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Abstract
This dissertation is a history of the catacombs in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It attempts to demonstrate that the cemeteries were not forgotten between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries and then “rediscovered” by fortuitous accident in 1578, as proposed by the renowned, nineteenth-century Christian archaeologist, Giovanni Battista De' Rossi. Its contention is that the providential nature of the 1578 discovery was exaggerated for ideological reasons, and that the catacombs—even in the centuries of their alleged abandonment—retained a strong hold on the collective imagination of the Roman people.
The study begins in the early Middle Ages with the transformation of the cemeteries into pilgrimage sites, a process closely related to the production of new hagiographies. It then examines the massive relic translations from the catacombs to churches in the eighth and ninth centuries, and the relationship between this phenomenon and changing papal policies governing the transport of human remains. Finally it compares the relative importance of relics to catacomb paintings, many of which were severely damaged during these shifts.
Chapter II deals with humanist attitudes to martyrdom, the early Church, and its triumph. It examines the parallels that humanists drew between Christian and pagan antiquity, and the ways in which these men of letters reconstructed the early Church from literary rather than physical remains. It argues that the humanists, indifference to the catacombs stemmed from their reservations about the cult of relics, which they associated with medieval superstition, and their realization that the catacombs drew excess attention to the negative qualities of the pagan empire, which in many ways they admired.
Chapter III is a case study of Pomponio Leto, a fifteenth-century pedagogue, who visited several catacombs with friends. It examines his motives for doing so, his synthesis of paleo-Christian and pagan practices, and the relationship between his interest in the catacombs and his persecution at the hands of Paul II.
The study concludes with the contention that the catacombs were never truly abandoned, and that their memory survived not only on account of their physical presence in Rome, but also through literature and art.
