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Abstract: The essay studies the events surrounding the Confraternita del Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum in the Modern Era. As municipal power declined in favour of the Pope’s authority one if its expressions, the fraternitas, had to elaborate new strategies to retain at least part of its prestige. A central element was the cult of memory, as can be seen in the writings of historical erudition of Benedetto Millini (1666) and Giovanni Marangoni (1747) that draw on and perpetuate the testimonies contained in the confraternity records. Even the procession on the day of Ferragosto, which was sponsored by the confraternity, in the fifteenth century took on an increasingly antiquarian character, thus attributing a supposed continuity with antique Rome to typically medieval phenomenon. It was in this context that a cycle of frescoes was executed in 1614 to decorate the congregation's hall in the old hospital of San Giovanni in Laterano. The detail with which the different stages of the Ferragosto procession were depicted in the frescoes can be seen as an unsuccesful attempt to restore life to a ceremony which was once a symbol of Roman municipal society.