Santa Maria del Popolo

One church, two masterpieces. The Cerasi Chapel holds the Conversion of St Paul and the Crucifixion of St Peter, painted by Caravaggio in 1601 and hung facing one another. The Chigi Chapel, designed by Raphael for the banker Agostino Chigi, has a mosaic dome and statues completed later by Bernini.

Did you know: In the Conversion of St Paul the protagonist is on the ground and takes up little room: almost half the picture is the horse, seen from below. It was so irreverent a choice that the patron rejected the first version.

✦ The legend: The church was founded in 1099 to rid the place of demons. Here, legend says, Nero was buried, and from the walnut tree grown over his tomb flocks of black crows flew out each night to torment travellers. Pope Paschal II had the tree cut down, the ashes scattered in the Tiber and a chapel built: the crows vanished.