Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class Catacombs of Rome About this episode The story of the Roman catacombs is vastly different than that of the catacombs of Paris, as Rome’s are much older and were created for very different reasons.
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2:45 Speaker 02 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.
2:56 Speaker 02 Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey. And I'm Tracy V. Wilson. It's time for some catacombs talk. Yeah. Um, listen, this is a little bit of wish fulfillment for me because I have not been to the catacombs in Rome, but I sure want to. It just has not ever happened when I've been there. Now, it's a good excuse to go back. It's on my list for any future visits. But the story of the Roman catacombs is one that's always been really interesting to me because it is so very different from the story we've told on the show before about the catacombs of Paris. Rome's are much older. They were created for very different reasons. So we're going to talk about them today. I want to give you a heads up if you are
3:38 Speaker 02 a person that knows about them and loves them. We're not getting into the art. There's a lot of cool art in the Roman catacombs. That could be its own whole party train, and I would love for it to be. But today, we're really talking about like, more of the mechanics of how these came to be, why they came to be, et cetera. We're going to talk about the circumstances that led to their creation, their rediscovery after centuries of abandonment, and their status today.
4:07 Speaker 02 A description of the Roman catacombs, published in 1857, opens this way, "The Roman catacombs may be briefly described as labyrinths of subterranean galleries crossing one another in every direction, and here and there opening into chambers, more or less lofty and spacious, the whole hewn with the most exacting regularity out of the living rock, whose entire walls present a series of narrow shelves, one above the other, evidently excavated for the purpose of receiving the bodies of the dead, and afterward closed with facings of tile or marble, on which there were often inscribed the names of the persons buried within."
4:50 Speaker 02 So, from that passage, already some key differences between the catacombs of Rome and those of Paris, which we've talked about on the show before. We re-aired that episode, I think, in October of 2023. "The Parisian catacombs were a solution to a public health crisis that was caused by the city's cemeteries being woefully overfilled, was causing a number of problems. So, the dead were moved into limestone quarries under the outskirts of the city, turning those quarries into catacombs." This happened in the 18th century, but Rome was creating catacombs well before that, all the way back to the first century.
5:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, that writing that Tracy just mentioned is from the 19th century, and it's like during a time when people were getting really excited about the Roman catacombs again. The person that wrote that would end up working with one of the people that we are going to talk about late in the episode. So, the catacombs are believed to have been created in the first or second century as a way for people to bury their dead according to a custom that was not allowed within the city of Rome. Rome at this time was pagan. The standard practice was to cremate the dead. We'll talk a little bit about shifting trends in how the dead were treated. But cremation was not a practice that was part
6:16 Speaker 02 of Jewish and Christian traditions. Burial of the dead in the city of Rome was forbidden by law at the time. We'll talk more about that law. This is the very simple version to kind of get us into the intro. But to really look at the context of the catacombs, we have to talk a little bit about Jewish and Christian religion in Rome and how people who identified as Jewish or Christian were treated and how they lived alongside other Romans. So the early centuries of Rome's Jewish population, which of course that goes back to before the development of Christianity. Those early centuries are complicated. They feature cycles of conflict and relative peace.
6:59 Speaker 02 There are accounts of Jewish people living in Rome as far back as the second century BCE. Rome expelled its Jewish population on several occasions, including in 139 BCE amid accusations that they were attempting to convert Romans. Then again, in 19 CE for an assortment of accusations ranging from fraud to disorderly conduct. And then in the year 49, when Claudius banished the Jewish population. That last one is described in the works of Suetonius as Claudius expelling them, quote, "as the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Crestus."
7:42 Speaker 02 Whether or not Crestus was Jesus Christ is a matter that biblical scholars continue to examine, and that's way outside the scope of this episode. But after each of these expulsions, there was always a reversal of the policy, and often that was quite soon after it had been issued. During the reigns of Julius Caesar and Augustus, so in the time from the middle of the first century BCE to the early first century CE, there was legislation put in place that protected the practice of the Jewish religion. So this was a period of just constantly shifting sands of at least somewhat acceptance and expulsion for Rome's Jewish population. Another text that gives us insight
8:26 Speaker 02 into the Jewish population of Rome in the first century is the account of Josephus, who was born in Jerusalem in 36 or 37 CE and wrote autobiographical accounts of his life, which include the story of the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation of Judea in the year 66.
8:45 Speaker 02 That revolt is often referred to as the Great Revolt and also the First Jewish Roman War, and Josephus was a general in that revolt. This is also a massive historical moment with a lot of context that we're not diving into here, but the germane aspect is that though there were early victories for the Jewish side, eventually they were defeated. Josephus describes the Romans destroying the temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 and that this war displaced many Jews, including a large number that were captured and enslaved. So the important thing to note here is that at that point, there were both free and enslaved Jewish people living in Rome. Christianity began in Judea in the first century and then quickly spread throughout
9:30 Speaker 02 the Roman Empire, reaching Rome by the middle of the first century, although in small numbers. And it was viewed with deep suspicion by the existing Roman population, which remained polytheistic. At times, Rome's Jewish residents had gained kind of a grudging tolerance by the Romans because the Jewish religion was considered to be ancient, but Christianity was really an upstart and its followers were considered to be very aggressive in their desire to convert other people, which Rome saw as a big problem. The Great Fire of Rome, which started on July 18th of the year 69 and lasted for six days, was blamed on Christians.
10:12 Speaker 02 By the end of the first century, it was a crime to be Christian in Rome, and that crime was punishable by death. Over the following centuries, Christians, as the Jews before them, faced this roller coaster of persecution and kind of a fragile acceptance in the city. Coming up, we're going to circle back to how all of this resulted in catacombs being created to bury the dead. But first, we are going to take a quick sponsor break.
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12:49 Speaker 02 We've all done it, tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeart Media's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends.
13:32 Speaker 02 Not to cancel them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Help vs. Hype on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
13:53 Speaker 02 Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy
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15:35 Speaker 06 reinvented based on real feedback, is made with 100% white meat chicken and is now better than ever. You gotta try the new Burger King Chicken Nuggets and sauces today.
15:53 Speaker 02 Both Jewish and Christian practices regarding burial specified that the body was to be kept intact. But as we mentioned, this was in conflict with Roman law, at least in terms of anything that could be done within the city. That law was part of what were known as the Twelve Tables. These were regarded as the beginning of Rome's legal system. And the Twelve Tables were composed by a commission of 10 men in 451 and 450 BCE. Once they were ratified, they were engraved onto 12 bronze tables and displayed in the Forum. Those bronzes are unfortunately lost to time, and we don't have all of the text of the Twelve Tables today. What we have are fragments
16:36 Speaker 02 that were found in written references to them, so instances where they were quoted while someone was often discussing something else. What we know of the laws regarding burials include the edict that states, quote, "A dead person shall not be buried or burned in the city." Additionally, there are some other rules about limiting the degree of public mourning, not having more than one funeral for a given person, not wasting resources by burying gold, spices, incense, et cetera, with remains, and where funeral pyres and burning mounds could be erected in relation to other buildings. So for religions that called for the burial of an intact body, this meant that that burial
17:19 Speaker 02 was going to have to happen outside the city, which is how the catacombs came to be. Jewish residents of the city are believed to have been the first to use catacombs to lay their dead to rest. An important aspect of Rome's catacombs is how important they are to Jewish history. According to Leonard Victor Rutger's writing in Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies in 1989, quote, "The Jewish catacombs of ancient Rome form the largest coherent body of archaeological material from late antiquity pertaining to Jewish life outside Israel." Though there had been written information about the Jewish community of ancient Rome,
17:59 Speaker 02 the catacombs offer a unique opportunity to compare physical evidence with those accounts to gain a clearer picture of that community and its rituals. One thing that Rutgers points out in this writing is that there's no way to know if there were any, quote, "Jewish Christians," i.e. Jews that accepted Jesus Christ as the Son of God and raised from the dead, and at the same time continued to observe Mosaic Law buried in the Jewish catacombs. Identifying which catacombs had been used for Jewish burial was done based on the funerary inscriptions on the tombs there, which had Greek and Latin writing, in combination with the identification of Jewish motifs in the surrounding wall art, and sometimes
18:44 Speaker 02 small motifs that were carved into those stones that closed the catacombs. Those catacombs were also identified by just the lack of Christian or pagan symbology within them. But this also gives an incomplete picture because there are catacomb sites in the area around Rome that are unreachable, or that have been destroyed, or have caved in. So the written record and the archaeological record don't entirely match up. The written record establishes a Jewish community in Rome as early as the first century BCE, or perhaps even earlier. So it has long been assumed that the Jewish catacombs were in use sometime shortly thereafter. But the archaeological record only has evidence
19:25 Speaker 02 of them that begins in the early third century. The Rutgers paper analyzes things like brickwork, painting styles, brick stamps, et cetera, to be able to conclude with confidence that Jewish catacombs were actively used for sure in the third to fifth centuries, but that the beginning and end of their use cannot be conclusively identified on the timeline. He also makes the case that the practice of burial being adopted instead of cremation was probably taking place simultaneously among the Jewish population, Christians, and even some pagans. We do know that Christians also adopted the use of catacombs. This started,
20:07 Speaker 02 according to the Vatican, under the direction of Pope Zephyron, who was Pope from 199 to 217. He wanted to have an underground cemetery prepared so that pontiffs could be laid to rest there. The process of burials there was a lot like what we described in the opening passage that we read earlier. So bodies were wrapped in cloth and then put into the hollowed-out shelves of rock. And then a stone was placed in the front of that hollow to close it with the name of the person interred there, and often a symbol of the Christian religion. Also, to be clear, there were still tombs for the dead created for Rome's pagan population, both for cremated and non-cremated bodies. Cremation had become the most popular
20:51 Speaker 02 method of handling corpses in the fifth century BCE. But there were still people practicing full-body burials throughout the time periods that we're talking about. They still had to be interred outside the city, but Families of wealth and even a lot of the middle class had private mausoleums built on land outside the walls of Rome. That land was extremely expensive, so there were also shared burial spaces that families with less money could buy into to inter their dead, both intact and cremated, without having to own land and build a private mausoleum. Jewish and Christian communities, though, needed to bury all of their dead because
21:33 Speaker 02 of their religious beliefs. There was no option to switch to cremation to try to mitigate overcrowding and lack of land resources in a growing metropolis. Mausoleums were simply not realistic, which is why large, shared underground spaces were created. And this was also not a new idea in the region. The Etruscan civilization, which flourished from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE, had elaborate underground facilities. There are no Etruscan underground burial sites in or immediately adjacent to Rome, at least not that anybody has found. But two of these, the Banditaccia necropolis in
22:13 Speaker 02 Curvetary and the Montarazzi necropolis in Tarquinia, are both less than an hour's drive away today. Yeah, one thing that I found while looking at a lot of scholarship about this is that there are even some papers and some examinations that kind of make the leap to thinking that possibly the Jewish population made use of existing catacombs that had been Etruscan in origin. But we don't really have a good way to know that, at least not yet. Jewish and Christian burials, as well as some pagan ones, continued in the catacombs exclusively
22:54 Speaker 02 into the early 4th century. At the beginning of the 4th century, in the year 303, Emperor Diocletian initiated an intense persecution of Christians. This is always described as the worst persecution of all of them in Rome and resulted in the torture and deaths of a lot of people. This went on for eight years, during which, despite that danger, the numbers of Christians in the city continued to rise. Finally, in 311, Emperor Galerius, who had ascended to the role of emperor in 305, and who was, by the way, deeply against Christianity, surprisingly issued an edict of tolerance.
23:35 Speaker 02 That was the edict of Certica to end that long persecution. By the time Galerius was emperor, he was one of two. Under a system established by Diocletian in 293, known as the Tetrarchy, the Roman Empire was jointly ruled by two emperors, one to manage the east and one to manage the west. And each of them had their own designated successors who worked under them. This was intended to create stability for the empire, but unsurprisingly, there were often problems. The time of Constantine I, who ruled the west starting in July of 306, and Licinius, who became an emperor in November 308, was one in which there was a lot of conflict between the two emperors.
24:20 Speaker 02 So much conflict, there are just reams and reams of papers written about this conflict. But one thing that they did agree on was the edict of Milan in 313. This was an alliance in which they agreed to grant freedom of religion to everyone, but they specifically called out Christians. A translation of the first section of this edict reads, quote, "When I, Constantine Augustus, as well as I, Licinius Augustus, had fortunately met near Mediolanum, Milan, and were considering everything that pertained to the public welfare and security, we thought that, among other things which we saw would be for the good of many, those regulations
25:00 Speaker 02 pertaining to the reverence of the divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we might grant to the Christians and to all others, full authority to observe that religion which each preferred. Whence any divinity whatsoever in the seat of the heavens may be propitious and kindly disposed to us, and all who are placed under our rule. And thus, by this wholesome Council and most upright provision, we thought to arrange that no one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion, or of that religion which he should think best for himself, so that the supreme deity to whose worship we freely yield our hearts,
25:42 Speaker 02 may show in all things his usual favor and benevolence. Therefore, your worship should know that it has pleased us to remove all conditions whatsoever, which were in the rescripts formerly given to you officially concerning the Christians. And now, any one of these who wishes to observe the Christian religion may do so freely and openly, without any disturbance or molestation. We thought it fit to commend these things most fully to your care that you may know that we have given to those Christians free and unrestricted opportunity of religious worship. When you see that this has been granted to them by us, your worship will know that we have also conceded to other religions the right of open and free observance of their worship
26:28 Speaker 02 for the sake of the peace of our times, that each one may have the free opportunity to worship as he pleases. This regulation is made that we may not seem to detract aught from any dignity or any religion. I kind of love that there's a little bit of a bet hedge in there of like, whatever God is the one, be cool, we're cool with whoever follows you. This edict also called for the return of all goods and wealth that had been seized to be given back to the Christians. So from that point on, Christians were able to establish churches and cemeteries, meaning they could conduct their burial rituals in the city proper. But even though burial was allowed in the city,
27:11 Speaker 02 and a large number of churches were built and included cemeteries, or even places within the buildings for the dead, the catacombs did not instantly fall out of use. They were actively part of Christian burials for more than a hundred more years, even after Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman Empire by Emperor Theodosius with the edict of Thessalonica in 380. Over the next several centuries, as burials in the catacombs became less frequent, a different activity was on the rise in them, and that was looting. There were also religious services performed there on occasion, but looting became a real problem. Reading different accounts of the catacombs' history, a lot of different groups have been
27:56 Speaker 02 blamed for that looting. Mostly, it was holy relics that were being taken from burial sites. In reality, it was probably a lot of different people over time. There's no one perpetrator. It's sometimes said to have started with Christians removing relics since they no longer had to literally keep their sacred items underground. And other accounts point fingers at the various groups who have invaded Rome since the 4th century, including the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Byzantines, and the Lombards. This eventually led the Vatican to initiate a move of the relics from the catacombs to churches around the city where they could be carefully watched and safeguarded. With the removal of the relics, the church also removed the reason that people had still
28:41 Speaker 02 been visiting the catacombs, and over time, they were more or less abandoned and forgotten. Additionally, while they were outside the city's original walls, as the city grew and expanded past those old boundaries, new neighborhoods were built on top of the catacombs, and people just sort of lost track of where they were. Until they were rediscovered by a man named Antonio Bosio. And we'll talk about him after we hear from the sponsors that keep Stuff You Missed in History Class going.
29:14 Speaker 02 We've all done it: tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated. Science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers and real people trying these trends. Not to cancel them, not to hype them more,
29:59 Speaker 02 but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Help Versus Hype on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
30:18 Speaker 02 Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jesse have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane, navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends
31:01 Speaker 02 proving that queer joy only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
31:17 Speaker 06 Okay, chicken nugget fans, I've got huge news. The new Burger King Chicken Nuggets just dropped, and they are the crispiest, the juiciest and the tastiest chicken nuggets ever at Burger King. Burger King heard that a lot of you didn't like the old chicken nuggets, so they got to work and reinvented them. To go along with the new chicken nuggets, a lot of the sauces were reinvented too, because better chicken nuggets deserve better sauces. We're talking new buffalo sauce, honey mustard, sweet and sour, and even a whole new option too, the new special savory sauce, which is only available for a limited time at participating US restaurants. I mean, you need to taste it all for yourself. This new chicken nugget,
32:00 Speaker 06 reinvented based on real feedback, is made with 100% white meat chicken and is now better than ever. You gotta try the new Burger King Chicken Nuggets and sauces today.
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33:59 Speaker 02 Antonio Bosio was born in 1575 or 1576 in Malta. He is recorded by historian Bartolomeo del Pozzo as having been the child of Bali Gianotto, a knight of the Order of St. John, who had taken a vow of chastity. That would have made his existence a little bit problematic, and that was compounded by the fact that his mother was either a servant or an enslaved woman. The way it's written in the old record, it's unclear what they mean when they refer to her.
34:34 Speaker 02 When Antonio was 12, he was adopted and he was raised by his uncle Giacomo Bosio, who lived in Rome. And over time, any mentions of Antonio's parentage seemed to have been left out of his life story. So his uncle Giacomo became essentially his parent. Antonio Bosio was apparently a bit wild in his youth, but as he matured, he became a serious scholar. He got a law degree and practiced for several years, but he was also a history buff and was specifically fascinated with early Christian history. So he started exploring any places that held traces of the religion's earliest days, and that led
35:15 Speaker 02 him to the underground cemeteries of the city. He explored them in a very meticulous and careful manner, cataloguing as much as he could about everything that he saw there. He started working on a book detailing the catacombs that he had explored, but he died on September 6, 1629, before it was ready to go to print. It was basically complete, but it needed editing. Bosio willed everything that he had to the Order of Malta, and the grand master of the order at the time, Antoine de Paul, was convinced that the manuscript should go to press. Roma Sotterania, Underground Rome, was published in the 1630s, and it
35:54 Speaker 02 is often cited with creating the bedrock methodology and ideology of modern archaeology. His interpretations of what he had seen and explored were incorrect in some instances. He thought the catacombs had been hiding places where Christians hold up during times of persecution. It was not what they were used for. But he captivated readers with his descriptions of these underground cities. He had also commissioned artists to create imagery of many of the things he had described to be included in the book, and he had studied early Christianity and was able to historically contextualise a lot of the areas that he explored. This writing was also a boon to the Catholic Church.
36:34 Speaker 02 In the decades after Martin Luther's kickoff of the Protestant Reformation in 1517, support for the papacy had fallen off very steeply. But Bosio's writings about martyrs laid to rest in subterranean Roman cities sparked a new interest in Catholicism and in religious relics that might also be there. Some of these, including skeletons of martyrs, many of them clad in armor, became important symbols of the Catholic Church's fight against the Protestants. A lot of these so-called corpi santi, or catacomb saints, were sent to Catholic churches around Europe to try to bolster interest in and devotion to the Church.
37:16 Speaker 02 I know we said earlier that the relics were taken out of the catacombs by the Church, but they did not purge everything because at that point, some catacombs were completely lost. If you're wondering how he even found these or knew about them, in truth, Antonio Bosio was not the first person to have come upon the catacombs after they had been abandoned. According to another book, which is also titled Roma Sotterania, which was published in 1869, based on the work of Giovanni Battista de Rossi, laborers digging in a vineyard had found a subterranean cemetery at the end of 1578, when Antonio Bosio was just a toddler.
37:57 Speaker 02 The discovery, quote, "at once attracted universal attention and persons of all classes flocked to see it." More than a century before that, a vineyard on the other side of the city had yielded a similar discovery. But apparently, the scholars of the day, according to this book, quote, "never have felt sufficient interest to excite them to investigate their history or to publish anything at all about them." De Rossi is the next person who represented another huge step forward in terms of our understanding of the Roman catacombs. While public fascination with the catacombs had been sparked with the publication of Bozio's work, that interest kind of faded off outside of religious and academic circles.
38:41 Speaker 02 It took a couple more centuries for another dedicated archaeologist to expand that work. Giovanni Battista De Rossi was born in Rome on February 23rd, 1822. His father was military officer Camilla Luigi De Rossi and his mother was Mariana Marchesa Bruti. Giovanni was raised Catholic and went to a Jesuit school before moving on to study law at Sapienza University of Rome. But from the time he was a child, De Rossi, like Bozio, had been fascinated with antiquity. He actually read Bozio's book for the first time when he was 11. He had gotten it as a birthday gift from his father. And when he was still a teenager, he managed to convince a priest to go into
39:25 Speaker 02 the catacombs with him. This was apparently considered to be somewhat dangerous because they had not really been maintained. And that priest, Jesuit father Giuseppe Marchi, became a long-term collaborator with De Rossi. After completing school, De Rossi got a job at the Vatican Library as a scriptor. That was a job that encompassed a lot of library tasks, including cataloging. And he worked there as his primary job for the rest of his life. But in his off-hours, he followed his passion for Christian archaeology, something that made good use of his occupation since he had access to a wealth of rare and important manuscripts. De Rossi became incredibly knowledgeable about the catacombs, as well as other important Christian religious sites.
40:10 Speaker 02 And he was able to develop a network of associates who shared his passion. He traveled around Europe, as well as throughout Italy, in his quest to learn all that he could about religious antiquities. And through his friends, he often received rare materials from around the world to study. His reputation earned him a great deal of admiration in the Vatican, and he is said to have been very well-liked by Pope's Pius IX and Leo XIII. And he explored the catacombs at great length, including discovering the catacombs of Calyxtus. That's the catacomb that was created by Pope Zephrenius to be a resting place for pontiffs. He often went on his expeditions in underground Rome with his brother,
40:53 Speaker 02 Michel Stefano, by his side. Michel was a scholar in his own right, but his work focused on natural science. He wrote papers that analyzed the catacombs from the point of view of a geologist examining the earth that was excavated to create them. D' Rossi, like Bosio, sought to contextualize Christian archaeological finds by studying the literature of the times they came from. But unlike Bosio, he had access to almost anything he could have wished for in studying that context. Remember, he's sitting in the Vatican Library all day, every day. He wrote a lot about the early history of the religion, how its hierarchy developed, how theological writing had developed and evolved over time,
41:37 Speaker 02 and an array of other topics. The book that we quoted from earlier was an English translation which fellow academics from his circle compiled from his work with his permission while he was still alive. At the age of 70, he had a stroke and he never fully recovered from it. He died on September 20th, 1894, at Castel Gandolfo, which is a town south of Rome, in an apartment that was provided to him by Pope Leo XIII in the Papal Palace there. Outside of his writing, because of D' Rossi's good standing with the Vatican, he was able to catalyze the creation of a new division within the Catholic Church that would carry on his work. When Pius IX was on the Holy See, D' Rossi made the case
42:22 Speaker 02 to the Pope that it would be in the best interest of the Vatican to ensure that important archaeological finds could be studied and protected. And in 1852, the Commission for Sacred Archaeology was formed. It still operates today, and it's in charge of the maintenance and preservation of the Christian catacombs of Rome, and it keeps an eye on, quote, "cemeteries and ancient Christian buildings of Rome and its suburbs for the systematic and scientific excavation and exploration of the same cemeteries, and for the preservation and upkeep of what was found or brought to light again by the excavations."
42:59 Speaker 02 But even as De Rossi's work on the catacombs was becoming more widely known, it seemed like the way the information was disseminated in circles outside of religious scholarship could be a little odd, and it was often romanticized. In the first half of 1888, the London periodical, The Architect, a weekly illustrated journal of art, civil engineering, and building, ran a write-up describing a recent lecture given by a Professor Stokes of Dublin. I could not figure out more information on who Professor Stokes was. The Stokes that I could find that was around the same time was in a different field and a little too late, so I never identified him.
43:39 Speaker 02 But according to The Architect, regarding the Roman catacombs, Stokes had discussed, quote, "His own idea before he studied the subject was that the city of Rome was built over them, that the catacombs had furnished the building material for the city thus erected, and that their early Christians, having discovered those excavations under their houses, made secret entrances into them, so that when any danger threatened them or when they desired to worship in secret, they just retired into those vast and gloomy recesses." That was obviously wrong. But Stokes's lecture went on to say that, quote, "The catacombs of Rome, however, were of a quite different character." And he shared how he had discovered they were created outside of the city and in some
44:24 Speaker 02 cases in the hills surrounding the city. Stokes had learned that they were not places of worship, as Christians had those before the catacombs were created, although there were sometimes services held there, as we've mentioned. This whole write-up is kind of quaint, and it seems a little bit behind the times, sharing things that had been known for quite a while, as though they were sort of mind-blowing and utterly new. Thirty years before that lecture, in 1858, The Atlantic ran an article simply titled, "The Catacombs of Rome," which opened with, "Roma Saturania, the underground Rome of the dead, the buried city of graves. Sacred is the dust of its narrow streets.
45:07 Speaker 02 Blessed were those who, having died for their faith, were laid to rest in its chambers. Full as the upper city is of great and precious memories, it possesses none greater and more precious than those which belong to the city underground. Republican Rome had no greater heroes than Christian Rome."
45:28 Speaker 02 This article name checks De Rossi and Marchi and the creation of the Commission of Sacred Archaeology, and it's also very much a combination of romantic fascination and pro-Christian ideology. It has some jumps in logic that convey inaccurate information, such as this explanation for the catacombs' creation. Quote, "The Christians would naturally desire to separate themselves and burial from the heathen and to avoid everything, having the semblance of pagan rites." Yeah, even though they have learned about the works of people who have studied and explained them, they just make up this thing of like, Christians thought burying their dead next to pagans was icky. And it's like, well, that's not really why these happened, but okay.
46:12 Speaker 02 Today, there are five catacombs that are currently open to the public. The catacombs of San Sebastiano is named for a soldier who converted to Christianity and became a martyr. This particular catacomb stretches about 12 kilometers. It's roughly seven and a half miles. So it's enormous, but it's not nearly as big as some others. This is one of the most popular catacombs with tourists, though. It's really been set up to be easily accessible. Many Christian martyrs are buried in the catacombs of San Calisto. That's even larger than San Sebastiano. At a massive 20 kilometers or 12.4 miles, it is where 16 popes are laid to rest, which makes it another popular place for visitors.
46:55 Speaker 02 The next catacomb is perhaps more important for its artwork that it contains rather than the people laid to rest there. The catacombs of Priscilla are filled with frescoes, including one that is believed to contain the first representation of the Virgin Mary. The catacombs of Domatila run for 17 kilometers and include an underground basilica. And the catacombs of Santa Agnes are named for the martyr, Saint Agnes, who is buried there. This one has no art of significance, but contains a number of significant engravings. Of the six Jewish catacombs that are known to have existed in the area around Rome, there could be more. That's how many we know of for sure. Only two of them remain,
47:40 Speaker 02 though. Villa Randanani and Villa Torlonia. In addition to the ones we've named here, there are more than 50 additional known catacombs that are not open to visitors. We don't really know the extent of the Roman catacombs. And this is in part because of issues we've mentioned earlier in the episode regarding things like cave-ins. There was a quote I found while I was researching this, which was by a scholar named Estelle Schoet-Bretman, who started this entire field of archaeological research, particularly into some of the Jewish catacombs. But in her writings, she had included this one thing that felt almost relieving as I was researching this because like, you're putting together a puzzle where we don't
48:25 Speaker 02 have all the pieces and the pieces we do have don't always match up exactly right. But I read this and felt better. It said, "Not all the pieces of evidence for Christian and Jewish burials in this setting can fit into a seamless hole." So she, like other scholars, has been grappling with these problems for a long time. But that is our brief overview of my wishlist place to go, which is the catacombs of Rome.
48:53 Speaker 02 Do you also have some listener mail? I do. It is about a different place than I have been. This is from our listener Erin, who writes, "Hello, Tracy and Holly. My son just wrapped up his AP Dual Enrollment Humanities class at a Virginia Governor's School for GT Students. As a part of this class, students had to conduct authentic, original research about a non-Western culture to which they do not belong. They spent the entire school year delving deep into their chosen research topic, reviewing existing literature, scholarly articles, primary sources, et cetera." I wish we had done something like this when I was in high school. "After writing their final paper, they presented their findings to the entire school.
49:35 Speaker 02 My ears perked up when I heard your episode on Emperor Meiji and the Meiji Shrine because my son's research was about the role of Shinto religious practices in the political transition at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. I'm the editor in chief for most of his school papers, so I had the pleasure of reading this incredibly in-depth academic paper. Despite having a master's degree in education with very little background knowledge about this part of Japanese history myself, I was..." Feeling more than a little lost. At least I could help him edit for grammar and clarity. I was thrilled to listen to your episode to get a broader picture and more historical context for this topic, which put my son's research into perspective for me. I played a portion of the episode for him and when we got to the part in which you explained Kami,
50:20 Speaker 02 my son exclaimed, "That sounded like they nearly quoted my paper." I couldn't help but agree, as that is exactly why I played that part of the podcast for him. Thank you for the years of highest quality infotainment. I have a PhD in SYMHC, and you have kept me company through household chores, long drives, and many, many hours of sewing, both for pleasure and my second job. Attached is a bit of pet tax. Our pedigree Bengal cat Raven Paw, who like her raven claw namesake, is incredibly clever. She knows many tricks, including sit, come, give hugs, and give kisses, and she uses the pet talking buttons to request to play with her various toys. She's also super talkative, meowing in conversational turns with you,
51:01 Speaker 02 to the point that our family accidentally meows at each other because we are so used to meowing with the cat. My 11-year-old has inadvertently meowed at me as a greeting more times than I can count. Thank you again for all you do, Erin. I love all of this. I'm so glad that that offered up like a supplement to the work that you had been reading of your sons and kind of, you know, helped add a bit of context. I also love this meowing thing because my husband and I will spend entire days where I think all we do is meowing.
51:31 Speaker 02 Because we too have had meowey kitties. We sing songs in meow. Meow is just a greeting at our house. Meow. I have two cats that whoever owned them before I owned them, taught them kisses. Yeah. They probably tried to teach Marva, but she just flipped them to bird because she doesn't do what you want her to do. She does what Marva wants to do. But it's pretty good when you go kisses and they put their little face on yours as the sweetest. So, your kitty is absolutely gorgeous and probably smarter than the rest of us put together.
52:05 Speaker 02 So beautiful. Oh, that little face. Too much, too much, in the best way. Thank you so much for writing to us and sharing that story. And I, it just delighted me to no end. And now I'm going to think about your cat for probably more than is reasonable. If you would like to write to us, you could do so at [email protected] . You can also read all the show notes on missedinhistory.com. Each episode has our list of, of research items that we use. So if you want to reference any of those, there they are. You can also subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.
52:51 Speaker 02 Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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