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.