The catacombs of Rome are ancient underground cemetery areas built by both the Jewish and Christian communities in the second century. They are composed of a network of tunnels dug into the rock in some cases even on several levels.
In the subsoil of Rome there are more than 50 catacombs in which there are about 150 km of galleries , many of these can be visited today, with us you can choose which one to discover: San Callisto, San Sebastiano, Priscilla, Domitilla, SS Marcellino and Pietro or San Agnese
- San Callisto:
The Catacomb of St. Callixtus extends between the Via Appia Antica and the Via Ardeatina and is, according to sources, the oldest official cemetery of the Christian community of Rome. The complex takes its name from the deacon Callistus who, under Pope Zephyrinus (199-217), was in charge of the administration of the cemetery and who, having become pope (217-222), enlarged it considerably. The cemetery complex develops in some places even on five floors and its galleries have a development of over 10 kilometers.
Inside you can visit the crypt of the popes, which welcomed the burials of the popes who reigned between 230 and 283.
- San Sebastiano:
The place where the Catacomb of San Sebastiano stands was once a deep depression, used as a pozzolan quarry and called ad catacumbas (or "near the cavities"), a name that has become synonymous with underground cemetery. Since the first century the site has been intensively exploited and built: the underground galleries were reused to obtain burials in loculo, on the surface, however, several columbariums and at least two residential plants were built (the so-called small villa and large villa) with remarkable parietal pictorial decorations. Around the middle of the second century the bottom of the depression was buried to create a pitch, on one side of which three mausoleums were built in succession (of Clodius Hermes, of the Innocentiores, of the Axe). A further underground of the area was built to give space to the construction of the triclia, a portico bordered by a wall on which numerous graffiti invocations addressed to SS. Peter and Paul, who were venerated together around 250, have been identified. On the site, then, the emperor Constantine (306-337) erected a Basilica in the shape of a Roman circus (called "circiforme"). Meanwhile, already in the third century, the catacomb that housed the tombs of the martyrs Sebastian and Eutychius began to develop underground.
- Priscilla:
Located on the Via Salaria, the catacomb is spread over two floors and probably takes its name from a Priscilla of the senatorial family of the Acili, whose name occurs in one of the inscriptions of the hypogeum of the Acili on the first floor. The Christians began to use the large and irregular galleries that make up the first floor of the catacomb towards the beginning of the third century, building about twenty niched tombs and digging hundreds of niches in the walls. In an adjacent area there is the cryptoporticus with the Greek Chapel: a large underground masonry room, born as a noble family burial ground then connected with the catacomb.
Several popes were also buried in Priscilla: Marcellinus (296-304), Marcellus (308-309), Sylvester (314-335), Liberius (352-366), Siricius (384-399), Celestine (422-432) and Vigilius (537-555).
- Domitilla:
The catacomb of Domitilla, in Via delle Sette Chiese, is among the largest cemeteries in underground Rome and originates from some burial grounds made up of land belonging to Flavia Domitilla and donated by her to her freedmen. Flavia Domitilla was the granddaughter of Flavius Clement, consul of 95 AD, and related to the imperial family. As a Christian, Flavia Domitilla was exiled by Domitian to the island of Ponza, where she died. The catacomb is spread over two main levels. In the so-called Hypogeum of the Flavians, Giovanni Battista de Rossi believed to identify the tombs of Christian members of the family of Flavia Domitilla, while it is a pagan hypogeum referable between the end of the second and the beginning of the third century, became Christian and enlarged in the second half of the third century. Towards the end of the third century, the bodies of the martyrs Nereus and Achilleus were placed in a crypt on the second floor that was transformed by Pope Damasus (366-384) into a small masonry basilica, enlarged by Pope Siricius between 390 and 395 until it reached its current size.
- St. Agnes:
Saint Agnes is a very famous and venerated Roman martyr: there are good elements to believe her a martyr at the time of Decius or Valerian, even if some consider her a victim of the persecution of Diocletian.
She died when she was only 12 years old: Pope Damasus refers to a fire in which the saint would have thrown herself. After the martyrdom, the body of little Agnes was placed in a hypogeum owned by her family, on the left of Via Nomentana, where there was already a surface necropolis with single tombs and mausoleums. The object of particular attention was the tomb of Agnes that at the time of Pope Liberius (352-366) was decorated with marble slabs: one of these slabs is probably the one currently exposed in the entrance staircase of the Honorary Basilica and which represents a young girl in an attitude of prayer between two panels with geometric motif.
