Among the previous Cardinal Priests are Pope Clement XIV, whose tomb by Canova is in the basilica, and Henry Benedict Stuart.

The first church dedicated to the Holy Apostles was one built under Pope Julius I in the mid-fourth century near Trajan's Forum.

Its successor was built by Pope Pelagius I, on the present site, to celebrate the victory of Narses over the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Taginae in 552.

Opposite is the monument of the Venetian engraver Giovanni Volpato sculpted and erected by his friend and countryman Antonio Canova.

It consists of a large bas-relief, representing "Friendship in Mourning" in the form of a woman weeping before the bust of the deceased Volpato.

Next to a pier of the nave on the right-hand side, near the first chapel, is enshrined the heart of Maria Klementyna Sobieska, wife of the Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart.

An inscription explains that Pope Stephen IV walked barefoot in 886 from the catacombs to the church carrying the relics on his shoulders.

About 1472, Melozzo da Forlì was commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Riario to paint the vault of the apse, his subject being the Ascension of Christ.

[8] According to Giorgio Vasari, "the figure of Christ is so admirably foreshortened as to appear to pierce the vault; and in the same manner the angels are seen sweeping through the field of air in two opposite directions.

Upon the death of James Francis Edward Stuart in 1766, his body lay in state here before he was buried with his wife at St. Peter's Basilica.

[10] List of the cardinal titulars of the church [11][12][13][14] Media related to Basilica dei Santi Apostoli (Rome) at Wikimedia Commons