“No.”
“Ah—Russky?”
“No.”
“Hmph. Inglese?”
“No.”
“Diavolo! But you speak a little English, don’t you?”
“A little,” I replied—in Italian.
The monk stared at me in disgust. “If you can, why don’t you? I speak it whenever I get the chance.”
This exceedingly interesting church dates from the latter part of the twelfth century, and its rose-window is a splendid example of the glass-staining and composition of that time. According to a popular legend, the Apostle Paul preached in the crypt-like chapel when he was in town—“And landing in Syracuse, we tarried there three days” (Acts, XXVIII:12)—and the monk shows the altar where he “celebrated the Mass.” Unfortunately for the illusion, the original San Giovanni was a fourth century structure, so St. Paul could not have seen it on his way to Rome or at any other time. The monk also points out a granite column at which he says St. Marcian was scourged to death, becoming the first martyr in Syracuse, and his seat and vaulted altar-tomb.
St. Marcian’s column stands close to the entrance to the catacombs, which underlie much of the Achradina quarter, and are not only far larger than those at Rome, but are among the most imposing subterranean cemeteries in the world. The main gallery, ten feet wide and eight feet high, runs through the solid limestone for more than a hundred yards. People of distinction were usually buried in the rotundas, large circular chambers or chapels; and here, when the churches above ground were destroyed, or open services interdicted, the hunted faithful worshiped in secret. Here and there, now carved over a door, now rudely daubed in red upon the side of some grave-niche, is the likeness of a palm branch, dumb witness that here lay one who valued faith more than life, and died a martyr.