Walks in Rome

by Augustus J. C. Hare

A little beyond this fountain is the modern Porta S. Pancrazio, near the site of the ancient Porta Aurelia, built by Pius IX. in 1857, to replace a gate destroyed by the French under Oudinot in 1849. Many buildings outside the gate, injured at the same time, still remain in ruins.

The lane on the right, inside the gate, leads to the Villa Lante, built in 1524 by Giulio Romano, for Bartolomeo da Pescia, secretary of Clement VII. It still contains some frescoes of Giulio Romano, though they are only lately uncovered, as the house was used, until the last two years, as a succursale to the Convent of the Sacré Cœur at the Trinità de' Monti.

Not far outside the gate are the Church and Convent of S. Pancrazio, founded in the sixth century by Pope Symmachus, but modernized in 1609 by Cardinal Torres. Here Crescenzio Nomentano, the famous consul of Rome in the tenth century, is buried; here Narses, after the defeat of Totila, was met by the pope and cardinals, and conducted in triumph to St. Peter's to return thanks for his victory; here, also, Peter II. of Arragon was crowned by Innocent III., and Louis of Naples was received by John XII.

A flight of steps leads from the church to the Catacomb of Calepodius, where many of the early popes and martyrs were buried. It has no especial characteristic to make it worth visiting. Another flight of steps leads to the spot where S. Pancrazio was martyred. His body rests with that of St. Victor beneath the altar. A parish church in London is dedicated to St. Pancras, in whose name kings of France used to confirm their treaties.

"In the persecution under Diocletian, this young saint, who was only fourteen years of age, offered himself voluntarily as a martyr, defending boldly before the emperor the cause of the Christians. He was therefore beheaded by the sword, and his body was honourably buried by Christian women. His church, near the gate of S. Pancrazio, has existed since the year 500. St. Pancras was in the middle ages regarded as the protector against false oaths, and the avenger of perjury. It was believed that those who swore falsely by St. Pancras were immediately and visibly punished; hence his popularity."—Jameson's Sacred Art.

Turning to the left from the gate, on the side of the hill between this and the Porta Portese, is the Catacomb of S. Ponziano.

"Here is the only perfect specimen still extant of a primitive subterranean baptistery. A small stream of water runs through this cemetery, and at this one place the channel has been deepened so as to form a kind of reservoir, in which a certain quantity of water is retained. We descend into it by a flight of steps, and the depth of water it contains varies with the height of the Tiber. When that river is swollen so as to block up the exit by which this stream usually empties itself, the waters are sometimes so dammed back as to inundate the adjacent galleries of the catacomb; at other times there are not above three or four feet of water. At the back of the font, and springing out of the water, is painted a beautiful Latin cross, from whose sides leaves and flowers are budding forth, and on the two arms rest ten candlesticks, with the letters Alpha and Omega suspended by a little chain below them. On the front of the arch over the font is the Baptism of our Lord in the river Jordan by St. John, whilst St. Abdon, St. Sennen, St. Miles, and other saints of the Oriental Church occupy the sides. These paintings are all of late date, perhaps of the seventh or eighth century: but there is no reason to doubt but that the baptistery had been so used from the earliest times. We have distinct evidence in the Acts of the Martyrs that the sacrament was not unfrequently administered in the cemeteries."—The Roman Catacombs—Northcote.

In this catacomb is an early Portrait of Christ, much resembling that at SS. Nereo ed Achilleo.

"The figure is, however, draped, and the whole work has certain peculiarities which appear to mark a later period of art. Both these portraits agree, if not strictly, yet in general features, with the description in Lentulus's letter (to the Roman senate), and portraits and descriptions together serve to prove that the earliest Christian delineators of the person of the Saviour followed no arbitrary conception of their own, but were guided rather by a particular traditional type, differing materially from the Grecian ideal, and which they transmitted in a great measure to future ages."—Kugler, i. 16.

In this vicinity are the Catacombs of SS. Abdon and Sennen, of St. Julius, and of Sta. Generosa.