Rome, Day Three

All I can say about our last day in Rome is ADVENTURE. Yesterday, I inadvertently caused Erika much undo stress, accidentally taking her places she did not want to be.

The first place we visited yesterday was the Capuchin Crypt under the Church of the Immaculate Conception. The Crypt holds the bones of the monks of the Capuchin Order, along with those of quite a few holy men. When the Church moved in the late seventeenth century, the monks exhumed the bodies of their deceased brethren and moved them to the current crypt, where they were used to decorate and embellish the alters and surrounding rooms. The whole crypt is decorated with bones that have basically been used as mosaic tiles. Each room gets more elaborate, until the last room, which features the full skeleton of a child princess, arranged with a scythe of bone in order to resemble approaching death. It was really amazing to think about a group of people so comfortable with their own mortality to be able to create such a monument.

Erika was a bit creeped out, however, and said she felt like she was covered in dead bodies, so we walked to the Pantheon for a bit of a break from death. On the way, we stopped for lunch at a small sandwich place. The waiter there was very friendly, calling us “flowers.” Erika was Rose and I was Daisy.

The Pantheon seemed much smaller than I remember. It may have been because it was undergoing restoration, and was covered in scaffolding, but the square just before it seemed smaller too. We walked around a bit, then I led the way to the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian.

The walk there was a bit arduous, especially considering the small green and black lizards that kept falling out of the trees we passed. We got to the church just in time for the English tour of the Catacombs themselves. You aren’t allowed to go into the tunnels without a guide, and once I got underground I could see why. The catacombs are basically untouched and un-restored. Much like Blarney Castle, authenticity has been chosen over comfort, something I find quite refreshing. I feel that, were the catacombs in America, they would be turned into an ATTRACTION, rather than letting them stand as simply evidence of history. Instead, the only real changes that have been made has been putting up a few chain barriers to signal forbidden passages, and to put in a few motion-sensor lights.

The reason passages are forbidden is that most of the people interred in the catacombs remain undisturbed. The bodies still reside in many of the passageways, and have been untouched even by archeologists. The bodies along the path we took had been disinterred and moved, for reasons of respect.

There are over sixty separate catacombs in Rome, though only five are open to visitors. Archeologists are actually still unsure of how many tunnels existed, due to the fact that many collapsed or have been filled. The reason they were constructed was not originally as a hiding place, though they were used as such later, but because land was too expensive to keep buying new cemetery areas. It was simply not affordable to bury people in only one layer, so tunnels were dug in the tufa, a volcanic stone that is soft to carve but becomes much harder when exposed to oxygen.

After the tour, we were led into the Cathedral of Saint Sebastian, which was built over the catacombs. Saint Sebastian was originally buried inside the catacombs, but due to the dangers of relic hunters, his body was moved into the church. In fact, the Cathedral houses not only his body, but also an arrow used in his attempted execution and a piece of the post to which he was tied. On top of that, they have a stone said to be imprinted with the footprints of Jesus, from when he appeared to Paul as he was fleeing Rome during the persecutions.

I thought it was all fascinating, but Erika had had quite enough of dead bodies. Right now, we are on our way to Venice, to experience a less macabre aspect of Italy. Ciao!