PRIVATE TOUR - The Capuchin Crypt and the Christian Catacombs

Departure time: on demand

What's included:  

• Skip-the-Line entrance to the Catacombs and the Crypt of Capuchins
• Guided Tour
  
• Booking and handling fee
• Guest relations assistance
• Private transport from/to hotel and between sites

IMPORTANT:

• Depending on different closing days, you will visit Domitilla's OR Saint Sebastian's OR Priscilla's Catacombs

Catacombs are underground burial areas used in ancient times. Indeed, the Laws of the Twelve Tables state that hominem mortuum in urbe neve sepelito neve urito (it is forbidden to bury or cremate corpses in the city).

The Church of Our Lady of the Conception of the Capuchins and its famous Crypt.
The Order of Friar Minor Capuchins was established around 1520 by the Franciscan friar Matteo da Bascio, who wanted to go back to the original kind of lifestyle of solitude and penitence as promoted by the founder Saint Francis. The main attraction is definitely the crypt - charnel house decorated with around 4000 Capuchin friars' bones, collected between 1528 and 1870 from the old cemetery of the order of Capuchins, placed in the church of Santa Croce and Bonaventura dei Lucchesi, nearby the Quirinal Palace. The crypt is divided into five small chapels where there are the mummies of some Capuchin friars wearing their typical vests.

The Catacombs of Domitilla
The Catacombs of Domitilla are placed in the ancient praedium Domitillae, according to various literary sources and epigraphic findings. The catacombs owe their name to one of the two Flavia Domitilla of the Flavi’s family, converted to Christianity and therefore victims of persecution. Archaeological excavations conducted in the 20th century, allowed researchers to discover burial grounds dated back to the end of the Republican period (1st century B.C.). The cemetery kept expanding until the end of the Roman Empire, because members of noble Christian families wished to be buried near martyrs' relics. The underground cemetery development dates back to the 2nd – 3rd century. It was originally composed of different burial chambers, later joined into a single catacomb.

The Catacombs of Saint Sebastian
At the beginning, the area was a cave of pozzolanic ash. At the end of the II century, it was abandoned, thus, the Romans used it as a pagan burial site, especially in the so-called piazzola, a circular area previously an open cave, where there are three mausoleums. The presence of typically Christian iconographic images, like the anchor and the fish, inside the mausoleums, in particular in The mausoleums of Innocentiores, let scholars believe that the mausoleum was later used for Christian burials as well. In the middle of the III century, the piazzola was covered in order to create a sort of ground at the above level. On this ground, three monuments were brought to light: the so-called triclia. A portico used for funeral feasts, where, along the wall, 600 graffiti writings dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul have been deciphered; a niche covered in marble, considered by archaeologists the place where the relics of the two apostles were kept, when the site was turned into catacombs; and another covered area with a well to draw water. The transfer of the apostles' relics to Saint Sebastian in the middle of the III century and their relocation to the original place at the beginning of the IV century is still a matter for discussion among archaeologists.

The Catacombs of Priscilla
The Catacombs of Priscilla, sit on Via Salaria, offer the chance of discovering the ancient Christian funeral tradition. With their entrance in the convent of the Benedictine Sisters of Priscilla, this Catacombs are some of the most important in Rome. Indeed, they were also called “regina catacumbarum – the queen of the catacombs”.
Originally dug out from the second to the fifth centuries. More than 40,000 people were buried in this catacombs, in around 13 km of tunnels. The noblewoman Priscilla, a member of the Acilius family, granted the Church use of the property under which the catacombs were dug. Between 309 and 555 A.C. some popes were also buried in the Catacombs. Different cubicula, little rooms with frescos representing Old and New Testament scenes, used for family burials, are still visible. In particular, it is possible to admire the Madonna and Child fresco, perhaps the world's oldest-known image of Mary, dated back to the third century.