It is dedicated to the Roman martyr Saint Cecilia (early 3rd century AD) and serves as the conventual church for the adjacent abbey of Benedictine nuns.

The first church on this site was founded probably in the 3rd century, by Pope Urban I; it was devoted to the young Roman woman Cecilia, martyred it is said under Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (A.D. 222–235).

[3] The church has a façade built in 1725 by Ferdinando Fuga, which incloses a courtyard decorated with ancient mosaics, columns and a cantharus (water vessel).

Among the artifacts remaining from the 13th century edifice are a mural painting depicting the Last Judgment (1289–93) by Pietro Cavallini in the choir of the nuns, and the ciborium (1293) in the presbytery by Arnolfo di Cambio which is surrounded by four marble columns white and black, decorated with statuettes of angels, saints, prophets, and evangelists.

The frescoes were plastered over in a remodeling under Cardinal Francesco Acquaviva in 1724, which included building an enclosed choir, the floor of which cuts off part of the Last Judgement.

Under the ciborium of Arnolfo di Cambio that shelters the main altar is a glass case enclosing the white marble sculpture of St. Cecilia (1600) by the late-Renaissance sculptor Stefano Maderno.

It is striking because it precedes by decades the similar high-Baroque sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (for example, his Blessed Ludovica Albertoni) and Melchiorre Cafà (Santa Rosa de Lima).