PORTA PIA.
This gate was built by Michael Angelo in 1564. It was nearly destroyed by the Italian troops in 1870, but is now restored.
A fine view of the Villa Albani and the Sabine Hills may be had from this spot.
To the left of the gate a tablet marks where the Italian army entered Rome on the 20th September 1870.
PORTA NOMENTANA,
Porta Pia taking its place. The former is flanked by two round towers. Opposite is the Villa Patrizi, in which is the small catacomb of S. Nicomedus. Beyond, on the right, is the Villa Lezzani and the Chapel of S. Giustina.
Proceeding down the Via Nomentana a little way, on the right is the
VILLA TORLONIA,
open on Thursdays, from 11 till 4, with permission to be obtained of Messrs. Spada and Co. The gallery has many fine paintings and sculptures, and the gardens are adorned with fountains, statues, and mock ruins.
About a mile further on is the
CHURCH OF S. AGNESE,
founded by Constantine, on the site where the body of the saint was found. The aisles are formed by thirty-two columns of fine marble, and the altar canopy is supported by four columns of porphyry. In the second chapel on the right is a beautiful altar inlaid with mosaic work. Pio Nono's escape when the floor fell in, April 15, 1855, is commemorated by a fresco by Tojetti. The feast of the saint is on the 21st January, when the lambs are blessed with great ceremony. Here we have the best idea of a basilica.
THE CATACOMB OF S. AGNESE.
Entrance in the church. Open on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.
Part of this catacomb under the garden of the monks is well worth a visit. The entrance to it is through the church, and the exit through S. Costanza. The original stairs at the entrance were excavated in 1873, and four pagan tombs were found and two openings from them into the catacomb, showing that the Catacombs were general cemeteries, and not exclusively Christian. This catacomb is interesting, as it is left just as it was found in 1871, many of the graves being unopened.—The neighbouring
CHURCH OF S. COSTANZA
was erected to the memory of Constantine's daughter, Constantina, who was anything but a saint according to Marcellinus. It is worth visiting on account of its dome, supported by twenty-four clustered columns in granite, and covered with mosaics. The sarcophagus is now in the Vatican Museum.
S. Costanza is a mausoleum and a baptistery, not properly a church. The mosaic pictures of the fourth century are the finest known of that period. Those over the doors are of the eighth century.
"At this time [A.D. 360] Julian sent the body of his wife Helen, recently deceased, to Rome, to be buried in the suburb on the road to Nomentum, where also Constantina, his sister-in-law, the wife of Gallus, had been buried" (Marcellinus, xxi. i. 5).
A quarter of a mile beyond the church, on the left, is the entrance to
THE OSTORIAN CATACOMB.
(Custodian, Valentino.)
Signor Armellini has, it is reported, succeeded in deciphering an inscription in this catacomb, in which the name of S. Peter occurs. The supposed inscription is in an archway and on the stucco, the letters being in red colour. This cubiculum is lighted from the top by an old luminarium, and in shape is not unlike a basilica without aisles. At a short distance in front of the apse, jutting out from the right wall, is a chair of tufa, which looks across the chamber; opposite is a column, coming out in the same manner, above which is a niche for a lamp. The apse itself is filled up about four feet above the floor of the chamber, the filling up forming a tomb, the top of which was probably used as an altar (arcosolium). The vault of the apse is covered with scroll-worked stucco in very low relief, coloured red; this has fallen off, only some slight traces of it remaining, presenting in one or two instances the appearance of letters, which, we should say, it was impossible to make out. This is the inscription in which Signor Armellini reads the name of Peter. But even supposing that it is an inscription, and that Peter's name is there, it does not prove that Peter baptized there; for, in fact, the catacomb was made long after S. Peter's death. In the acts of the martyrs Liberius and Damasus, it is mentioned that in this catacomb S. Peter baptized (query, not the apostle). This is followed by Bosio, Aringhi, and De Rossi. This catacomb is supposed to have belonged to the descendants of Ostorius, the pro-prætor in Britain who sent Caractacus and his wife prisoners to Claudius. Of course the simple mention of S. Peter in the inscription does not prove that he ever was in Rome, for we have every evidence to the contrary. This catacomb is about two miles outside the Porta Pia, on the Via Nomentana, and adjoins that of S. Agnese, and is also known by the name of "Peter's Fountain," though there is no water there. Boldetti informs us that a vial of blood found in the Ostorian Cemetery bore these words: "Primitius in pace post multas angustias fortissimus martyr." This catacomb is also mentioned by Tertullian.
Resuming our ramble along the Via Nomentana, after a short walk we reach the railway bridge, from which we obtain a beautiful view of the Campagna and the distant hills, whilst at our feet is the Anio, spanned by the
PONTE NOMENTANA,
a Roman bridge, very picturesque, rebuilt, A.D. 565, by Narses, the eunuch, and conqueror of Italy. Its present upper part is, however, medieval. Just beyond is the ridge of
MONS SACER,
where the plebeians retired when they made their secession, B.C. 492, and where Menenius Agrippa addressed to them the famous fable of the "Belly and its Members" (Livy, ii. 32; Dionysius, vi. 86), so beautifully illustrated by S. Paul: "As the members of a natural body all tend to the mutual decency, service, and succour of the same body; so we should do one for another, to make up the mystical body of Christ" (see 1 Cor. xii.). "They erected an altar upon the summit of the hill, where they had encamped, which they named the altar of Jupiter Terribilis" (Dionysius, vi. 90). A second secession here took place after the death of Virginia, B.C. 449 (Livy, iii. 52).
Beyond the osteria (inn), on the left, is the so-called
TOMB OF VIRGINIA.
The shepherds have handed down this tradition, but we have no historic record of where she was buried. Dionysius (xi. 39) gives this account of her funeral:—
"The relatives of the virgin still increased the disaffection of the citizens by bringing her bier into the forum, by adorning her body with all possible magnificence, and carrying it through the most remarkable and most conspicuous streets of the city: for the matrons and virgins ran out of their houses lamenting her misfortune, and some threw flowers upon the bier, some their girdles or ribbons others their virgin toys, and others even cut off their curls and cast them upon it. And many of the men, either purchasing ornaments in the neighbouring shops, or receiving them by the favour of the owners, contributed to the pomp by presents proper to the occasion: so that the funeral was celebrated through the whole city."
"And close around the body gathered a little train
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain.
They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress crown,
And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her down."—Macaulay.
About three miles from the bridge are the
ORATORY AND CATACOMB OF S. ALEXANDER,
discovered in 1853. S. Alexander suffered under Trajan, A.D. 117. In the fourth century a church was built over the oratory and catacomb. In 1867 Pius IX. laid the foundations of a church to be erected over these remains. To visit them a permit is necessary from the cardinal vicar, 70 Via della Scrofa.