CHAPTER IV. 150

THE REDISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF THE CATACOMBS.

It would seem that the rediscovery of the Catacombs was providentially reserved to a period especially adapted for their profitable study. In the fullness of time, when the great Reformation was emancipating the minds of men from the trammels of superstition, and long-venerated beliefs and usages were being compared with the still older primitive faith and practice, this marvellous testimony of the purity, simplicity, and piety of the early church was unveiled. These Christian evidences, which have no parallel save in the sacred scriptures themselves, after having been sealed up during the dark ages of ignorance and superstition, were brought to light in a period of intellectual quickening and revived classical learning, which stimulated the minds of men to the study of the past and to the rescue from oblivion of the priceless remains of antiquity. The newly-invented printing-press and the engraver’s burin preserved the record of much that has since perished; and Roman archæologists, seeking in the monuments of antiquity for corroboration of papal doctrine and practice, brought to light the disproof of their existence in the early ages of the church. A rejection of this testimony would invalidate _all_ monumental evidence, whether sacred or secular, concerning the past.

The rediscovery of this subterranean city took place in the year 1578. 151 Some labourers digging _pozzolana_ in a vineyard on the Salarian Way came suddenly upon an ancient cemetery,[257] with its paintings, inscriptions, sarcophagi, and graves. The event produced a profound sensation in Rome. The city was amazed, says Baronius, who himself examined and described the newly-discovered Catacomb, at finding beneath her suburbs long-concealed Christian colonies.[258] These ancient shrines became again favourite places of devotion. Here, among others, St. Charles Borromeo and St. Philip Neri spent whole nights in prayer.

The earliest systematic explorers of the Catacombs were Alfonso Ciacconio, a Spanish priest, and Philip de Winghe and Jean l’Heureux,[259] two Flemish laymen. The voluminous MSS. and drawings of the two former, however, were never published, and they lie buried in those vast cemeteries of literature, the libraries of Rome, Naples, Brussels, and Paris. The valuable MS. of l’Heureux, the result of twenty years’ labour, although ready for publication, and even licensed for printing, in 1605, remained unprinted for two centuries and a half, when it was given to the public by Padre Garrucci under the appropriate title of _Hagioglypta_.[260] Such a lengthened period between licensing and publication is probably unparalleled in literary history.

To Antonio Bosio, a native of Malta and an advocate by profession, 152 belongs the honour of first unveiling to the astonished gaze of Europe the wonders of this vast city of the dead. He has well been called the Columbus of this subterranean world. Inspired and sustained by a lofty enthusiasm, he spent six and thirty years groping among those gloomy corridors, deciphering the half-effaced inscriptions, and making drawings of the remains of early Christian art. So habituated did he become to this troglodytic existence that the Cimmerian gloom of the Catacombs was more grateful to his eyes than the light of day, which dazzled and almost blinded him. His labours were prodigious, and often both severe and perilous. He had frequently to force a passage with his own hands through the accumulated rubbish of centuries, and was constantly in danger, in the zeal of exploration, of being lost in the windings of the galleries, from which danger he had some narrow escapes. In his great work he describes himself as rushing along with breathless haste, the desire with which he burned adding wings to his weary feet. Again he is creeping serpent-wise through the low and crumbling passages, consoling himself for the difficulty and discomfort by the thought that this lowly attitude befitted the humble and reverent spirit in which a place consecrated by such memories ought to be approached. But he was rewarded for all his toil by the discovery of “pictures bright with the colours of yesterday, and characters still sharp and angular from the primeval graving tool.”

The elder D’Israeli has cited Bosio as an illustrious example of the enthusiasm of genius. “Taking with him a hermit’s meal for the week,” he remarks, “this new Pliny often descended into the bowels of the earth by lamp-light, clearing away the sand and ruins till some tomb 153 broke forth or some inscription became legible, tracing the mouldering sculpture and catching the fading picture. Thrown back into the primitive ages of Christianity amidst the local impressions, the historian of the Christian Catacombs collected the memorials of an age and of a race which were hidden beneath the earth.”[261]

The literary industry of this pioneer explorer was immense. He carefully examined all the Latin, Greek, and Oriental Fathers; all the ecclesiastical records, canons, and decrees of councils; the lives of the saints, the acts of the martyrs--everything, in fact, which could illustrate the history of the Catacombs and of the early church. The result of these labours is seen in the bulky MS. volumes, of many thousand pages, written with his own hand, which are still extant in the Oratorian Library at Rome. He was not permitted to see the publication of his great work, in which was disclosed to the world the wonderful _terra incognita_ lying so long hidden beneath the busy life of the Eternal City, but died while writing the last chapter. It was too valuable a contribution to Christian archæology, however, to remain unpublished, and it was given to the world, under the appropriate title of “Subterranean Rome,”[262] in the year 1632, or five years after its author’s death.

This book contains an admirable topographical account of each cemetery which he had explored, taking in order the great consular roads leading from the city. Bosio’s attempted identification of the cemeteries and principal tombs and shrines described in the ancient 154 ecclesiastical records is not always sufficiently accurate. He is rather uncritical and confused in his arrangement, although honest and, in matters of personal observation, exact. His work is of great value as giving an account of many crypts and monuments, and copies of many paintings which have perished through the decay or vandalism of the last two hundred years, or whose position has been forgotten. Among these is the Jewish Cemetery before mentioned, of which no evidence is extant save Bosio’s description. His name, written in his own peculiarly bold style, is met with in many of the newly opened galleries of the Catacombs, showing that he had previously explored those parts since filled with earth.

Many objects of priceless value have been lost since Bosio’s day by the desultory and unsystematic excavations of private and independent explorers. These were conducted, not upon a system of enlightened archæological research, but upon mere caprice; and were guided too often by a superstitious zeal for the identification and translation of the relics of the saints, or by the more sordid motive of trafficking in their remains, or of pillaging the gold and silver with which some of the more illustrious shrines were still adorned. In this quest many paintings, sculptures, and inscriptions were destroyed or defaced of which no record has been preserved. After the year 1688 the excavations were pursued under pontifical supervision, though often neglected through indifference or embarrassed by want of funds.

In 1651 a Latin translation of Bosio’s great work[263] was published 155 by Padre Aringhi, a learned Oratorian priest, who added numerous important discoveries of his own. This book has been largely consulted in the preparation of these pages, collated, of course, with more recent and more accurate explorers.

The Catacombs were now frequently visited by travellers, who have left a record of their impressions in their published works. Among these were two distinguished Englishmen, John Evelyn and Bishop Burnet. The sturdy Protestantism of the latter, rejecting the unwarranted inferences drawn by the Roman archæologists from this testimony of the primitive ages, was betrayed into an unjust skepticism as to the character of that testimony. He does not scruple to affirm that “those burying places that are graced with the pompous title of Catacombs are no other than the _puticoli_ mentioned by Festus Pompeius, where the meanest sort of the Roman slaves were laid,” and that they did not come into the possession of the Christians till the fourth or fifth century.[264] A more careful or more candid examination of those early evidences of Christianity would have shown him the error of this statement, in which he has been followed by Misson, a French Protestant, and by some other writers.

In 1681 Bertoli published an interesting work on the sepulchral lamps of the Catacombs[265] with numerous illustrations; but a more valuable contribution to the literature of this subject was a collection of Christian epitaphs[266] by Raphael Fabretti, for many years custodian 156 of these sacred crypts, who prevented the wholesale destruction of the inscriptions by their careless removal. The learned Benedictine, Mabillon, personally examined the evidences of the Catacombs, and wrote a treatise concerning the reverence of the unknown saints.[267] This led to the publication, under the patronage of Clement XI., of a theological and apologetic, rather than scientific, treatise on the cemeteries of the holy martyrs and early Christians of Rome,[268] by Marc Antonio Boldetti, the successor, for thirty years, of Fabretti, as _custode_ of the Catacombs. But in his case, as in that of several other Roman archæologists, theological zeal was allied with antiquarian enthusiasm, and sometimes impaired or destroyed the value of his researches.

Gruter’s vast collection of ancient inscriptions,[269] published early in the century, and more especially that of Muratori,[270] were valuable contributions to Christian epigraphy. The learned Jesuit, Marangoni, prepared the material of a systematic work on the topographical principle of Bosio, when the labour of nearly a score of years was destroyed by fire. “It seems,” says De Rossi, recording the event, “that the literary history of the Catacombs is but an Iliad of disaster and irreparable losses.”

The next name of distinction that we meet in connection with this subject is that of Bottari, equally versed in profane and sacred antiquities. His great work on the sculpture and paintings of the 157 Catacombs[271] was issued from the Vatican press, under the patronage of Clement XII., during the years 1737-1754. Other archæologists, among whom we may enumerate Buonarrotti, Mamachi,[272] Marini, Lupi, Zaccaria,[273] Danzetta,[274] Olivieri, Borgia, and others, illustrated the subject in various works during the eighteenth century. The establishment of the Christian Museum in the Vatican by Benedict XIV. greatly facilitated the study of these antiquities. The taste for archæological research, however, even among ecclesiastics, was principally confined to the remains of pagan antiquity; and amid the many museums of Rome only one was devoted to the Christian monuments of the primitive ages, of which such vast treasures lay buried in the earth.

During the present century important contributions have been made to the literature of the Catacombs by D’Agincourt,[275] Röstell,[276] Raoul-Rochette,[277] the Abbés Gaume[278] and Gerbet,[279] Bishop 158 Munter,[280] Cardinal Mai,[281] and especially Padres Marchi[282] and Garrucci.

Cardinal Wiseman, in his beautiful tale of Fabiola,[283] attempts to rehabilitate the primitive ages in the garb of modern Romanism. He brings together from widely different periods the legends and traditions, often based on very scanty evidence, which are most favourable to the claims of ultramontanism, and thus completely destroys the historic value of the work, rendering it in essence, as it is in form, a mere romance.

The most magnificent contribution to the literature of the Catacombs, at least in point of artistic excellence and costliness, is the superb work of M. Perret,[284] in six huge folio volumes, with some five hundred coloured drawings, two thirds of which were never before copied, and as many _fac-simile_ inscriptions. It was prepared under the direction of the French Academy of Inscriptions, and by a vote of the Legislative Assembly of the French Republic of 1851 a grant of one hundred and eighty thousand francs was given to defray the cost. No expense was spared in its production. An able corps of 159 artists and architects were employed for several years in the undertaking. The galleries and _cubicula_ are represented in elaborate drawings, plans, and sections, and many of the frescoes are copied full size. In these latter, however, the artists have injudiciously endeavoured to reproduce the original force, colour, and expression, instead of giving _fac-similes_ of the faded, and often half-obliterated, paintings. Many of the pictures have, therefore, a pre-Raphaelite beauty, which destroys their value as accurate representations of the art of the Catacombs. It is to be regretted that the letter-press which accompanies these plates is not more worthy of the general magnificence of this splendid work. “It is strung together,” says the writer already quoted,[285] “without discrimination or critical research, and conveys a very inaccurate notion of the results which scientific inquiry, as opposed to mere ecclesiastical tradition, has now reached.” We have rarely ventured to make a statement on its authority unless corroborated by more authentic testimony, but many of its accurate drawings of subterranean architecture enhance the value of these pages.

All previous explorers, however, are left far behind by the invaluable labours of the Cavaliere De Rossi, the present _custode_ of the Catacombs, and head of the Roman archæological commission. His profound knowledge of Christian antiquities, his unchallenged candour and honesty of statement, his patience and ingenuity in exploration, his scientific method, accurate observation, and careful deductions, 160 place him far beyond any of his predecessors in this fascinating but difficult field of inquiry. While, however, his statements of facts may always be relied upon, his theoretical conclusions must sometimes be received with caution, in consequence of that seemingly inevitable tendency in Roman Catholic writers to discover ancient evidences in favour of their modern belief and practice where they can be found by no one else.

The Catacombs are now placed under the jurisdiction of the Roman Cardinal Vicar, assisted by a commission of sacred archæology appointed by the present pontiff. As far as the comparatively limited means at their command will allow, they zealously prosecute the excavation and exploration of this subterranean Rome with a systematic method which has already been attended with remarkable success, and which promises the most happy results in the future. From its crumbling ruins, paintings, decorations, and inscriptions of different ages, De Rossi reconstructs its history, often with the greatest minuteness and fidelity. His _Roma Sotterranea_[286] contains a general history of the Catacombs on the principle adopted in this volume, and a particular analysis of that of Callixtus, embodying his most important discoveries. The learned author is also publishing a complete collection of all the Christian inscriptions of the first seven centuries found in the vicinity of Rome. The first volume[287] contains all those with consular dates, which are invaluable as fixing 161 the chronology of the Catacombs and as evidences of doctrine, showing its gradual corruption in later times. De Rossi also edits a bimonthly journal--the _Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana_--in which the new discoveries are announced.

Dr. Maitland has the honour of being the first English writer on this subject, with the exception of the incidental allusions of travellers like Evelyn and Burnet. His admirable volume on the “Church in the Catacombs” is one of great interest, but having been written thirty years ago is quite out of date; and the recent discoveries of De Rossi and others have shown some of its conclusions, especially on the origin of the Catacombs, to be erroneous. His chapters on religious art and symbolism are of permanent value, and the theological bearing of these Christian evidences has been discussed with great candour and moderation.

In 1852 Mr. MacFarlane published a small volume giving a popular account of the Catacombs, making no reference, however, to their doctrinal teachings. “I have,” he says, “carefully avoided controversy.” The Rev. J. W. Burgon’s “Letters from Rome” contain some valuable chapters on this subject. The Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D., a Roman Catholic clergyman, published in 1857 a compendious “Account of the Burial-places of the Early Christians in Rome,” compiled chiefly from Padre Marchi, whose strongly Romanist views he fully adopted. In conjunction with the Rev. W. R. Brownlow, M.A., he published in 1869 the results of De Rossi’s labours in a condensed 162 form, with reduced copies of many of his plates. With the same reserve as in the case of his former volume, this is a valuable contribution to the literature of this subject.[288] More recently the Rev. W. B. Marriott, B.D., has written a work entitled “The Testimony of the Catacombs,” consisting of three monographs illustrating the development of the _cultus_ of Mary, the gradual encroachments of the papal see, as indicated in Christian art, and a critical analysis of the celebrated Autun inscription.

In America, the Right Rev. Wm. Ingraham Kip, D.D., published in 1853 a little book of a popular character, giving an account of the Catacombs, chiefly from Maitland, MacFarlane, and Aringhi. The authorities on which it is based, however, have since been superseded, and some of the views which they held disproved by recent discovery.

The only remaining work to be mentioned as illustrating this subject is an admirable volume on Christian epigraphy[289] by the Rev. John McCaul, LL.D. The learned author’s expansions, interpretations, and emendations of the frequently elliptical, obscure, and ungrammatical inscriptions of the Catacombs and other early Christian cemeteries, and the reconstruction from a few mutilated fragments of important 163 historic evidence, seem to the uninitiated more a sort of divination than a process of reasoning.[290]

[257] The Catacomb of St. Priscilla.

[258] Ipsamet urbs obstupuit, cum abditas in suis suburbiis se novit habere civitatis Christianorum colonias.--_Ann. Eccl._, ann. 130. It is singular that in the very year of their rediscovery Onophrius Pavinius, an Augustinian friar, published an account of the Christian cemeteries entirely from the ancient documents of the church. Only three of them were then accessible, those of Sebastian, Lawrence, and Valentine.

[259] Grecised into Joannes Macarius.

[260] Paris, 1856.

[261] _Essay on the Literary Character._ Eng. ed., p. 144.

[262] _Roma Sotteranea, opera postuma di Antonio Bosio composta disposta ed accresciuta da Giovanni di Severano, Sacerdote della Congregazione dell’Oratorio._ Roma, 1632.

MacFarlane and Kip are in error as to the period of Bosio’s labours, antedating them about thirty years.

[263] _Roma Subterranea novissima post Ant. Bosium et Joan. Severanum._ Romæ, 1651. Two vols. fol. It is said that there are only two copies of this work in America. Aringhi’s version, being in Latin, is better known out of Italy than the Italian treatises of Bosio, Boldetti, or Bottari.

[264] “Letters from Italy in 1685 and 1686.” Rotterdam. Pp. 209.

[265] _Li antichi lucerni sepolcrali figurante raccolte dale cave sotterranea e grotte di Roma._ Roma, 1681.

[266] _Inscriptionum antiquarum quæ in ædibus paternis asservantur etc._ Romæ, 1702.

[267] _De Cultu Sanctorum Ignotorum._

[268] _Osservazioni sopra i cemeteri dei SS. Martiri ed antichi cristiani di Roma._ Roma, 1720.

[269] _Inscriptiones Antiquæ._ Amstelodami, 1707.

[270] _Novus Thesaurus Veterum Inscriptionum._ Mediolani, 1739.

[271] _Sculture e Pitture Sacre estratte dai Cimeteri di Roma._ Roma.

[272] His _Originum et Antiquitatum Christianorum_, Roma, 1749-51, treats especially on the sarcophagi of the Catacombs.

[273] This celebrated Jesuit projected a work “On the Use of Ancient Christian Inscriptions in Theology.” See Migne, _Cursus Completus Theolog._, vol. v, pp. 309, etc.

[274] Danzetta continued Zaccaria’s plan. His work, which he called _Theologia Lapidaria_, left unfinished, was undertaken by Geatano Marini, who spent many years collecting materials to embrace the first ten centuries. He was interrupted by the French Revolution, and his thirty-one volumes of MS. in the Vatican are an unfinished monument of his learning and industry.

[275] In _L’Histoire de L’Art par les Monumens_. Six vols. fol. Paris. D’Agincourt came to Rome intending to spend six months in the study of this subject, but its fascination so grew upon him that it occupied the remaining fifty years of his life.

[276] In Bunsen’s _Beschreibung der Stadt Rom_. Stuttgard, 1830.

[277] _Mémoire sur les antiquités Chrétiennes des Catacombes._ (_Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr., XIII._) See also _Tableau des Catacombes_.

[278] In _Les Trois Romes_.

[279] _Esquisse de Rome Chrétienne._

[280] _Sinnbilder und Kunstvorstellungen der Alten Christen._ Altona.

[281] _Veterum Scriptorum Nova Collectio._ Roma, 1831.

[282] _Monumenti delle Arti Cristiane Primitive nella Metropoli del Cristianesimo._ Roma, 1844. The political troubles of the year 1848 prevented its completion. The theological zeal of this writer, however, has in many cases biassed his judgment. “In every page of his work,” says a critic in the Edinburgh Review, (January, 1859, Am. ed. ccxxi, p. 48,) “an exuberant desire to find evidence in support of the later Romish doctrine among these records of the primitive church predominates over every other consideration.”

[283] London, 1857.

[284] _Les Catacombes de Rome, par Louis Perret._ Six vols., fol. Paris, 1852-57. This book costs in the United States $600. Only three copies are known to be in America. One of these is a gift from the late emperor of the French to the parliamentary library of Canada.

[285] Edinburgh Review, January, 1859, p. 48. De Rossi speaks with tenderness of this superb edition--_la grandiza edizione_--which, in spite of its defects--_mal grado i suoi difetti_--is a valuable contribution to the literature of the Catacombs.

[286] _Roma Sotterranea Cristiana._ Roma, 1864-67. Four vols. fol., two of text and two of plates, which are of great fidelity. The text is from the Vatican press. The plates bear the imprint _Venezia_.

[287] _Inscriptiones Christianæ Urbis Romæ Septimo Sæculo Antiquiores._ Romæ. One vol. fol., 1857-61. It is dedicated to the present pope, “Another Damasus, who has brought to light the monuments of the martyrs ... overwhelmed with ruin.”--“Pio IX., Pont. Max. alteri Damaso, qui monumenta martyrum,... ruinis obstructa in lucem revocat.” Both of these works, which embody the result of the most recent explorations, have been laid under tribute in the preparation of these pages. Several of the illustrations are from the same sources.

[288] _Roma Sotterranea._ London, 1869. 8vo., pp. 414. It sells in New York for about $16 00.

[289] “Christian Epitaphs of the First Six Centuries,” by the Rev. John McCaul, LL.D., President of University College, Toronto. Toronto and London, 1869. Dr. McCaul was previously well known to the archæological world by his learned volume on Brittanno-Romano Inscriptions, a work which has elicited the commendations of the highest critical authorities in Europe. The writer of these pages has been greatly assisted by his veteran scholarship and critical revision of the text.

[290] Among the smaller treatises on the Catacombs, and separate articles in the encyclopædias and journals of higher literature, may be mentioned the following, most of which have been consulted in the preparation of these pages: Remusat, _Musée Chrétien de Rome_; _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Juin 15, 1863; _Revue Chrétienne_, Mai, 1864; Jehan, _Dict. des Origin. du Christ._, pp. 212, 89; Martigny, _Dict. des Antiq. Chrét._, p. 106; Bouix, _Théologie des Catacombes_, Arras, 1864; Piper, _Mythologie und Symbolik der Christlichen Kunst_, Weimar, pp. 184, 51, and _Die Graben Schriften der Altenten Christen_ in _Evang. Kallendar_ 1855, p. 27, 1827, p. 37; _Edin. Rev._, January, 1859, and July, 1864; _Contemp. Rev._, September, 1866, and May, 1872; _Monumental Theology_, by Prof. Bennett, in _Meth. Quar. Rev._, January and April, 1871; M’Clintock and Strong, _Cyclopædia_, _in verbo_. In the _History of Sacred Art in Italy_, by C. L. Hemans, son of the poetess, are two interesting chapters on the Catacombs, and valuable notes of ancient art, _passim_. Seymour’s _Mornings with the Jesuits_ has some interesting paragraphs on this subject, as has also Prof. Silliman’s _Visit to Europe_. The Rev. Wm. Arthur, M.A., has an able Exeter Hall lecture on the Catacombs. In Murray’s _Hand-Book of Rome_, ed. of 1867, is some interesting information on this topic. In _Harper’s Mag._, April, 1865, is a popular article by Prof. Greene, U. S. Consul at Rome. In Schaff’s _Ch. Hist._, 1, § 93; _Killen’s Anc. Ch._, pp. 348-351; Stanley’s _Eastern Churches_, and Milman, _passim_, are interesting references to the subject. In Westcrop’s _Hand-Book of Archæology_, London, 1867, and in the _Dict. Épig. Chrétienne_, Paris, 1852, are valuable contributions on the epigraphy of the Catacombs. Didron’s _Iconographie Chrétienne_, Paris, 1841; Lord Lindsay’s _Hist. of Art_, London, 1847; Lübke’s _History of Art_, London, 1869; Mrs. Jameson’s _Sacred Art_, Tyrwhitt’s _Christian Art and Symbolism_, and Hare’s _Walks About Rome_, have also been laid under contribution.