The lighting of the side aisles with small spotlights with wide optics allows for a diffused and uniform light of the wooden structures and the aisles, characterised by a valuable two-tone floor.

Specific lighting was then reserved for the side chapels, of Santa Caterina and San Giacinto, to highlight the most important decorative elements with a soft and enveloping light.

With targeted accentuations, important elements have been highlighted, such as the choir, the apse, the mosaic on the counter-façade, the bell tower in the left nave and finally, in the narthex, the famous carved wooden door from the 5th century, which preserves one of the first representations of the crucifixion.

This video shows the new illumination system bathe the interior of the church in light.

* This article was originally published here