Page 269 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Rome

F AR THER AFIELD  267

9 Via Appia Antica levels and only partly explored.
The rooms and connecting
@ 118, 218. ∑ parcoappiaantica.it
See Walks pp286–7. Villa dei Quintili: Via passageways are hewn out of
Appia Nuova 1092. Tel 06-3996 7700. volcanic tufa. The dead were
placed in niches, known as loculi,
The first part of the Via Appia was which held two or three bodies.
built in 312 BC by the Censor The most important rooms were
Appius Claudius Caecus. When decorated with stucco and
it was extended to the ports of frescoes. The area that can be
Benevento, Taranto, and Brindisi visited includes the Crypt of the
in 190 BC, the road became Popes, where many of the early
Rome’s link with its expanding popes were buried, and the
empire in the East. It was the Crypt of Santa Cecilia, where the
route taken by the funeral saint’s body was discovered in
processions of the dictator Sulla 820 before being moved to her
(78 BC) and Emperor Augustus church in Trastevere (see p213).
(AD 14) and it was along this
road that St. Paul was led as a q Catacombs of
prisoner to Rome in AD 56.
Gradually abandoned during San Sebastiano
Cloister, San Lorenzo fuori le Mura the Middle Ages, the road was Via Appia Antica 136. Tel 06-785 0350.
restored by Pope Pius IV in the @ 118, 218. Open 10am–4:30pm
8 San Lorenzo mid-16th century. It is lined Mon–Sat. Closed Jan 1, mid-Nov–
fuori le Mura with ruined family tombs and mid-Dec, Dec 25. & 5 8 =
collective burial places known ∑ catacombe.org
Piazzale del Verano 3. Tel 06-446 6184. as columbaria. Beneath the
@ 71, 492. v 3, 19. Open 7:30am– fields on either side lies a vast The 17th-century church of
12:30pm, 3:30–7pm (4–8pm in maze of catacombs. Today San Sebastiano, above the
summer) daily. 7 the road starts at Porta San catacombs, occupies the site
Sebastiano (see p198). Major of a basilica. Preserved at the
Just outside the eastern wall Christian sights include the entrance to the catacombs is
of the city stands the church of church of Domine Quo Vadis, the triclia, a building that once
San Lorenzo. Roasted slowly to built where St. Peter is said to stood above ground, and was
death in AD 258, San Lorenzo have met Christ while fleeing used by mourners for taking
was one of the most revered of from Rome, and the Catacombs funeral refreshments. Its walls
Rome’s early Christian martyrs. of San Callisto and San are covered with graffiti
The first basilica erected over Sebastiano. The tombs lining invoking St. Peter and St. Paul,
his burial place by Constantine the road include those of Cecilia whose remains may have been
was largely rebuilt in 576 by Metella (see p268) and Romulus moved here during one of the
Pope Pelagius II. Close by stood (son of Emperor Maxentius) periods of persecution.
a 5th-century church dedicated who died in 309. The ancient
to the Virgin Mary. The Villa dei Quintili is nearby.
intriguing two-level church we
see today is the result of these 0 Catacombs of
two churches being merged
into one. This process, started in San Callisto
the 8th century, was completed Via Appia Antica 126. Tel 06-513 0151.
in the 13th century by Pope @ 118, 218. Open 9am–noon &
Honorius III, when the nave, 2–5pm Thu–Tue. Closed Jan 1, late
the portico, and Jan–late Feb, Easter Sun, & Dec 25.
much of the & 5 ^ 8 - =
decoration were ∑ catacombe.roma.it
added. The
remains of San In burying their dead in
Lorenzo are in underground cemeteries
the choir of the outside the city walls, the early
6th-century Christians were obeying the
church (beneath laws of the time: it was not
the 13th-century because of persecution. So
high altar). many saints were buried, that
the catacombs became shrines
Romanesque and places of pilgrimage.
bell tower of The vast Catacombs of San Cypresses lining part of the Roman Via
San Lorenzo Callisto are on four different Appia Antica

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