File:Palimpsest Fresco.jpg

English: The palimpsest fresco to the right of the apse is the most important and famous work of art in the church. To view it, binoculars are useful. There are three discernible figurative layers, in order of age (the restorers found trace evidence of a fourth fresco scheme, which is undateable):

Our Lady, Queen. This was painted very shortly after 554, when the Empire returned to Rome, and displays an accomplished late Classical style (compare the apse mosaic at Santa Pudenziana). Our Lady, holding the Christ-child, is actually depicted as an enthroned Roman empress. She is dressed in purple, with a stole encrusted with enormous pearls and gems and with a matching crown. The throne is also thus encrusted, with a scarlet cushion. She is attended by two women in white robes fringed in gold; the one on the left is destroyed, and the right hand one is offering something in a bowl. Compare this fresco with the mosaic depiction of Empress Theodora at San Vitale, Ravenna and with a similar fresco in the underground basilica of San Clemente.

Annunciation. It is thought that this was painted after the church was fitted out. You can see much of the angel above the attendant just mentioned, and the lucky survival of a fragment of Our Lady's face floats to the top right of the Queen's halo.

St Gregory Nazianzen. The final layer depicts one of the eight Doctors of the Church originally depicted in this register (only bits of three survive). They are on a blue background, and the mid-8th century style is now Byzantine. St Gregory's face is just to the right of the Queen's, and he has a Greek label "St Gregory the Theologian" which is is name in the East. (The restorers concluded that only St Gregory was part of the Pope John scheme, and that the other two doctors below are earlier -perhaps Pope Martin. If so, then the fresco seems to have been overpainted with the same theme.)