Catacombs and crypts

Tuesday saw us doing the catacombs and crypts tour of Rome. The Ancient Romans had some odd ideas about death, like I have described previously bits of saints are stored in different churches, but today’s tour showed some other ways people were farewelled.

First stop the Museum and Crypt of the Capuchin Friars. We can’t take photos so you’ll have to Google to see pictures but this is rather macabre. The Capuchins are a branch of the Franciscans and in their crypt they have soil transported to Rome from the holy land. When a Capuchin friar dies he can then be buried in the soil of the holy land. All good.

But they would fast run out of space, and soil, unless …. yep after a while they dig up their bones to make room for more bodies. The bones are then piled in the crypts or stuck to the walls and ceilings in creepy patterns and designs. There were a couple of complete skeletons there but most were just bits and pieces.

They do this to try and drive home the fact life is short and we need to recognise our own mortality. There were the remains of about 3,700 bodies in total.

Next stop were the Catacombs of St. Callixtus which are just outside the old walls of Rome. No photos here either so have a look on Google.

These started about the second century and went until about the fifth or sixth centuries before they were abandoned. Previously bodies were buried wherever which caused public health issues so the church decided it would create these underground tunnels where anyone could be buried. There were a number of popes and many thousands of others from all levels of society interred.

Over the centuries grave robbers destroyed much of what was left of the bodies and any marble grave markers but you could still get an idea of the scale. There are about 20 kms of passageways and space for 500,000 bodies. As they needed more space they just dug the existing walkways deeper so you could see niches for bodies stacked six or seven high. Infant mortality was about 30% at the time so there are many small niches as well. Wealthy families could pay to have their own little rooms in the catacombs with frescoes painted on the ceilings and walls.

Very interesting and being up to 12m underground it was very cool on a hot Roman day.

Next stop was the Basilica of Saint Nicholas in Prison. The current church was built in 1599 but in an example of what is called archaeological lasagne it was built on top of two previous pagan temples. In this church we could take photos. It was similar to the Basilica di San Clemente we visited previously.

You could see below ground how the previous temple’s columns were included in the new designs. Once again there were a few bones left in various locations in the lower levels.

Next door to this church was the ruins of an arena older than the Colosseum. The Marcellus Theater was commissioned by Julius Caesar and built around 12 BC. It is next door to the Portico of Octavia we walked past on the food tour yesterday.

By now it was well after lunchtime and very hot so we went up into the Jewish Ghetto area and found a neat restaurant called Costanzas. A good pasta with beer and capped off with some lemon sorbet, excellent!

We then walked up across the river before deciding it was time to head back to the hotel to cool off.Read more