CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Early Roman Christian Cemeteries (original) (raw)
This article treats briefly of the individual catacomb cemeteries in the vicinity of Rome. For general information on the Roman catacombs, see ROMAN CATACOMBS. This summary account of the individual catacombs will follow the order of the great Roman roads, along which were usually located the Christian cemeteries.
The Vatican Cemetery
The first popes were buried near the body of St. Peter, "in Vaticano" "juxta corpus beati Petri". St. Anacletus, the second successor of St. Peter raised over the body of the Apostle a memoria, or small chapel (Lib. Pontif., ed. Duchesne, I, 125). This narrow site was the burial-place of the popes to Zephyrinus (d. 217), with whom began the series of papal burials in the cemetery of St. Callistus (Barnes, The Tomb of St. Peter, London, 1900). Among the epitaphs discovered near the tomb of St. Peter are two celebrated ones, dogmatic in content, that of Livia Primitiva, now in the Louvre, and that known as the Ichthys Zonton (Fish of the Living), symbolic of the Eucharist. In the sixteenth century a marble fragment showing the word Linus was found on this site, not improbably from the epitaph of the first successor of St. Peter. The building of two basilicas, the Old St. Peter's in the fourth and the New St. Peter's in the sixteenth century, easily explains the disappearance of the early papal monuments "in Vaticano". The cemetery was probably above ground. From 258 to 260 (de Waal, Marucchi) the bodies of the Apostles reposed in the catacomb of St. Sebastian on the Via Appia, in a cubiculum or chapel (the Platonia), yet extant, whither they were taken from their original resting-places for some not sufficiently clear reason. In the fifth century members of the imperial family found a resting-place in the vicinity of the Apostle's tomb. It was long a favourite burial-place; in 689 the Saxon king, Cedwalla, was laid to rest there, "ad cujus [sc. apostolorum principis] sacratissimum corpus a finibus tenae pio ductus amore venerat', says Bede (H.E., v, 7), who has preserved the valuable metrical epitaph put up by order of Pope Sergius ending with: "Hic depositus est Caedual, qui et Petrus, rex Saxonum," etc. The "Grotte Vecchie" and the "Grotte Nuove", or subterraneous chapels and galleries in the vicinity of the tomb of St. Peter, cover the site of this ancient Christian cemetery; in them lie buried also a number of popes; St. Gregory I, Boniface VIII, Nicholas V, Alexander VI. The rich sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, important for early Christian symbolism, is in the "Grotte Nuove" [de Waal, Der Sarkophag des Junius Bassus in den Grotten von St. Petrus, Rome, 1900; Dufresne, Les Cryptes vaticanes, Rome, 1900; Dionisis (edd. Sarti and Settele), Sacrar. Vaticanae basilicae cryptarum monumenta, Rome, 1828-40]
Via Aurelia — Beyond the Porta Cavallegieri
1. Cemetery of St. Pancratius. A very youthful martyr, probably of the persecution of Diocletian. His body was never removed to a city church as were so many others, hence the cemetery remained open in the Middle Ages. Its galleries have suffered a complete devastation, last of all during the French Revolution, when the relics of the martyrs were dispersed.
2. Cemetery of Sts. Processus and Martinianus, the jailers of St. Peter in the Mamertine Prison, converted by him, and soon after his death beheaded on the Aurelian Way. The pious matron Lucina buried their bodies on her own property. The cemetery, it is believed, extends beneath the Villa Pamfili, and perhaps beyond under the Vigna Pellegrini. The accessible galleries exhibit a complete devastation, also very large loculi, an indication of remote Christian antiquity. In the fourth-century overground basilica St. Gregory preached his sermon "Ad. SS. martyrum corpora consistimus, fratres" etc. (P.L. LXXVI, 1237). Paschal I transported the bodies of the two saints to a chapel in the Vatican. After the twelfth century the cemetery was totally forgotten.
3. Cemetery of the "Duo Felices". The origin of the name is obscure, though connected somehow with Felix II (355-58) and Felix I (269-74); the latter, however, was certainly buried in the papal crypt in St. Callistus.
4. Cemetery of Calepodius, a very ruinous catacomb under the Vigna Lamperini, opposite the "Casale, di S. Pio V", or about the third milestone. Calepodius was a priest martyred in a popular outbreak, and buried here by Pope St. Callistus. Later the pope's own body was interred in the same cemetery, not in the one that bears his name. St. Julius I (337-52) was buried there, and a little oratory long preserved the memory of St. Callistus. His body was eventually transferred to Santa Maria in Trastevere, where it now lies.
Via Portuensis — The road leading to "portus" or porto, the new "havre" of Rome
5. Cemetery of St. Pontianus, to the right beneath Monte Verde. It is so called, not from Pope Pontianus (230-35) but from a wealthy Christian of the same name mentioned in the Acts of Callistus, and whose house seems to have been the original nucleus of the present Sta Maria in Trastevere, the site once claimed by the cauponarii under Alexander Severus, but adjudged by that emperor to the Christians. It was discovered by Bosio in 1618. Many famous martyrs were buried there, among them Sts. Abdon and Sennen, noble Persians who suffered martyrdom at Rome, it is thought in 257. In an overground fourth-century basilica were deposited the bodies of two popes, Anastasius I (d. 405) and Innocent I (d. 417). Byzantine frescoes of the sixth century attract attention, also the "historic chapel" of Sts. Abdon and Sennen, whose bodies were removed to the basilica magna above ground about 640, finally in 820 to the city basilica of St. Mark, when the cemetery was abandoned.
6. Cemetery of St. Felix, indicated in several "Itineraria" as located on the Via Portuensis, not far from the cemetery of Pontianus, but not yet found; also known as "ad insalsatos" probably a corruption (Marucche) of "ad infulatos", in reference to the Persian tiara of Sts. Abdon and Sennan.
7. Cemetery of Generosa. Generosa was a Roman lady who buried on her property the bodies of the martyrs Simplicius, Faustinus, and Beatrix, transferred later (683) to St. Bibiana, in the city. The cemetery, a poor rural one, is now famous for important inscriptions of the "Fratres Arvales" found there between 1858 and 1874. (Henzen, Acta fratrum Arvalium quae supersunt, Berlin, 1874.) The cemetery probably grew up (Marucchi) from a neighbouring quarry whence later it took in the sacred wood of the ancient pagan brotherhood of "Arvales", who seem to have died off or removed elsewhere about the middle of the third century. An ancient basilica, built by St. Damasus, was also unearthed when the aforesaid inscriptions were discovered. As in most catacombs an overground cemetery grew up, which was used until the eighth century.
Via Ostiensis
8. Tomb of St. Paul. The body of St. Paul was buried on the Ostian Way, near the place of his martyrdom (ad Aquas Salvias) on the property (in proedio) of Lucina, a Christian matron. St. Anacletus, second successor of St. Peter, built a small memoria or chapel on the site, and about 200 the Roman priest Caius refers to it (Eusebius, Church History II.25) as still standing. From 258 to 260 the body of St. Paul with that of St. Peter lay in the "Platonia" of St. Sebastian; in the latter year, probably, it was returned to its original resting-place. In the meantime a cemetery had been growing in the aforesaid proedium of Lucina. Constantine replaced the little oratory of Anacletus with a great basilica. Under Gregory XVI, the sarcophagus of St. Paul was discovered, but not opened. Its fourth-century inscription bears the words PAULO APOST MART (Paul, Apostle and Martyr). The museum of the modern basilica contains some very ancient epitaphs from the aforesaid cemetery of Lucina, antedating the basilica; two of them bear dates of 107 and 111. After these we must come down to 217, before finding any consular date on a Christian epitaph. Dom Cornelio Villani proposed (1905) to publish all the ancient Christian epitaphs found here.
9. Cemetery of Commodilla, at a little distance from that of Lucina. Commodilla is an unknown Christian matron, on whose property were buried Felix and Adauctus, martyrs of the persecution of Diocletian. This cemetery, once extensive, is now difficult of access, and its frescoes and inscriptions have disappeared almost entirely. The open loculi are an evidence of the pillage to which such cemeteries were once subject.
10. Tomb of St. Timothy. Timothy was possibly a priest of Antioch, martyred at Rome under Diocletian, and buried by the pious matron Theona in her garden, not far from the body of St. Paul, "ut Paulo apostolo ut quondam Timotheus adhaereret", says the martyrology (22 May). De Rossi identifies with this tomb a small cemetery discovered by him (1872) in the Vigna Salviucci to the left of the Ostian Way, and opposite the apse of St. Paul.
11. Cemetery of St. Thecla, discovered by Armellini in 1870, named from some unknown Roman Thecla, and certainly anterior to Constantine; an epitaph of Aurelia Agape has an early Christian savour and is cut on the back of a pagan epitaph of the time of Claudius Gothicus (268-70).
12. Cemetery of Aquæ Salviæ. There was certainly a cemetery in early Christian times on or near the site of the decapitation of St. Paul (now Tre Fontane); it probably bore the name of St. Zeno. Farther on was the cemetery of St. Cyriacus, mentioned in the "Mirabilia Urbis Romae" and seen by Bosio at the end of the sixteenth century. Its exact site is no longer known. Ostia itself, at the end of the road, had a remarkable Christian cemetery.
Via Ardeatina — To the right of the Appian way; the ancient Porta Ardeatina between the churches of St. Sabas and St. Balbina was destroyed in the sixteenth century to make way for the fortifications of Sangallo
13. Cemetery of St. Domitilla (Tor Marancia), the largest of all the Roman catacombs known to Bosio, who thought it a part of Saint Callistus, and nearly perished (1593) in its depths. It is the ancestral burial-place of Flavia Domitilla, wife of the consul Flavius Clemens (95). She was exiled by Domitian for her Christian Faith to the island of Pontia; her faithful servants Nereus and Achilleus, said to have been baptized by St. Peter, followed her into exile, were beheaded at Terracina, and their bodies brought back to the family sepulchre of their mistress. In 1873 De Rossi discovered the important ruins of the large three-nave basilica erected here between 390 and 395 in honour of these saints and of St. Petronilla, whose body was transferred thence to St. Peter's in the eighth century. At an earlier date (1865) he had the good fortune to discover, close to the highway, the primitive entrance to the cemetery, one of the most ancient Christian monuments. It is a spacious room or gallery, with four or five separate niches for as many sarcophagi, the walls finished in fine stucco, with classical decorations. On either side are similar edifices, a little later in date, but evidently used by the guardian of the monument and for the celebration of the Christian agapae or love-feasts. The sarcophagi, whole or fragmentary, the brick tiles, and the names on the epitaphs (Claudii, Flavii, Ulpii, Aurelii) show that the hypogoeum or "vestibule of the Flavians", as it is called, belongs to the early part of the second century. De Rossi believed it the tomb of the martyred consul, Flavius Clemens (95). The site has suffered from the vandalism and greed of earlier visitors, but the frescoes yet extant exhibit great beauty of execution and a rich variety of Christian symbolism. "We are quite sure", say Northcote and Brownlow (I, 126-7), "that we have been here brought face to face with one of the earliest specimens of Christian subterranean burial in Rome; and it shows us the sense of liberty and security under which it was executed." Not far away was discovered in 1875 the famous epitaph of "Flavius Sabinus and his sister Titiana", possibly the children of Flavius Sabinus, brother of the Emperor Vespasian, mentioned by Tacitus (Hist., III, 65) as a mild, but indolent and austere man, terms that to some seem to make him out a Christian and therefore the origin of the new religion among the Flavii. Quite near also are the touching third-century inscriptions of M. Antonius Restutus "sibi it suis fidentibus in Domino", i.e. for himself and his own who trust in God; likewise the very ancient and fine crypt of Ampliatus, whom De Rossi identifies with the Ampliatus of Romans 16:8. Not to speak of numerous dogmatic epitaphs, the cemetery of Domitilla is famous for a beautiful third-century Adoration of the Magi, here four in number, and for the venerable second-century medallion of Sts. Peter and Paul, the oldest known monument of Christian portraiture, and a signal proof of their simultaneous presence at Rome and their religious authority. It was also, according to De Rossi, the burial-place of Sts. Marcus and Marcellianus, and the family sepulchre of St. Damasus, whose Mother (Laurentia) and sister (Irene) were buried there, likewise himself. The site was discovered by Wilpert, in 1902.
Via Appia
14. Cemetery of St. Callistus, one of the oldest underground burial-places of the Roman Christians. As a public Christian cemetery it dates from the beginning of the third century. The original nucleus from which it developed was the famous crypt of Lucina, a private Christian burial-place from the end of the first century, very probably the family sepulchre of the Caecilii and other closely related Roman families. From there grew, during the third century, the vast system of galleries and cubicula that then took and has since kept the name of Coemeterium Callisti; early in the third century it was known as The Cemetery (to koimeterion) par excellence, and owed its new name, not to the burial there of Pope Callistus (for he was buried in the cemetery of Calepodius), but to his zeal in developing and perfecting the original areoe, or private Roman sepulchral plots, that in his time had come to be the first landed property ever possessed by the Catholic Church. The chief interest of this cemetery lies in the so-called Papal Crypt, in whose large loculi were buried the popes from St. Zephyrinus (d. 218) to St. Eutychianus (d. 283). Of the fourteen epitaphs it once contained there remain but five, more or less fragmentary: Anterus, Fabian, Lucius, Eutychianus, Urban? (Marucchi, II, 138-144). In the fourth century Pope St. Damasus ornamented richly this venerable chapel, and put up there two epitaphs in honour of the numerous martyrs buried in St. Callistus, among them several of his predecessors. One of these epitaphs was found in situ, but broken in minute fragments. Its restoration by De Rossi is a masterly specimen of his ingenious epigraphic erudition; the closing lines are now celebrated:
Hic fateor Damasus volui mea condere membra
Sed cineres timui sanctos vexare piorum.(I, Damasus, wished to be buried here,
but I feared to offend the sacred remains of these pious ones).
For a view of the (near-by) countless graffiti or pious scratchings of medieval pilgrims (names, ejaculations) see Marucchi, "Eléments d'archéol. chrét.", II, 140-4. Popes St. Marcellinus and St. Marcellus (d. 304); d. 309) were buried in the cemetery of Priscilla (see below); on the other hand Popes St. Eusebius (d. 309) and St. Melchiades (d. 314) were buried in the cemetery of Callistus, but elsewhere (see below). The neighbouring very ancient crypt of St. Cecilia offers an interesting Byzantine (sixth-century) fresco of the saint, and in the niche whence her body was transferred (817) to the church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere, a recent copy of Stefano Maderno's famous statue of the saint as she was found when her tomb was opened in 1599. In the same cemetery, and close by, separated only by a short gallery, is a series of six chambers known as the "Sacramental Chapels" because of the valuable frescoes that exhibit the belief of the early Roman Christians in the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, and are at the same time precious jewels of early Christian art. Pope St. Eusebius, as said, was buried in this cemetery, in the gallery called after him the crypt of St. Eusebius, and in which once reposed quite close to him another martyr pope, St. Caius (d. 296). In the sepulchral chapel of the former may still be seen the epitaph put up by Damasus, and from which monument alone we learn of an unhappy schism that then devastated the Roman Church. On either side are sculptured perpendicularly the words: "Furius Dionysius Philocalus, Damasis pappæ cultor atque amator", i.e. the name of the pope's famous calligrapher, also his friend and admirer. At some distance lies the crypt of Lucina, in which was once buried Pope St. Cornelius. Lucina is identified by De Rossi with the famous Pomponia Graecina of Tacitus (Annales, XIII, 32); the crypt, therefore, is of Apostolic origin, an opinion confirmed by the classical character of its symbolic frescoes and the simplicity of its epitaphs; its Eucharistic frescoes are very ancient and quite important from a doctrinal standpoint. The body of St. Cornelius, martyred at Centumcellae (Civitavecchia) was brought hither and long remained an object of pious veneration, until in the ninth century it was transferred to Santa Maria in Trastevere. His epitaph (the only Latin papal epitaph of the third century) is still in place: "Cornelius Martyr Ep[iscopus]", i.e. Cornelius, martyr and bishop.
15. Cemetery of St. Sebastian. This cemetery, from two to three miles out of Rome, was known through the Middle Ages as Coemeterium ad Catacumbas, whence the term catacomb, a word seemingly of uncertain origin (Northcote and Brownlow, I, 262-63). The chief importance of this cemetery now lies in the fact that here were deposited (258) for a time the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul, taken respectively from their Vatican and Ostian repositories under somewhat obscure circumstances; they were restored in 260. The chapel in which they were thus temporarily placed (see Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, Introd., I, civ-cvii, and i, 212) beneath the church of St. Sebastian, is still accessible. Close by arose in time the cemetery known as "ad Catacumbas" or "in Catacumbas", a local indication that was eventually extended to all similar Christian cemeteries. St. Philip Neri loved to visit the crypts of St. Sebastian; an inscription in one of them recalls his veneration of these holy places. From the fourth century on, an overground cemetery was formed around the Basilica Apostolorum that was then built and which included the Platonia or aforesaid mortuary chapel of the Apostles. The rich mausolea of this cemetery added to the dignity of the underground burial-place that was, like the others of its kind, no longer used for burials after 410. The body of St. Sebastian, buried there "apud vestigia apostolorum", is still in the church, but in a modern chapel. It was only after the eighth century that the original fourth-century name of Basilica Apostolorum gave way to that of St. Sebastian.
16. Cemetery of Prætextatus, dates from the second century, when the body of St. Januarius, eldest son of St. Felicitas, was buried there (c. 162). The chapel of that saint exhibits a fine Damasan epitaph and elegant symbolical frescoes representing the seasons, with birds, genii, etc. Among the famous martyrs buried in this cemetery were Felicissimus and Agapitus, deacons of Pope Sixtus II and colleagues of St. Laurence, put to death under Valerian in 258, also St. Urbanus, a bishop and confessor mentioned in the Acts of St. Cecilia. Certain portions of this cemetery, hitherto inaccessible by reason of the proprietor's unwillingness, are said to offer traces of great antiquity, and perhaps contain historic chapels or tombs of much importance.
Via Latina
The cemeteries on this road, like those on the Aurelian Way, have never been regularly explored, and their galleries are at present quite choked or dilapidated. Marucchi (II, 229) distinguishes three groups of ancient Christian monuments that appear in the afore-mentioned "Itineraria"; the church of Sts. Gordian and Epimachus; the basilica of Tertullinus, and the church of St. Eugenia with the cemetery of Apronianus, also a large basilica dedicated by St. Leo I to St. Stephen Protomartyr, discovered in 1857, in the heart of an ancient Roman villa, near the remarkable pagan tombs of the Valerii and Pancratii.
Via Labicana — Outside the Porta Maggiore
17. Cemetery of St. Castulus, a martyr under Diocletian, and according to the Acts of St. Sebastian the husband of Irene, the pious matron to whose house was brought the body of the soldier-martyr. The cemetery was discovered by Fabretti in 1672 and reopened in 1864, when the railway to Civitavecchia was building, but was again closed because of the ruinous state of the corridors and crypts.
18. Cemetery of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, known also as ad duas lauros, ad Helenam from the neighbouring (ruined) mausoleum of St. Helena (Tor Pignattara), and sub Augusta, in comitatu, from a neighbouring villa of Emperor Constantine. St. Peter and St. Marcellinus suffered under Diocletian. They were honoured with a fine Damasan epitaph known to us from the early medieval epigraphic collections. Here also were buried St. Tiburtius, son of the city prefect, Chromatius, and the obscurely known group called the "Quattuor Coronati", four marble-cutters from the Danubian region. The splendid porphyry sarcophagus at the Vatican came from the mausoleum of St. Helena. In 826 the bodies of Peter and Marcellinus were stolen from the crypt and taken to Germany, where they now rest at Seligenstadt; the story is graphically told by Einhard (Mon. Germ. Hist., Script., XV, 39). Since 1896 excavations have been resumed here, and have yielded important results, among them the historic crypt of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus and a small chapel of St. Tiburtius. Wilpert discovered here and illustrated a number of important frescoes: Our Lord amid four saints, the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, the Good Shepherd, Oranti, and some miracles of Christ (Wilpert, Di un ciclo di rappresentanze cristologiche nel cimitero dei SS. Pietro e Marcellino, Rome, 1892). Elsewhere are scenes that represent the agape, or love-feast, of the primitive Christians, symbolic of paradise or of the Eucharist. There is also a noteworthy fresco of the Blessed Virgin with the Infant Jesus between two adoring Magi. This cemetery is said to have been more richly decorated with frescoes than any other except that of Domitilla.
Via Tiburtina
19. Cemetery of St. Cyriaca. According to ancient tradition, represented by the pilgrim-guides (itineraria), she was the widow who buried St. Laurence (martyred 6 Aug., 258) on her property "in agro Verano". In 1616 Bosio saw in this cemetery an altar, a chair, and an inscription, with a dedication to St. Laurence. The enlargement of the modern cemetery of San Lorenzo damaged considerably this venerable catacomb. Many important or interesting epitaphs have been found in this cemetery, among them those of a group of Christian virgins of the fourth and fifth centuries (De Rossi, Bullettino, 1863). In the fourth century Constantine built here a basilica over the tomb (ad corpus) of St. Laurence; here were buried Pope Zosimus (418), Sixtus III (440), and Hilary (468); in one of these three niches, later vacant, lie buried the remains of Pius IX. In 432 Sixtus III added another church (basilica major) facing the Via Tiburtina; it was not until 1218 that Honorius III united these churches and made the basilica of Constantine the Confessio of the earlier Sixtine basilica, on which occasion the presbyterium, or sanctuary, had to be elevated.
20. Cemetery of St. Hippolytus. On the left of the Via Tiburtina under the Vigna Gori (now Caetani). Considerable uncertainty reigns as to the identity of this Hippolytus, both in his Acts and in the relative verses of Prudentius; possibly, as Marucchi remarks, this confusion is as old as the time of St. Damasus and is reflected in his metrical epitaph, discovered by De Rossi in a St. Petersburg manuscript. According to this document Hippolytus was at first a follower of Novatian, about the middle of the third century, but returned to the Catholic Faith and died a martyr. The famous statue of Hippolytus, the Christian writer of the third century, made in 222, and now in the Lateran Museum, was found in the Vigna Gori in the sixteenth century; our martyr and the Christian scholar are doubtless identical. In 1882-83 a small subterranean basilica was discovered here with three naves and lighted by an air-shaft. According to the "Itinerary of Salzburg" this cemetery contained the body of the actor-martyr Genesius and the bodies of the martyrs Triphonia and Cyrilla, the (alleged) Christian wife and daughter of Emperor Decius, of whom nothing more is known.
Via Nomentana
21. Cemetery of St. Nicomedes, near the Porta Pia, in the Villa Patrizi, known to Bosio but rediscovered only in 1864. Nicomedes is said to have suffered martyrdom under Domitian and to have been buried by one of his disciples "in horto juxta muros". Very ancient masonry, Greek epitaphs, and other signs, indicate the great age of this small cemetery, that may reach back to Apostolic times.
22. Cemetery of St. Agnes. The body of St. Agnes, who suffered martyrdom probably under Valerian (253-60), was buried by her parents "in praediolo suo", i.e. on a small property they owned along the Nomentan Way. There was already in this place a private cemetery, which grew rapidly in size after the interment of the youthful martyr. The excavations carried on since 1901, at the expense of Cardinal Kopp, have revealed a great many fourth-to-sixth-century graves (formae) beneath the sanctuary of the basilica. The cemetery (three stories deep) is divided by archaeologists into three regions, the aforesaid primitive nucleus (third century), a neighbouring third-century area, and two fourth-century groups of corridors that connect the basilica of St. Agnes with the ancient round basilica of St. Constantia. It is not certain that the actual basilica of St. Agnes, built on a level with a second story of the catacomb, is identical with that built by Constantine; there is reason to suspect a reconstruction of the edifice towards the end of the fifth century. St. Damasus composed for the tomb of Agnes one of his finest epitaphs. Symmachus (498-514), and Honorius I (625-38), restored the basilica, if the former did not reconstruct it; to the latter we owe the fresco of St. Agnes between these two popes. In the sixteenth century, and also in the nineteenth (Pius IX, 1855), it was again restored; in 1901 (25 Nov.) new excavations laid bare the heavy silver sarcophagus in which St. Pius V had deposited the bodies of St. Agnes and St. Emerentiana. In the neighbouring Coemeteium majus (accessible from the cemetery of St. Agnes through an arenaria, or sand-pit) is the famous crypt or chapel of St. Emerentiana, opened up in 1875, at the expense of Monsignore Crostarosa, and identified by De Rossi with the Coemeterium Ostrianum, the site of very archaic Roman memories of St. Peter, a position now strongly disputed by his disciple Marucchi (see below, Cemetery of Priscilla). In the vicinity of the crypt of St. Emérentiana is an important arcosolium fresco representing the Blessed Virgin as an Orante, with the Infant Jesus before her. It belongs to the first half of the fourth century, and is said by Marucchi (II, 343) to be almost the latest catacomb fresco of Our Lady, a kind of hyphen between the primitive frescoes and the early Byzantine Madonnas; it seems at the same time a very early evidence of the adorational use of paintings in public worship (Le Bourgeios, Sainte Emerentienne, vierge et martyre, Paris, 1895).
23. Cemetery of St. Alexander, between four and five miles from Rome, and within the limits of an early Diocese of Ficulea. It is the burial-place of two martyrs, known as Alexander and Eventius. Whether this Alexander is the second-century pope and martyr (c. 105-15), as his legendary Acts indicate, is quite doubtful; possibly he is a local martyr of Ficulea. The matron Severina buried here the bodies of the two saints in one tomb, and near to them the body of Saint Theodulus; early in the ninth century they were all transferred to the city, after which the cemetery fell into ruins. As in the cemetery of St. Laurence and in that of St. Symphorosa, there arose here two basilicas, one built by Constantine (ad corpus), rediscovered in 1855, another in the fifth century; there remain yet some important relics of the former, an altar with its marble cancellus, or front, in which was opened a fenestella confessionis through which could be seen the bodies of the martyrs, the site of the schola cantorum in front of the altar, and in the apse the episcopal chair.
Via Salaria Nova
24. Cemetery of St. Felicitas. This famous Roman matron and her seven sons were put to death for the Christian Faith, under Marcus Aurelius. The very ancient Acts of their martyrdom are extant in a Latin translation from the Greek, and are probably based on the original court records. The place of burial of the mother and Silanus, her youngest son, not given in the Acts, is learned from the fourth-century Liberian Catalogue and from sixth — and seventh — century itineraries, as the cemetery of Maximus (otherwise unknown) on the Via Salaria. A basilica, built there in the fourth century, was ornamented with a fine epitaph by St. Damasus (Verdun manuscript). Early in the fifth century it served Boniface I (418) as a place of refuge from the adherents of the antipope Eulalinus; Boniface was also buried there, according to the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum". Gregory the Great preached there one of his homilies "Ad martyres". The two bodies were transferred to the city in the ninth century, and the cemetery was lost sight of until De Rossi discovered it in 1858, almost simultaneously with his discovery of the crypt of St. Januarius in the cemetery of Praetextatus. In 1884 the "historic crypt" was discovered, beneath a basilica of the fourth century; it is surmised that this must have been the site of the house of Felicitas, or at least of the trial.
25. Cemetery of Thraso, Coemeterium Jordanorum. The cemetery of Thraso, a rich and aged martyr in the persecution of Diocletian, was discovered in 1578 by Bosio. It once contained a fine Damasan epitaph; its chief oratory or crypt was restored in 326 and was open until the end of the thirteenth century. The body of St. Thraso was at some unknown time taken to Sts. John and Paul in the city. In this cemetery excellent third — or fourth — century frescoes are still visible, among them an interesting one symbolic of the Eucharist. A little farther on, to the right of the road, is the Coemeterium Jordanorum, possibly, says Marucchi (II, 369), the deepest of the Roman catacombs; it has four stories, but the groups of galleries are separated by sand-pits (arenariæ). The name, says the aforesaid writer, may be a corruption of Germanorum, i.e. the other sons of St. Felicitas. Here, too, it seems, ought some day to be found the arenaria, or sand-pit, in which Sts. Chrysanthus and Daria were buried during the persecution of Valerian (257), and in which (their Acts tell us) some Christians who came there to pray were stoned to death and walled up by the heathen (Via Salaria in arenaria illic viventes terrâ et lapidibus obrui). In the sixth century this venerable sanctuary was still visited, and through its fenestella the bones of the martyrs scattered on the ground within could still be seen (Marucchi, op. cit., II, 371). Many important and interesting epitaphs have been found here.
26. Cemetery of Priscilla. This is the oldest general cemetery of Early Christian Rome (Kaufmann) and in several respects the most important. It takes its name from Priscilla, the mother of the Senator Pudens in whose house St. Peter, according to ancient tradition, found refuge. The sepulchral plot (area) of Pudens on the New Salarian Way became the burial-place of Aquila and Prisca (Romans 16:3), and of Sts. Pudentiana and Praxedes, daughters of Pudens. In this manner the history of the very ancient Roman churches of Santa Pudentiana and Santa Prassede, also that of Santa Prisca on the Aventine, being originally the meeting-places (domesticæ ecclesiæ, Romans 16:5), of the little Christian community, became intimately connected with the burial-site of the family to which they originally belonged. In this catacomb were buried Sts. Felix and Philip (two of the seven martyr sons of St. Felicitas), also Popes St. Marcellinus (d. 304) and St. Marcellus (d. 309), both victims of the persecution of Diocletian. In the basilica (see below) that was soon raised on this site were buried several popes, St. Sylvester (d. 335), St. Liberius (d. 366), St. Siricius (d. 399), St. Celestine (d. 432), and Vigilius (d. 555). Their "fine group of sarcophagi remained intact", says Marucchi (II, 385) until the ninth century, when the transfer of their bodies to various city churches brought about the usual neglect and final decay of the cemetery, above and below ground. Marucchi maintains that here and not at St. Agnes' is the true Coemeterium Ostrianum mentioned in Ancient Roman Acts of martyrs as containing a reservoir where St. Peter was wont to baptize, also the chair in which he first sat (ad nymphas ubi Petrus baptizaverat, sedes ubi prius sedit Sanctus Petrus, etc.) when he began his Roman ministry. With much erudition and acumen he develops this thesis in his oft quoted work (Elements d'archéologie chrétienne, II, 432 sqq.), his principal arguments being based on a detailed study of two ancient reservoirs in this cemetery, according to him the original Petrine baptisteries, through deep veneration for which holy places came about the later development of the cemetery of Priscilla, the burial there of several fourth — and fifth-century popes, the overground basilica of St. Sylvester, etc. It was only in 1863 that earnest and continuous efforts were made to explore in a scientific way this vast necropolic; in 1887 the finding of the burial-crypts of the Acilii Glabriones amply repaid the efforts of the Sacred Commission of Archaeology. The corridors and cubicula of this portion of the cemetery of Priscilla offer numerous evidences of Apostolic antiquity, and there is sufficient reason to believe
- that the aforesaid Acilii Glabriones were closely related to the family of Senator Pudens, and
- that their Christian family epitaphs of the second century began with the (not yet found) epitaph of Manius Acilius Glabrio, consul in 91, and put to death by Domitian for charges (Suetonius, Domit., 15; Dio Cassius, LXVII, 13) now recognized as equivalent to the profession of the Christian religion.
Not far from the modern entrance to the cemetery is the elegant subterranean chapel or crypt known as the Capella Greca, from two Greek epitaphs found there; this crypt is ornamented with very ancient symbolic frescoes, the most important of which is the celebrated Eucharistic painting in the apse, known as the Fractio Panis, because in it a figure (the priest) is breaking bread and giving it to persons seated at the same table (Wilpert, Fractio Panis, la plus ancienne représentation du sacrifice eucharistique, Paris, 1896). In the vicinity was found in 1820 the epitaph of St. Philomena (facsimile in Christian Museum of the Lateran); according to Marucchi the current legend of St. Philomena is a nineteenth-century invention. The three tiles of this epitaph were removed at some early date from their original place and used to close another grave, so that the body found in 1820 was not that of Philomena, nor are the tracings on the epitaph those of instruments of martyrdom but anchors, palms, etc. (op. cit., II, 409-10; cf. de Waal, "Die Grabschrift der heiligen Philumena", in "Röm. Quartalschrift", 1898). There is also here a very ancient fresco of the Blessed Virgin holding to her breast the Infant Jesus, while a prophet (Isaias?; cf. Isaiah 9:2; 42:6) points to a star above her head. It is a clear evidence of the sentiments of Christian veneration for the Mother of God in the second century, to which period the best archaeologists refer this fresco (see Mary). Elsewhere in Saint Priscilla is the oldest known liturgical fresco of the early Christian Church, the virgo sacra or Deo dicata, i.e. a Christian virgin whose solemn consecration to the service of God is quite dramatically set forth by the artist (cf. Marucchi, II, 417-18, and Wilpert, "Gottgeweihten Jungfrauen", in bibliography). From a theological point of view not the least important discovery in Saint Priscilla was the fresco in which Our Lord is represented as giving the Christian law to St. Peter with the inscription "Dominus legem dat" (the Lord gives the law); De Rossi considered it as confirmatory of the primacy of Peter; Monsignor Duchesne saw in it a reference to the traditio symboli or Apostles' Creed communicated to the neophytes at the moment of baptism. It belonged to the fourth century and was discovered in 1887, but has since almost entirely perished (reproduced in De Rossi's "Bullettino", 1887, 23 sqq.). The once rich and imposing basilica built by St. Sylvester over the scene of so many early and valuable Christian memories has long since perished. De Rossi published ("Bullettino", 1890, plates VI-VII) a plan of its probable outlines; Marucchi suggests (ingeniously and with veri-similitude) that in the apse of this basilica stood the ancient Chair of Peter, the "sedes ubi prius sedit" when he baptized in the suburban villa of Senator Pudens, the true Coemeterium Ostrianum in whose venerable precincts Pope Liberius took refuge about the middle of the fourth century, and confirmed the faith of the Romans by baptizing regularly amid the Apostolic memories yet fresh and influential at that place. Some of the papal epitaphs in this basilica have reached us by way of the various medieval epigraphic collections, among them ["Sylloge Corbeiensis", in De Rossi, "Inscript. Christ.", II (1) 83, 85] an epitaph that the latter, with Marucchi (II, 469-70) and others, believes to be the epitaph of Pope St. Liberius. if so it offers indisputable evidence of the constant orthodoxy of that much maligned pope.
Via Salaria Vetus — Beyond the present Porta Pinciana
27. Cemetery of St. Pamphilus, an unknown martyr. It was discovered by De Rossi in 1865. Among some rude charcoal sketches in one of its cubicula is one representing the demolition of a pagan idol, an index of the end of the fourth century.
28. Cemetery of St. Hermes (or Basilla), a little farther on, in a vineyard of the German College. Hermes seems to have been a martyr of the early part of the second century (c. 119). The fourth-century Liberian Catalogue mentions him as buried in the cemetery of St. Basilla; Padre Marchi and De Rossi had the good fortune to discover the ancient fourth-century basilica raised above the martyr's tomb; it proves to be the largest of the subterranean churches of Rome, and was probably built on the site of an older edifice it was constructed in the tufa rock, lined with masonry, and had quite a high vault. This basilica was a favourite burial-place, for its floor was found covered with sepulchres. The body of St. Hermes was removed to the city by Adrian I (772-95). This cemetery also held the bodies of Sts. Protus and Hyacinthus, martyrs in the persecution of Valerian (257), and mentioned in the Liberian Catalogue. Their mistress, Saint Basilla, suffered at the same time; the Martyrologium Hieronymianum calls them "doctores sanctæ legis". The body of St. Basilla has not been found, but that of St. Hyacinthus now reposes in the church of the Propaganda at Rome whither it was transferred in 1845 after its discovery by Padre Marchi; that of St. Protus, though once buried in the neighbouring loculus, seems to have been removed in the ninth century by Leo IV. Since 1894 excavations have been renewed in this cemetery, in consequence of which the crypt and stairs built by St. Damasus, or about his time, have been found. The cemetery of Hermes has already yielded a number of valuable dogmatic epitaphs now kept in the Kircherian Museum at Rome.
29. Cemetery ad clivum cucumeris. It was located in the vicinity of Aqua Acetosa, and was the burial-place of several martyrs, among them the Consul Liberalis, whose fine metrical epitaph has come down to us through the "Itineraries".
Martyris hic sancti Liberalis membra quiescunt
Qui quondam in terris consul honore fuit(Here reposes the body of Saint Liberalis,
who in life was honoured as a Consul).
The exact site of this cemetery is unknown, though De Rossi believed for a while (1892) that he had discovered it.
Via Flaminia — Outside of Porta del Popolo, the great northern highway, as the Via Appia was the great southern highway, of Rome
30. Cemetery of St. Valentinus. This martyr, according to his (late) Acts a priest and a physician, seems to have suffered under Claudius Gothicus (268-70). He was buried on the site of his martyrdom by the pious matron Sabinilla at the first milestone on the Flaminian Way. In time a small cemetery grew up about the tomb of the martyr which in the Middle Ages was in charge of the Augustinians; one of them, the historian Onofrio Panvinio, wrote a description of it. Eventually, however, the cemetery became a wine-cellar. In 1877 Marucchi discovered the "historical crypt" of St. Valentinus, with its interesting Byzantine frescoes of the seventh century, among them a Crucifixion, the only one found in the catacombs, and one of the oldest artistic representations of this scene. As in the ancient Crucifixion in santa Maria Antiqua (Roman Forum), the figure of Christ is clothed in a colobium, or long mantle. An overground cemetery on the site is said to have been the most extensive of its kind. The epitaphs collected there yield only to the epigraphic collection in the Lateran Museum for number and importance; many are dated, from 318 to 523, i.e. to the final period of the consular dignity. A fourth-century basilica built on this site has recently been discovered (1888), showing, like so many others, the fenestella confessionis through which the tomb of the martyr could be seen. The cemetery was open and respected as late as the middle of the eleventh century. With the transfer of the martyr's body (fourteenth century) to Santa Prassede in the city began the decay of the catacomb; the basilica had fallen by the time of Bosio (1594), whose "Villa Bosia" was over the cemetery, and yet exists as Villa Trezza.
Sources of the history of the catacombs
There is but the faintest hope that any new documents will ever turn up to illustrate the pre-Constantinian period of the ancient cemeteries of Rome. Their place is taken necessarily by late martyrologies, calendars, Acts of the martyrs, writings of popes, historico-liturgical books of the Roman Church, and by old topographies and itineraries come down to us from the Carlovingian epoch. Among the old martyrologies the most famous is that known as the Martyrology of St. Jerome (Martyrologium Hieronymianum). Its present (ninth-century) form is that essentially of Auxerre in France, where it underwent considerable remodelling in the sixth century. But it is older than the sixth century, and is surely an Italian compilation of the fifth century, out of rare and reliable documents furnished by the churches of Rome, Africa, Palestine, Egypt, and the Orient. No martyrology contains so many names and indications of saints and martyrs of a very early period, and it is of especial value for the study of the catacombs, because it very frequently gives the roads and the cemeteries where they were buried and venerated in the fifth century, while the cemeteries were yet intact. By dint of transcription, however, and through the neglect or ignorance of copyists, the text has become in many places hopelessly corrupt, and the restitution of its dates and local and personal indications has been one of the hardest crosses of ancient and modern ecclesiastical archaeologists. Besides its very ancient notices of the cemeteries, this martyrology is of great value as embodying a catalogue of martyrs and basilicas of Rome that surely goes back to the early part of the fifth century, and perhaps a third-century catalogue of the Roman pontiffs. Several other martyrologies of the eighth and ninth centuries contain valuable references to the martyrs and the cemeteries, especially that know as the Little Roman (Parvum Romanum) Martyrology, and which served as a basis for the well-known compilation of Ado. Next in importance comes an ancient Roman Calendar, published between the years 334 and 356, written out and illustrated by a certain Furius Dionysius Philocalus. This calendar contains a list of the popes, known formerly as the "Bucherian Catalogue", from the name of its first editor, and the Liberian, from the pope (Liberius, 352-56) with whom it ends. The whole book is now usually known as the "Chronographer of A.D. 354". Besides this ancient papal catalogue, the book contains an official calendar, civil and astronomical, lunar cycles, and a Paschal table calculated to 412, a list of the prefects of Rome from 253 to 354 (the only continuous one known), a chronicle of Roman history, the "Natalitia Caesarum", and other useful contents, which have caused it to be styled "the oldest Christian Almanac". It contains numerous traces of having been drawn up for the use of the Roman Church, and hence the value of two of its documents for the cemeteries. They are, respectively, a list of the entombments of Roman bishops from Lucius to Sylvester (253-335), with the place of their burial, and a Depositio Martyrum, or list of the more solemn fixed feasts of the Roman Church, with indications of several famous martyrs and their cemeteries. The importance of all this for the original topography of the catacombs is too clear to need comment. We will only add that closer examination of the ecclesiastical documents of the "Chronographer of 354" leaves us persuaded that they date from the third century and represent the location of the cemeteries at that time and the martyrs whose cult was then most popular.
In the latter half of the fourth century Pope St. Damasus (366-84) did much to beautify the ancient Roman cemeteries and to decorate the tombs of the most illustrious martyrs. As he possessed a fine poetic talent, he composed many elegant inscriptions, which were engraved on large marble slabs by his "friend and admirer", Furius Dionysius Philocalus, already known to us as the calligrapher of the preceding document. The lettering used by this remarkable man was very ornamental, and as its exact like is not found before or after, it has been styled the hieratic writing of the catacombs. In time these inscriptions were copied by strangers and inserted in various anthologies and in travellers' scrapbooks or portfolios. Many of the original stones perished from various causes, but were piously renewed in situ during the sixth century. To these Damasan inscriptions De Rossi owed much, since any fragment of them in a cemetery indicates an "historic crypt", and their copies in the manuscripts are links for the construction of the chain of history that connects each great cemetery with the modern investigator.
To the above fontes, or sources of information and control, must be added the historic-liturgical literature of the Roman Church from the fourth to the eighth centuries — the period in which the bodies of the most celebrated martyrs began to be removed en masse from the catacombs, through fear of the marauding Lombards. Such are the Liber Pontificalis in its several recensions, the Acts of the martyrs, chiefly the Roman ones, the calendars of the Roman Church constructed out of the missals or sacramentaries, the antiphonaries, capitularies of the Gospels, and the like, in which not infrequently there are hints and directions concerning the cemeteries and the martyrs of renown who were yet buried there. Finally, there has been extracted almost endless information from the old Roman topographies of travellers and the itineraries of pilgrims. Of the former we possess yet two curious remnants, entitled "Notitiae regionum Urbis Romae" and "Curiosum Urbis Romae", also a list of oils collected at the shrines of the Roman martyrs by Abbot Johannes for Queen Theodolinda, and known as the Papyrus of Monza. An Old Syriac text of the sixth century and a note of the innumeræ cellulæ martyrum consecratæ in the almanac of Polemius Silvius (499) complete the list of strictly topographical authorities. Certain itineraries of pilgrims from the seventh to the ninth century are not less useful as indicating the names and sites of the cemeteries, whether above or below ground, and what bodies were yet entombed therein, as well as the distance between the cemeteries and their position relative to the great monuments of the city.
After the middle of the ninth century the historic crypts had been emptied, and the bodies brought to Roman churches. Naturally, the written references to the catacombs ceased with the visitors, and a stray chapter in the "Mirabilia Urbis Romae" or an odd indication in the "Libri Indulgentiarum" kept alive the memory of those holy places which once attracted a world of pilgrims. It is not easy to explain how one of the best of the old itineraries, referable to the seventh century, should have fallen into the hands of William of Malmesbury, and been by him copied into his account of the visit of the crusaders to Rome under Urban II (1099). Neither is it easy to explain why the old itineraries of Einsiedeln, Wurzburg, and Salzburg make no mention of the tombs of such celebrated Roman martyrs as St. Clement the consul, St. Justin the philosopher, Apollonius the Roman senator, Moses a famous priest of the time of St. Cornelius, and many other celebrities of the early Roman Church, who were, in all likelihood, buried in some of the many Roman cemeteries. What the old pilgrims saw they related honestly and faithfully; more they compiled from guides now lost. They were not learned men, but pious travellers, anxious to benefit their successors and unconsciously enabling us to form some exact idea of the solemn scenes that they once assisted at. (Shahan, The Beginnings of Christianity, New York, 1905, 410-16).
Sources
The best English introduction to the study of the catacombs is the work of Northcote and Brownlow (see below). The latest and best literature is found in the works, quoted below, of Kaufmann, Marucchi, and Leclercq, particularly in the exhaustive study of Nicholas Muller, art. Koimeterien, in Realencyclopadie f. prot. Theol. und Kirche, X, 794-877. The chief collections of materials are those of Giovanni Batista De Rossi, and in them are also seen on the largest scale the methods of investigation that have rendered such excellent results for theology and church history, also the history of the arts, social life, etc. of Christian antiquity. For the life of De Rossi, see that article. The titles of his writings number over 200, but the epoch-making works are the following: 1. Roma sotterranea cristiana (3 vol., Rome, 1864-77), large quarto with maps and illustrations, dealing, however, only with the cemetery of Saint Callistus. The introduction is a monumental piece of work. As these works are rare, even in public libraries, Dr. Kaufmann gives (pp. 24-27) full tables of their contents. De Rossi planned a complete collection of the inscriptions (epitaphs) of the catacombs but only partially finished it. 2. Inscriptiones christianoe urbis Romoe septimo soeculo antiquires (folio I, Rome, 1861; II, ibid., 1888). 3. In a special periodical (now very rare) conducted by him he consigned many results of his studies and investigations Bullettino di archeologia cristiana (Rome, 1863-1894), in five series, continued as its official record by the Commission of Sacred Archaeology under the title of Nuovo Bullettino, etc. (Rome, 1895 sqq.). Among his numerous special studies we may mention his account of the earliest pictures of the Blessed Virgin in the catacoms, Imagines selectoe Deiparoe virginis in coemeteriis subterraneis udo depictoe (Rome, 1863; to be read now in connection with the magisterial Malereien of Wilpert), and his account of the inscriptions of the Christian museum of the Lateran, Il museo epigrafico Pio Lateranense (Rome, 1877); cf. Marucchi, Guida del museo cristiano-Lateranense (Rome, 1898). Two fundamental studies of De Rossi, made at the beginning of his career and yet of value for catacomb researches, are his De Christianis monumentis ichthyn exhibentibus, in Spicileg. Solesm. (Paris, 1855), III, 544-77; De Christianis titulis Carthaginen. (ibid.), 505-538.
The Jesuit writer, Raffaele Garrucci, deserves an honourable mention for his voluminous (6 large folios) and learned work that deals largely with the catacombs, Storia dell'arte cristiana nei primi otto secoli della Chiesa (Prato. 1873-80), with numerous illustrations. The writings of De Rossi, especially his Roma sotteranea, soon gave rise to a number of adaptations in various European languages; one of the most useful and reliable is that of Northcote and Brownlow, Roma Sotterranea, or an Account of the Roman Catacombs, especially of the Cemetery of St. Callistus (London, 1869; 2d ed. 1878-79), published also in briefer form. Quite similar are the German work (same title) of Kraus (Freiburg, 1873; 2nd ed. 1879), and the French manual of Reusens, Elements d'archeologie chretienne (Louvain, 1871-75; 2nd ed., 1885).
The constant activity of excavation, literary research, and criticism, creates as constant a demand for newer manuals of the science which has thus grown up; among the later works of this kind we may mention with praise: Armellini, Lezioni di archeologia sacra (Rome, 1898); Idem, Gli antichi cimiteri cristiani di Roma e d'Italia (Rome, 1893); Marucchi, Les elements d'archeologie chretienne (Paris, 1902-05, 3 vols.); Kaufmann, Handbuch der christlichen Archaologie (Paderborn, 1905; an Italian tr., Manuale di archeologia cristiana (Rome, 1907); Leclercq, Manuel d'archeologie chretienne depuis les origines jusqu'au VIII siecle (3 vols., Paris, 1907), the latter being a resume of the rich materials of the new Benedictine dictionary of Christian archaeology quoted below. Among later English works similar in intention, if not equal in execution, are: Cheetham, History of Early Christian Art (New York, 1895), and the praiseworthy summary of Lowrie, Christian Art and Archoeology (London, 1901).
The natural desire to obtain some easy control over the enormous mass of facts and opinions that all these labours developed led soon to the creation of illustrated encyclopedias of Christian antiquities, all of which are useful beyond expression for the study of the catacombs. The first of these, based on De Rossi's work, was Martigny, Dict. des antiquites chretiennes (Paris, 1865; 3d ed., 1889). It was followed by a good English (non-Catholic) compilation of the same nature, Smith and Cheetham, A dictionary of Christian Antiquities (London, 1876-80), and shortly by the German (Catholic) work edited by Kraus, Realenzyklopadie d. christl. Alterhumer (Freiburg, 1882-86), now out of print and rare. In the mean time the French Benedictines of Farnborough, England (Cabrol chief editor) have begun a very exhaustive encyclopedia of both Christian archaeology and liturgy under the title of Dict. d'archeol. chret. et de liturgie (Paris, 1903 sqq.). Among the French disciples of De Rossi who contributed most to spread the principles and methods of the new catacomb excavations may be mentioned Le Blant, Inscriptions chretiennes de la Gaule (Paris, 1856-65), and Nouveau recueil des inscriptions, etc. (ibid., 1892); Idem, Etudes sur les sarcophages chretiens antiques de la ville d'Arles (Paris, 1878), Les sarcophages chretiens de la Gaule (ibid., 1886), and other important works. Easily foremost, however, among the scientific students of the Roman catacombs is Monsignore Joseph Wilpert, whose accurate reproduction of the originals of the catacomb frescoes has placed before all scholars reliable copies of these famous relics of ancient Christian life, and enables everyone to study them scientifically and at his ease: Wilpert, Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms (Freiburg, 1903, 2 folio volumes, 596 pages of text, 267 plates and 54 figures, published also in Italian as Pitture delle Catacombe romane, same place and date). He had previously published a number of valuable researches, both patristic and archaeological in content; among them: Prinzipienfragen der christlichen Archaologie (Freiburg, 1889, with supplement, ibid., 1890); Die gottgeweihten Jungfrauen in den ersten Jahrhunderten der Kirche (ibid., 1892); Ein Cyklus christologischer Gemalde, etc. (ibid., 1891); Fractio Panis, die älteste Darstellung des eucharistischen Opfers (ibid., 1895); Die Malereien in der Sakramentskapelle i. d. Katak. des hl. Callistus (ibid., 1897). Among the scholarly Protestant writers on the catacombs the following deserve credit: Piper, Einleitung in die monumentale Theologie (Gotha, 1867); Muller, Archaologische Studien, etc. (Leipzig, 1895-1901), and since 1902, as Studien uber christliche Denkmaler, particularly his articles in the Realenzyklopadie f. prot. Theologie u. Kirche, on Koimeterien, Christusbilder, and Inschriften; Schultze, Die Katakomben (Leipzig, 1882), Der theologische Ertrag der Katakombenforschung (ibid., 1882), Die altchristlichen Bildwerke, etc. (ibid., 1889); and Archaologie der altchristlichen Kunst (Munich, 1895).
Important for the study of the catacombs, their excavations, history, problems, sources, literature, etc, are the above-mentioned official Nuovo Bullettino, the Christian archaeological bulletin of the Civilta Cattolica by Grisar, the Comptes rendus of Kirsch in the Romische Quartalschrift fur christliche Alterthumskunde (Freiburg and Rome), conducted, for the archaeological content, by Mgr. DeWaal to which may be added the Oriens Christianus, conducted by A. Baumstark (Campo Santo Tedesco, or German College, Rome), a useful repository of archaeological information from the Christian Orient. Here it may not be out of place to mention the merits of the Roman association known as the "Collegium Cultorum martyrum", especially devoted to the veneration of the holy martyrs and the sites of their sepulchres, and the Christian Archaeological Congresses of 1894 and 1900. The American Journal of Archoeology (Baltimore, 1885 sqq.) also devotes attention to the results of catacomb studies and researches. It is easily under[s]tood that the researches in every field of early Christian antiquities throw light on the catacombs and in turn are helped by the special researches in these cemeteries; hence the importance of the remarkable discoveries of Pere Delattre of the Peres Blancs on the site of ancient Carthage (for a bibliography of his writings see Le Musee Lavigerie de Saint-Louis de Carthage (Tunis, 1900); cf. Dalton, Catalogue of Early Christian Antiquities, etc., in the British Museum (London, 1901).
Similarly it is of interest to know the sources of the early art-impulses among the Roman Christians, attributed mostly to the Orient (Egypt, Syria, Palestine), by Strzygowski, Orient oder Tom (Leipzig, 1901), Kleinasien (ibid., 1903). Finally it may be useful to add that any serious study of the catacombs demands some acquaintance with the excellent introductory pages of the above-mentioned manuals of Kaufmann, Marucchi, or Leclercq, also with the earlier volumes of the histories of the City of Rome by the Catholic writers Von Reumont (Berlin, 1867), and Grisar (Rome, 1900, I, unfinished): and the non-Catholic Gregorovius (Eng. tr.), to which must be added the excellent introduction and notes of the critical edition of the Liber Pontificalis (2 vols., 4x, Paris, 1886, 1892), by Mgr. Louis Duchesne.
About this page
APA citation. (1908). Early Roman Christian Cemeteries. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03510a.htm
MLA citation. Shahan, Thomas. "Early Roman Christian Cemeteries." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03510a.htm.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Larry Trippett.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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