The practice of early Roman Christians of visiting the tombs of the martyrs became the Lenten “statio” of processing and gathering at a different church each day. This gives us the name “Stational church”

— Feria IV post Dominican Secundan in Quadragesima — Statio ad S. Caeciliam —

In 822, the relics of Saint Cecilia were moved from where she lay in the Catacombs to this Church.

A chapel on the Epistle side of the Church is the location (or built over the location) where one of the attempts at the martyrdom of Cecilia took place, the attempt to suffocate her in the bathhouse. The husband of Saint Cecilia, a Roman soldier, converted and was martyred, as well, (Saint Valerian).

It was in 1599 that her tomb was re-opened. The artist, Stefano Maderno, attested to having found the Saint in this same position depicted, incorrupt and with coagulated blood.