Editing Basilica di Santo Stefano Protomartire a Via Latina

On the far side of the far right hand corner of the church, and abutting the apse, was evidence of what is taken to have been a baptistery on a square plan, although remains only of the left hand side wall were traced (the church wall at the front was party).

The actual walls of the church were built in a style known as ''opus listatum, ''which involves laying bricks and ''tufo ''stone blocks in alternate layers. It would have given the exterior of the church an attractive red-and-white striped effect. However, bear in mind that the high exterior walls now extant were substantially heightened in the 19th century. You can see original material above ground in the right hand side wall.

The narthex had an open portal occupying its whole width, with six columns. It incorporated three ancient walls running closely parallel, the outer two belonging perhaps to a courtyard or portico of the earlier villa and the inner one to an outbuilding. The outermost wall provided the base for the entrance colonnade, the innermost one the actual façade of the nave and the middle one (rather oddly) divided the narthex into two narrow zones. This middle wall seems to have had no door (if the archaeological plan was accurate), so presumably what was found were the foundations of a wall demolished when the church was built.

The arcades had eight columns on either side, and four engaged piers at the ends. Broken columns have been re-erected, together with four others intact and re-united with their Corinthian capitals. It is known that there were arcades, as stones from the arches were found. Unfortunately, there is no full confidence that the various column bases are in the same places as when excavated -the archaeologists removed them temporarily to facilitate excavation.

The apse contains the surviving remains of the original brick altar, which contains a small compartment. This was almost certainly a reliquary, as it has two peep-holes or ''fenestellae confessionis. ''One is at the front, and one at the back.

The sanctuary was partly enclosed by a screen wall with a central entrance which ran across the mouth of the apse. In front of this was a choir enclosure or ''schola cantorum'', occupying the last three and a half bays of the central nave and taking slightly over a third of its width. Traces of marble flooring were found in its excavation. Also, two screen walls ran from the side walls to the seventh column in each arcade and it is not clear what these were for.

Before the church was built, the site of the ''schola cantorum ''was occupied by a mausoleum with a portico, a transverse rectangular antechamber and a square main chamber with an apse. This structure was carefully buried, and provided with stairs from the ''schola. ''It is obvious that the intention was to enshrine something here, and the reasonable guess would be something to do with St Stephen such as relics of his.