hic damasi mater posvit lavren[tia membra].
In the same year building operations in the Via di Sant’ Onofrio revealed the presence of catacombs beneath the foundations: examination of the loculi showed that no martyrs or illustrious persons were buried here.
In 1903 a new cemetery with frescoes came to light on the Via Latina, considered by Marucchi to have belonged to a heretical sect. In the same year the Jewish cemetery on the Via Portuense, known to Bosio but since forgotten, was rediscovered. The subterranean basilica of SS. Felix and Adauctus, discovered by Boldetti and afterwards choked up with ruins, was cleared again: the crypt, begun by Damasus and enlarged by Siricius, contains frescoes of the 6th-7th centuries.
A good plan of the catacombs at Albano (at the 15th milestone of the Appian way), discovered by Boldetti and described by De Rossi, has been published by Marucchi (Nuovo Bulletino di archeologia cristiana, 1902, pp. 89 ff.). In 1904 a small subterranean cemetery was discovered at Anagnia. Catacombs have also been recently discovered on the site of Hadrumetum near Sousse in Tunisia.
(
W. R. B.; O. M. D.)
Authorities.—The classical work on the catacombs of Rome is G.B. De Rossi’s Roma sotterranea, on which most of the accounts in other languages than Italian have been based. The fine volume by Mgr. Wilpert, Le Pitture delle catacombe romane (Rome, 1903), in which all the important frescoes are reproduced in colours, is to be regarded as an addition to the Roma sotterranea. All new discoveries made by the active Commissione di archeologia sacra are chronicled with as little delay as possible in the Nuovo Bulletino de archeologia cristiana published in Rome.
The most recent accounts of the catacombs are to be found in the following books:—Armellini, Gli Antichi Cimiteri cristiani di Roma e d’ Italia (Rome, 1893); O. Marucchi, Le Catacombe romane (Rome, 1903; also translated into French), Manuale di epigrafia cristiana (Milan, 1904); M. Besnier, Les Catacombes de Rome (Paris, 1909).
Among the older works are: Bosio, Roma sotterranea, Severano’s edition (1632), and Aringhi’s edition (1651); Boldetti, Osservazioni sopra i cimiteri dei santi martiri (Rome, 1720); Bottari, Sculture e pitture sagre, &c. (Rome, 1737-1754); Seroux d’Agincourt, Histoire de l’art par les monuments (Paris, 1823; German ed., 1840); G. Marchi, Monumenti delle arti cristiane primitive (Rome, 1844); Raoul Rochette, Tableau des catacombes de Rome (2nd ed., Paris, 1853); Perret, Les Catacombes de Rome (Paris, 1855)—a sumptuous folio work, but not always accurate, Roller, Les Catacombes de Rome (Paris, 1881); V. Schultze, Die Katakomben (Leipzig, 1882).