The convent attached to this church was the abode of Tasso during his first visit to Rome.
Behind Sta. Francesca Romana, and facing the Coliseum, are the remains generally known as the _Temple of Venus and Rome_, also called Templum Urbis (now sometimes called by objectors the "Portico of Livia"), which, if this name is the correct one, was originally planned by the Emperor Hadrian to rival the Forum of Trajan, erected by the architect Apollodorus. It was built upon a site previously occupied by the atrium of Nero's Golden House. Little remains standing except a cella facing the Coliseum, and another in the cloisters of the adjoining convent (these, perhaps, being restorations by Maxentius, _c._ 307, after a fire had destroyed most of the building of Hadrian), but the surrounding grassy height is positively littered with fragments of the grey granite columns which once formed the grand portico (400 by 200 feet) of the building. A large mass of Corinthian cornice remains near the cella facing the Coliseum. This was the last pagan temple which remained in use in Rome.[65] It was only closed by Theodosius in 391, and remained entire till 625, when Pope Honorius carried off the bronze tiles of its roof to St. Peter's.
"Ac sacram resonare viam mugitibus, ante Delubrum Romæ; colitur nam sanguine et ipsa More deæ, nomenque loci, ceu numen, habetur. Atque Urbis, Venerisque pari se culmine tollunt Templa, simul geminis adolentur thura deabus."
"When about to construct his magnificent temple of Venus and Rome, Hadrian produced a design of his own and showed it with proud satisfaction to the architect Apollodorus. The creator of the Trajan column remarked with a sneer that the deities, if they rose from their seats, must thrust their heads through the ceiling. The emperor, we are assured, could not forgive this banter; but we can hardly take to the letter the statement that he put his critic to death for it."--_Merivale_, ch. lxvi.
In front of this temple stood the bronze statue of Cloelia, mentioned by Livy and Seneca, and (till the sixth century) the bronze elephants mentioned by Cassiodorus. Nearer the Coliseum may still be seen the remains of the foundation prepared by Hadrian for the _Colossal Statue of Nero_, executed in bronze by Zenodorus. This statue was twice moved, first by Vespasian, in A.D. 75, that it might face the chief entrance of his amphitheatre,[66] whose plan had been already laid out. At the same time--though it was a striking likeness of Nero--its head was surrounded with rays that it might represent Apollo. In its second position it is described by Martial: