The medieval church depicted here by the architectural painter Carl Werner cannot be identified. It has been left to go to ruin: rainwater has collected in a puddle and the frescoes are peeling off the walls. Since the Pontine marshes south-east of Rome were feared as a source of malaria, people left the area in increasing numbers. By about 1900 it was almost completely deserted and remained so until drained in the 1930s.