About Catacombs & Crypts Tour

Discover with me the hidden and unrevealed side of the eternal city. With our crypts and catacombs tour a driver-guide will pick you up at 8:30 in the morning for a half day or full day tour going through secret and un seen underground passage sand halls. We will see the dark and narrow catacombs where the early Christians would burry their dead. In the Church of Saint Clement you will be dazzled to find out that beneath the mid-evel/renaissance church lies yet another older one: going down another floor of steps you will find yourself in an ancient roman imperial ally where you can admire the mysterious Mitreo, a temple dedicated to the Persian deity Mytra. Coming back to the warmth and light of the sun the driver-guide will take you to another spectacle: in the Capuchin Church you will see a crypt that holds the bones of the Capuchin munks. To finish we will visit the Pantheon, an ancient roman temple built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the year 125. In this architectural wonder, still standing after almost 2000 years, you will seethe resting place of the artist Raphael Sanzio, one of Rome's most beloved renaissance artist who died at the age of 37 in the year 1520.. A stroll to the near by Santa Maria Sopra la Minerva Church just before taking you back will leave you with another suprise: this magnificent church is built on top of whatwas the Iseo Campese, a major Egyption temple in Imperial times.

Suggestions: take with you some heavy clothing so that when it is necessary you can cover yourself in the cold and damp underground rooms.

The center of most ancient Roman catacombs date back to late second century. Previously Christians were buried together with the pagans, and when the community became more numerous, it was necessary to create collective cemeteries. To resolve the problem of space and thanks to the ease of excavation in soft tufa bench below the city, they were built with underground galleries on several floors. At the catacombs were used exclusively for funerary purposes and for the worship of martyrs buried there. The common opinion that he wants them were used as hiding places by Christians persecuted is probably unfounded. Moreover persecution characterized only a few periods of the Roman Empire, at the time of Nero (between 64 and 67), Domitian (only 96), Decius (249-251), Valerian (253-260) and Diocletian (303 -305).

In the third century, already in Rome alone, there were 25 cemeteries taking names by the Popes who were buried. In 313, Christianity became the religion legitimate and at least in the beginning were many want to be buried close to the martyrs. But since the fifth century began to abandon the use of burial in the catacombs, which nevertheless continued to be a destination for pilgrims for purposes of devotion.

Between the eighth and ninth century, following the looting of the barbarians, the shrines were gradually abandoned and the sacred relics were transferred in churches. In modern times were accidentally rediscovered in the sixteenth century and began to be explored first with Antonio Bosio (1575-1629 with his book posthumously Rome underground (1634) and especially with the research of John the Baptist De Rossi (1822-1894). In the fifties of the twentieth century were found around many catacombs of Rome.