Oratory of San Silvestro

The  hall is entered by ringing for the nuns, who are sworn to remain secluded inside. The sisters pass the key out to the visitors through a trapdoor (once used for receiving abandoned babies). The hall was created in 1246 under Cardinal Srefano Normandis and painted two years later by byzantine artists. The interior, with its beautiful cosmatesque floor, is frescoed on its counterfacade with a depiction of the Final Judgement  and there is a small presbytery and altar. On the walls of the hall is the masterpiece Stories of Constantine and Pope Sylvester which depicts the conversion of the first christian Emperor, Constantine, who, according to tradition, was brought closer to the new religion by Pope Sylvester, who then baptized him.