Books in Brief

Subterranean Rome

L. V. Rutgers (Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 164 pp., $15.00 (paperback)

From the second through the fifth century, Christians in Rome interred their dead deep under the city in vast networks of catacombs. Once the destination of pilgrims seeking contact with the bones of the early martyrs of their faith, these labyrinths were largely ignored after the eighth century, when the remains were reburied near churches according to the emerging Christian custom. They then lay forgotten for 700 years. It was only when workers in a vineyard north of Rome accidentally happened upon a catacomb in 1578 that they finally reemerged to the light of day. Many more were discovered in subsequent years, fueling the imaginations of Christian Europe.

This handsomely illustrated book outlines the archeology of the catacombs, and also provides insight into their sometimes contentious role in European scholarship. Opponents of the Protestant Reformation saw them, as one Catholic scholar of the day put it, as “arsenals from which to take the weapons to combat heretics, and in particular the iconoclasts, impugners of sacred images, of which the cemeteries are plenty.” Catholic scholars also pointed to the many images of Mary on the walls of the catacombs to defend against Protestant claims that veneration of the Virgin was a recent Church invention.

Rutgers also provides a descriptive guide to the catacombs for modern visitors, as well as an appendix on Rome’s Jewish catacombs.