A visit to the Roman catacombs

St. Jerome’s description of the Catacombs—More detailed description of their galleries, chambers, and tombs; their depth, extent, and number—They were not deserted sandpits or q...

Earliest places of Christian worship in Rome—Their position before the law—Edict of Valerian against assemblies in the Catacombs—Disobedience and consequent martyrdom of St. Six...

Gradual disuse of burial in the Catacombs—Other cemeteries not subterranean—Purchase of graves, especially near the tombs of saints—Basilicas built over some of these—Work of Po...

Catacombs lost sight of for 700 years, accidentally recovered in 1578—Labours and scientific method of Bosio imperfectly followed by his successors—Revival of interest in the su...

Primitive Christian art almost a new subject of Christian archæology—Most of the paintings in the Catacombs, and the best of them, belong to the first four centuries—Resemblance...

Number and importance of ancient Christian inscriptions—Destruction of very many of them—Preservation of others by the Popes—Points of resemblance to Pagan epitaphs—Points of di...

Entrance to the Cemetery of St. Callixtus—Cemetery above ground—_Graffiti_ at entrance of the Papal Crypt—Original epitaphs of several of the Popes of the third century—Inscript...

Ancient notices of burial of St. Cecilia near the Popes—Discovery of the crypt—Description of its ornamentation—Refutation of the claim of the Catacomb at St. Sebastian’s to be...

Precautions taken by Pope Damasus and others to guide pilgrims to the particular tomb they wished to visit—Copy of the epitaph in honour of St. Eusebius—Fragments of the origina...

St. Cornelius buried in another Catacomb—Objects of interest to be seen _en route_—The family vault of the Deacon Severus at end of third century—Paintings of the Good Shepherd,...

The great St. Jerome, writing about 1500 years ago, tells us that when he was a schoolboy in Rome, he used to go every Sunday, in company with other boys of his own age and tast...

How long the Roman Christians were allowed to bury their dead where they pleased, and to visit their tombs in peace, we can hardly say. In Africa there had been a popular outcry...

The persecution of Diocletian ended in 306, but it was not until 311 that the Catacombs were restored to their natural owners and protectors, the Bishops of Rome. In that year t...

From the middle of the ninth century till nearly the end of the sixteenth, the Roman Catacombs had no history, and were practically unknown. At various times indeed during the f...

There is no branch of Christian archæology in which the labours of De Rossi have produced a more startling revolution than in the history of Christian art. When the Reformers of...

What student of antiquity, or what merely intelligent observer of men and manners, is content to leave an old church or churchyard without first casting his eye over its monumen...

We have now acquired a sufficient general idea of the Catacombs to enable us to understand what we see when we come to examine any one of them in detail; and we will, therefore,...

A narrow doorway, cut somewhat irregularly through the rock in the corner of the Papal Crypt, introduces us into another chamber. As we pass through this doorway we observe that...

From the crypt of St. Cecilia we pass through a modern opening in one of its walls to a short gallery which leads to the sacramental chapels—_i.e._, to those chambers whose wall...

We have not promised to conduct the visitor to everything that is worth seeing in this cemetery, but only to enumerate and explain the principal monuments of historical importan...