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The church was built in the 13th century during the reign of Pope Honorius III (1217-24). Parts of the previous building by Pelagius II (579-590), erected close to the grave of the martyred St Lawrence, were integrated into the church, including the presbytery pictured here. St Lawrence was the subject of special veneration, and this basilica numbered among the Sette Chiese (Seven Churches), the most important of Rome's sacred Christian sites.
Today the original basilica commissioned by Pelagius forms the presbytery of the existing thirteenth-century church. Although the old apse does not survive, the mosaic of the vault above it does. On what is now the chancel arch, it includes Pelagius as donor, holding a model of the church and presented to Christ by St Lawrence.
The mosaic depicts Christ enthroned on a sphere between the Apostles Peter and Paul. The central group is approached from the right by St s Stephen and Hippolytus and from the left by St Lawrence and the patron, Pelagius. This mosaic was no longer visible from the original nave after the early thirteenth century, when Honorius III extended the basilica and reversed the orientation of the church.
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