Capella di San Zenone, Santa Prassede
Orto del Paradiso
Orto del Paradiso
A small chapel contained inside the church of Santa Prassede, which was planned as a smaller version of the earlier St. Peter's, dates in its structure and decoration to the 9th century, when Pope Paschal II had the space consecrated as a funerary chapel for his mother, Theodora, and had it decorated with an elaborate arrangement of Byzantine mosaics on the walls, vaults, and spandrels. Called "Orto Paradiso" ( the Garden of Paradise), it was embellished by mosaic artists fleeing the imperial iconoclasts in Byzantium, who revived this ancient craft in Rome. Paschal's mother, shown with a square halo to indicate that she is still living at the time of construction, joins the martyred sisters, Prassede and Pudenziana, with the Virgin Mary in one panel. Other arch decorations play off the belief in Christ as the "Light of the World", pointed to by Saints Peter and Paul, St. John the Evangelist, and the Virgin Mary.