The Christian Catacombs in Rome by Pasquale Testini
introduction by Fr Antonio Ferrua S. J.
Publisher: Ente Provinciale per il Turismo di Roma, 1964
Paperback
5.1 x 7.25 inches, 94 pages plus map in pocket

Roman law forbade burial places within city limits and so all burial places, including the catacombs, were located outside the walls of the city. The first large-scale catacombs in the vicinity of Rome were dug from the 2nd century onwards. They were carved in "tufa" (tuff), a type of volcanic rock which is relatively soft to dig into but subsequently hardens.
Christian catacombs existed as a burial ground for early Christians accompanied by inscriptions and early wall art. Although catacombs were of Jewish origin in the first century, by the end of the sixth century there were over 60 Christian catacombs. These catacombs served as a connector for various Christian communities through the underlying concepts of socio-economic status shown within the art. Additionally, the art showed a story of how Christians in the first couple of centuries viewed the world and their idealistic view of how it should be.
According to L. Michael White, the catacombs of Rome have a place in the romantic historiography of how early Christianity developed. This is because it has often been said those catacombs were good hiding places, and that when Christians were persecuted by the Roman Empire, they would go there to hold their worship.
However, White believes Christians did not use the catacombs of Rome to secretly hold their worship during times of persecutions. He says that they did not do so, first because Christians were not persecuted on a regular basis by the Roman Empire. Second, because the larger rooms or chambers within the catacombs were not used for regular worship, eucharist or assembly by Christians. White says that those catacombs' larger rooms, which had some benches along their walls and were appropriate to hold eucharistic assemblies, were in fact used by Christians to "hold meals for the dead." He states such "funerary meals" were practised among most families of the city of Rome. Therefore, he explains, Christians, in their everyday life, regularly went down into the catacombs of Rome, not to hold assemblies or eucharist but, "to hold memorial meals with dead members of their families, just like their pagan neighbors." V. Rutgers considers that "researchers have long debunked the myth that Christians used the catacombs as hiding places in times of persecution", because when those persecutions took place, the exact locations of the catacombs of Rome were widely known. Frank K. Flinn considers that during the period of Christian persecutions and shortly after it, Christians held "memorial rites and Eucharist" near the graves of the more famous Christian martyrs. He adds that "contrary to novel and movie lore," the catacombs of Rome "were not used as hiding places for Christians."Author J. Osbourne says that "nothing could be further from the truth" than the idea that Christians inhabited the Catacombs during the period of persecution.
Christian art in the catacombs is split into three categories: iconographic, stylistic, and technical. From the first to the sixth century, the art in Roman Christian catacombs progressively went into phases as well: an early phase, an Old Testament phase, and a New Testament phase.
Excavators (fossors) built vast systems of galleries and passages on top of each other. They lie 23–62 ft below the surface in an area of more than 2.4 square kilometres (590 acres). Narrow steps that descend as many as four stories join the levels. Passages are about 8.2 ft × 3.3 ft. Burial niches (loculi) were carved into walls. They are 40–60 centimetres (16–24 in) high and 120–150 centimetres (47–59 in) long. Bodies were placed in chambers in stone sarcophagi in their clothes and bound in linen. Then the chamber was sealed with a slab bearing the name, age, and the day of death. The fresco decorations provide the main surviving evidence for Early Christian art, and initially show typically Roman styles used for decorating homes – with secular iconography adapted to a religious function. The catacomb of Saint Agnes is a small church. Some families were able to construct cubicula which would house various loculi and the architectural elements of the space would offer support for decoration. Another excellent place for artistic programs were the arcosolia.