So we have arrived in the courtyard of Basilica di San Clemente in Rome. We have traveled so far, and our trip is drawing to a close. It is appropriate, though, that the trip ends here. We are in a pilgrimage city and this is a pilgrimage church, similar in design, scale, and feel to the old Saint Peter’s (long since lost to the Counter-Reformation). This space is one for calm reflection after an arduous but fulfilling journey.

“Nobis post hoc exsilium,” says the medieval Salve Regina, “All will be resolved after this exile.” It was sung in the monasteries at the end of compline, the last hymn of the day. It is sung by the architecture of this place, by the doves that tumble through shadow and sun, by the aqueduct-fed fountain.

There is more to see here. The twelfth-century mosaic in the apse, the exquisite Cosmatesque floor. Below that, a fourth-century church of the furtive early years of Christianity; further below, at the Roman street level, hides Mithraeum and all its mysteries. But none of that is important. Not now. All that matters the courtyard, and the respite it provides to those whose journeys out of exile finish upon these stones.