A newly restored painting in the sixth-century church of Santa Maria Antiqua, one of the earliest surviving Christian monuments in Rome. Wall paintings and artefacts have been restored by the Italian state and the World Monuments Fund. The church was adapted from an Imperial Roman building dating from the reign of Domitian in the first century. The wall paintings, spanning a period from the sixth to the late-eighth centuries, are considered to be of the utmost importance to understanding the development of Early Medieval and Byzantine art. The chapel was abandoned in the ninth century; it was rediscovered in 1900, and provided storage for Roman artefacts