Pagan and Christian Rome

by Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani

HIC · POSITUS · EST · PEREGRINUS · CICONIAS · CUIUS ·
NOMEN · DEUS · SCIT

"Here is buried a pilgrim from Thrace, whose name is known only to God." The tale is simple and touching. A pilgrim on his way to Rome, or back to his country, was overtaken by death at Chiusi, before he could make himself known to those who had come to his help. They could only suppose he had come from Thrace, the country of the Cicones, possibly from the language he spoke, or from the costume he wore.

On May 31, 1578, a workman, while digging a sandpit in the vineyard of Bartolomeo Sanchez at the second milestone of the Via Salaria, came upon a Christian cemetery containing frescoes, sarcophagi, and inscriptions. This unexpected discovery created a great sensation,[153] and the report was circulated that an underground city had been found. The leading men of the age hastened to the spot; among them Baronius, who speaks of these wondrous crypts three or four times in his annals.[154] It seems that the network of galleries, crossing one another at various angles, the skylights, the wells, the symmetry of the cubiculi and arcosolia, the number of loculi with which the sides of the galleries were honeycombed, affected the imagination of visitors even more than the pictures, the sarcophagi, and the epitaphs. The subjects of the frescoes were so varied as to contain almost the whole cycle of early Christian symbolism. There were the Good Shepherd and the Praying Soul, Noah and the ark, Daniel and the lions, Moses striking the rock, the story of Jonah, the sacrifice of Isaac, the three men in the fiery furnace, the resurrection of Lazarus, etc. The bas-reliefs of the marble coffins represented Christian love-feasts and pastoral scenes. The epitaphs contained simply names, except one, which was raised by a girl "to her sweet nurse Paulina, who dwells in Christ among the blessed." These pious memorials of the primitive church led the learned visitors to investigate their meaning and value, as well as the history and name of those mysterious labyrinths. The origin of Christian archæology, therefore, really dates from May 1, 1578. Antonio Bosio, the Columbus of subterranean Rome, was but three years old at that time, but he seems to have developed his marvellous instinct on the strength of what he saw in the Vigna Sanchez in his boyhood. The crypts, however, had but a short life: the quarry-men damaged and robbed them to such an extent that, when Bosio began his career in 1593, every trace of them had disappeared. They have never been found since. We can only point out to the lover of these studies the site of the Vigna Sanchez. It is marked by a monumental gate, on the right side of the Via Salaria, crowned by the well-known coat-of-arms of the della Rovere family, to whom the property was sold towards the end of the sixteenth century. The gate is a little more than a mile from the Porta Salaria.

From that time to the first quarter of the present century, we have to tell the same long tale of destruction. And who were responsible for this wholesale pillage? The very men—Aringhi, Boldetti, Marangoni, Bottari—who devoted their lives, energies and talents to the study of the catacombs, and to whom we are indebted for many standard works on Christian archæology. Such was the spirit of the age. Whether an historical inscription came out of one cemetery or another did not matter to them; the topographical importance of discoveries was not appreciated. Written or engraved memorials were sought, not for the sake of the history of the place to which they belonged, but to ornament houses, museums, villas, churches and monasteries. In 1863, de Rossi found a portion of the Cemetery of Callixtus, near the tombs of the Popes, in incredible confusion and disorder: loculi ransacked, their contents stolen, their inscriptions broken and scattered far and wide, and the bones themselves taken out of their graves. The perpetrators of the outrage had taken care to leave their names written in charcoal or with the smoke of tallow candles; they were men employed by Boldetti in his explorations of the catacombs, between 1713 and 1717. Some of the tombstones were removed by him to S. Maria in Trastevere, and inserted in the floor of the nave. Benedict XIV. took away the best, and placed them in the Vatican Library. They have now migrated again to the Museo Epigrafico of the Lateran Palace. Those left in the floor of S. Maria in Trastevere were removed to the vestibule of the church in 1865.

In 1714, some beautiful paintings of the first century were discovered in the crypt of the Flavian family (Domitilla) at Torre Marancia. They were examined by well-known archæologists and churchmen, whose names are scratched or written on the walls: Boldetti, Marangoni, Bottari, Leonardo da Porto Maurizio, and G.B. de Rossi (the last two since canonized by the Church), and by hundreds of priests, nuns, missionaries, and pilgrims. No mention is made of this beautiful discovery in contemporary books; but an attempt was made to steal the frescoes, which resulted, as usual, in their total destruction.[155] The catacombs owe their sad fate to the riches which they contained. In times of persecution, when the fossores were pressed by too much work and memorial tablets could not be secured in time, it was customary for the survivors to mark the graves of the dear ones either with a symbol, a word, or a date scratched in the fresh cement; or with some object of identification, such as glass cups, medallions, cameos, intaglios, objects cut in rock crystal, coral, etc. If the work of exploration has been carried on actively in the last three centuries, it is on account of the rich harvest which searching parties were sure to reap whenever they chanced to come across a catacomb or part of a catacomb, yet unexplored, with these signs of recognition untouched.

The best works of the glyptic art, the rarest gems, coins, and medallions of European cabinets have come to light in this way. Pietro Sante Bartoli, who chronicled the discoveries made in Rome in the second half of the seventeenth century, speaks several times of treasure-trove in catacombs:[156]

"In a Christian cemetery discovered outside the Porta Portese, in the vineyard of a priest named degli Effetti, many relics of martyrs have been found, a beautiful set of the rarest medallions (bellissima serie di medaglioni rarissimi), works in metal and crystal, engraved stones, jewels, and other curios and interesting objects, many of which were sold by the workmen at low prices." And again: "The opening of a catacomb was discovered by accident under the Casaletto of Pius V., outside the Porta S. Pancrazio. Although the crypt had never been entered, and promised to be very rich, no excavations were attempted, owing to the dangerous condition of the rock. One object only was extracted from the ruinous cavern; a polychrome cameo of marvellous beauty (di meravigliosa bellezza) representing a Bacchanalian. The stone measured sixteen inches in length by ten in width. It was given to cardinal Massimi."[157]

The number of catacombs has been greatly exaggerated. Panvinius and Baronius stated it as forty-three; Aringhi and his followers raised this number to sixty. De Rossi, however, in vol. i., p. 206, of the "Roma sotterranea" proves that the number of catacombs excavated during the first three centuries, within a radius of three miles from the walls of Servius Tullius, is but twenty-six; besides eleven of much less importance, and five which were excavated after the Peace of Constantine.

It would be impossible to give even a summary description of these forty-two cemeteries, within the limits of the present chapter. De Rossi's account of Lucina's crypts in the Cemetery of Callixtus occupies one hundred and thirty-two folio pages, and has required thirty-five plates of illustration. I must confine myself to the mention of the few discoveries, connected with the history and topography of underground Rome, which have come within my personal experience, or which I have had occasion to study.

The Catacombs of Generosa. In 1867, while watching with my friend commendatore Visconti (the present director of the Vatican Museum) the excavations of the Sacred Grove of the Arvales, on the Via Campana, five miles outside the Porta Portese, I witnessed for the first time the discovery of a catacomb. The experience could not have been more pleasant, nor the history of the first occupants of these crypts more interesting.