For the Italian "comune", see Sant'Agostino, Emilia–Romagna.

Sant'Agostino is a church in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Italy, not far from Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona is a city square in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the Stadium of Domitian, built in 1st century AD, and follows the form of the open space of the stadium. The ancient Romans came there to watch the agones , and hence it was known as 'Circus Agonalis'...

. It is one of the first Roman churches built during the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

. The construction was funded by Guillaume d'Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen

Archbishop of Rouen

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Rouen is an Archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. As one of the fifteen Archbishops of France, the ecclesiastical province of the archdiocese comprises the majority of Normandy....

 and Papal Chancellor. The façade was built in 1483 by Giacomo di Pietrasanta, using marble

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

 taken from the Colosseum

Colosseum

The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...

. It is a fine, plain work of the early Renaissance style.

The most famous work of art presently in the church is the Madonna di Loreto

Madonna di Loreto (Caravaggio)

The Madonna of Loreto is a famous painting by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio, located in the Cavalletti Chapel of the church of Sant'Agostino, near the Piazza Navona in Rome...

, an important Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 painting by Caravaggio

Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

. The church also contains a Guercino canvas of Saints Augustine, John the Evangelist and Jerome; a fresco

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

 of the Prophet Isaiah by Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

; and the statues of the Virgin and Child, by Andrea Sansovino

Andrea Sansovino

Andrea dal Monte Sansovino or Andrea Contucci del Monte San Savino was an Italian sculptor active during the High Renaissance...

 and of the Madonna del Parto (Our Lady of Childbirth) by his pupil, Jacopo Sansovino

Jacopo Sansovino

Jacopo d'Antonio Sansovino was an Italian sculptor and architect, known best for his works around the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Andrea Palladio, in the Preface to his Quattro Libri was of the opinion that Sansovino's Biblioteca Marciana was the best building erected since Antiquity...

. The latter sculpture is reputed by tradition to work miracles and was, according to a legend, based on an ancient statue of Agrippina

Agrippina the Younger

Julia Agrippina, most commonly referred to as Agrippina Minor or Agrippina the Younger, and after 50 known as Julia Augusta Agrippina was a Roman Empress and one of the more prominent women in the Julio-Claudian dynasty...

 holding Nero

Nero

Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....

 in her arms. In 1616, the 17th-century Baroque artist Giovanni Lanfranco

Giovanni Lanfranco

Giovanni Lanfranco was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.-Biography:Giovanni Gaspare Lanfranco was born in Parma, the third son of Stefano and Cornelia Lanfranchi, and was placed as a page in the household of Count Orazio Scotti...

 decorated the Buongiovanni Chapel (in the left transept) with three canvasses and a ceiling fresco of the Assumption

Assumption of Mary

According to the belief of Christians of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and parts of the Anglican Communion and Continuing Anglicanism, the Assumption of Mary was the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her life...

. The church also houses Melchiorre Caffà

Melchiorre Caffà

Melchiorre Cafà was a sculptor from Malta. Cafà began a promising career in Baroque Rome but this was cut short by his premature death following a work accident.- Biography :...

's sculpture "St. Thomas of Villanova Distributing Alms", completed by his mentor Ercole Ferrata

Ercole Ferrata

Ercole Ferrata was an Italian sculptor of the Roman Baroque.-Biography:A native of Pellio Inferiore, near Como, Ferrata initially apprenticed with Alessandro Algardi, and became one of his prime assistants...

. Pietro Bracci

Pietro Bracci

Pietro Bracci was an Italian sculptor working in the Late Baroque manner.-Biography:He was born in Rome and became a student of Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari and Camillo Rusconi...

 designed and sculpted the polychromatic tomb of Cardinal Giuseppe Renato Imperiali (1741).

The church contains the tomb of Saint Monica

Monica of Hippo

Saint Monica is a Christian saint and the mother of Augustine of Hippo, who wrote extensively of her virtues and his life with her in his Confessions.-Life:...

, mother of Saint Augustine

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...

, and that of Fiammetta

Fiammetta

Fiammetta, Fiametta — pseudonym of Giovanni Boccaccio's beloved and muse, her real name may have been Maria d’Aquino.-Boccaccio's works with her name:* The Filocolo* Teseida* Il Filostrato* Ninfale d'Ameto...

, lover of Cesare Borgia

Cesare Borgia

Cesare Borgia , Duke of Valentinois, was an Italian condottiero, nobleman, politician, and cardinal. He was the son of Pope Alexander VI and his long-term mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei. He was the brother of Lucrezia Borgia; Giovanni Borgia , Duke of Gandia; and Gioffre Borgia , Prince of Squillace...

 and a famous cortigiana

Courtesan

A courtesan was originally a female courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...

.

Sant'Agostino was once noted for the presence of a number of courtesans and prostitutes in its congregation.

The Titulus S. Augustini is held by Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard since 2006. Furthermore, it is the station church of the first Saturday in Lent

Lent

In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...

.