This was already a place of worship in the 3rd century, when Christians would meet in what was then the home of a Roman named Equitius. In the 4th century, after Christianity was legalised, a church was constructed on the site, and later rebuilt in the 6th and 9th centuries. It was then completely transformed by Filippo Gagliardi in the 1650s.
The church is of particular interest for Gagliardi’s frescoes showing the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano before it was rebuilt in the mid-17th century and St Peter’s Basilica before it assumed its present 16th-century look. Remnants of the more distant past include the ancient Corinthian columns dividing the nave and aisles.