A must for opera fans, this towering 17th-century church is where Giacomo Puccini set the first act of Tosca . Its most obvious feature is Carlo Maderno’s soaring dome, the highest in Rome after St Peter’s, but its cavernous baroque interior reveals a wonderful series of frescoes by Matteo Preti and Domenichino, and, in the dome, Lanfranco's heady depiction of the Gloria del Paradiso (Glory of Paradise; 1625-28) .
Competition between the artists working on the church was fierce and rumour has it that Domenichino once took a saw to Lanfranco’s scaffolding, almost killing him in the process.
