When it was found necessary to excavate for the foundation of the new massive baldachino, Pope Urban VIII was alarmed at first lest the sacred tomb should be disturbed. The warnings of Pope Gregory the Great against meddling with the tombs of saints like Peter and Paul being remembered, “no one dare even pray there,” he once wrote, “without much fear.” Three years were spent in preparation for the work and in casting the baldachino. Then the sudden death of Alemanni, the custodian of the Vatican library, who had the chief charge in the preparative work, and the passing away of two of the Pope’s confidential staff just as the work commenced, appalled men’s minds; but after some hesitation it was decided to go on with the necessary excavations—“All possible precautions,” Ubaldi tells us, “being taken for the preservation of the reverence due to the spot, and for the security of the relics.” The Pope commanded, “that while the labourers were at work there should always be present some of the priests and ministers of the Church.”
Ubaldi describes at length what was found, when each of the four foundations for the four great columns of the baldachino was dug out. We will quote a few of Ubaldi’s memoranda, and then give a little summary of what apparently was discovered in this perhaps the most ancient, certainly the most interesting, of the subterranean cemeteries of Christian Rome.
In the excavation of the first foundation—“only two or three inches under the pavement they began to find coffins and sarcophagi. Those nearest to the altar (above) were placed laterally against an ancient wall” (this was doubtless part of the wall of the Memoria of Anacletus), “and from this they judged that these must be the bodies buried nearest to the sepulchre of S. Peter. These were coffins of marble made of simple slabs of different sizes.” Only one seems to have borne an inscription, and that was the solitary word “Linus.” Was not this the coffin of the first Pope, the Linus saluted in S. Paul’s Roman Epistle?
“Two of these coffins were uncovered. The bodies, which were clothed with long robes down to the heels, dark and almost black with age, and which were swathed with bandages, ... when these were touched and moved they were resolved into dust.... We can only conclude that those who were found so close to the body of S. Peter must have been the first (Martyr) Popes or their immediate successors....
“On the same level, close up to the wall (of the Memoria) were found two other coffins of smaller size, each of which contained a small body, apparently of a child of ten or twelve years old.” “Were these, whose bodies had obtained the privilege of interment so close to the grave of S. Peter, little martyrs?... Close by ... were two (coffins) of ancient terra-cotta full of ashes and burnt bones, ... other fragments of similar coffins were found deeper down as the excavations proceeded, and also pieces of glass from broken phials. It was evident that all this earth was mixed with ashes and tinged with the blood of martyrs.... There were also found pieces of charred wood which one might believe had served for the burning of the martyrs, and had afterwards been collected as jewels and buried there with their ashes.”
A little farther on Ubaldi writes, still speaking of what was found where the first foundation was excavated: “There was next found a small well in which were a great number of bones mixed with ashes and earth; then again another coffin; near this was found another square place on the sides of which more bodies were found, while on one side was the continuation of a very ancient wall (the Memoria of Anacletus). This wall contained a niche which had been used as a sepulchre, and in it were found five heads fixed with plaster and carefully arranged, also being well preserved. Lower down were the ribs all together, and the other parts in their order mingled with much earth and ashes, not laid casually, but with accuracy and great care. All this holy company were shut in and well secured with lime and mortar....
“It now became necessary to consider how the holy bones and bodies which had been taken up might best be laid in some fitting and memorable place; they had been placed in several cases of cypress wood, and had been carried before the little altar of S. Peter in the confession, and here all through these days they had been kept locked up and under seal. It was felt that they ought not to be deprived of the privilege of being near to the body of S. Peter.... So it was resolved that, as they had been found buried together and undistinguished by names, so still one grave should hold them all, since the holy martyrs are all one in eternity,”—as S. Gregory Nazianzen wonderfully says—“ ... a suitable and capacious grave was constructed” (close to the spot) “and there re-interment took place. The following inscription cut in a plate of lead was placed within the tomb—
Corpora Sanctorum prope sepulchrum sancti Petri inventa, cum fundamenta effoderentur æreis Columnis (of the baldachino of Bernini) ab Urbano VIII—super hac fornice erectis, hic siul collecta et reposita die 28 Julii 1626”
In digging for the second foundation a very wonderful “find” was recorded. Ubaldi relates how, “not more than three or four feet down, there was discovered at the side a large coffin made of great slabs of marble.... Within were ashes with many bones all adhering together and half burned. These brought back to mind the famous fire in the time of Nero, three years before S. Peters martyrdom, when the Christians, being falsely accused of causing the fire, and pronounced guilty of the crime, afforded in the circus of the gardens of Nero, which were situated just here on the Vatican Hill, the first spectacles of martyrdom. Some were put to death in various cruel ways, while others were set on fire, and used as torches in the night, thus inaugurating on the Vatican, by the light that they gave, the living splendour of the true religion.... These, so they say, were buried close to the place where they suffered martyrdom, and gave the first occasion for the religious veneration of this holy spot.... We therefore revered these holy bones, as being those of the first founders of the great basilica and the first-fruits of our martyrs, and having put back the coffin allowed it to remain in the same place.”