Catacomb sights in Europe
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Catacombe di San Callisto
These are the largest and busiest of Rome’s catacombs. Founded at the end of the 2nd century and named after Pope Calixtus I, they became the official cemetery of the newly established Roman Church. In the 20km of tunnels explored to date, archaeologists have found the tombs of 500,000 people and seven popes who were martyred in the 3rd century. The patron saint of music, St Cecilia, was also buried here, though her body was later removed to the Basilica di Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. When her body was exhumed in 1599, more than a thousand years after her death, it was apparently perfectly preserved, as depicted in Stefano Moderno’s softly contoured sculpture, a replica…
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Catacombe di Santa Domitilla
Among Rome’s largest and oldest, these catacombs stretch for about 17km. They were established on the private burial ground of Flavia Domitilla, niece of Emperor Domitian and a member of the wealthy Flavian family. They contain Christian wall paintings and the haunting underground Chiesa di SS Nereus e Achilleus, a 4th-century church dedicated to two Roman soldiers martyred by Diocletian.
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Catacomba di San Gennaro
Recently extended thanks to an ongoing, community-based restoration project, Naples' oldest and most sacred catacomb became a Christian pilgrimage site when San Gennaro's body was interred here in the 5th century. It's an evocative otherworld of tombs, corridors and broad vestibules, its treasures including 2nd-century Christian frescoes, 5th-century mosaics and the oldest known portrait of San Gennaro.
You'll find three types of tombs in here, each reflecting a different social class. The wealthy opted for the open-room cubiculum, originally guarded by gates and adorned with colourful wall frescoes. One cubiculum to the left of the entrance features an especially…
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