Perhaps it was a noble matron who became a Christian who donated this catacomb to the Church. Among its many beautiful pictorial representations is the oldest Madonna and Child

by Talia Casu

Foutside Porta Salaria Nova, about three miles on the street of the same name, lies the Catacomb of Priscilla, one of the largest cult and funerary complexes of the Christian community of Rome in the early centuries. Priscilla was probably the one who donated the property to the Christian community where the surface and underground cemetery developed.

In the oldest sector an inscription (3rd century) was found which mentions a Priscilla most clear woman (o puella) together with a Manius Acilius clarissimus virThe epigraph does not allow us to identify the Priscilla in the inscription as the one from whom the cemetery takes its name, but it does allow us to hypothesize the existence of a relationship between Priscilla and the Acilian people. Furthermore, numerous epigraphs (2nd-3rd century) present in the region lead back to the Acilian people, as evidence that the family certainly had some possessions along the Via Salaria. gens It dates back to the consul Acilius Glabrione (91 AD)  who, according to Cassius Dio and Suetonius, was condemned by Domitian (81-96) for adhering to "new theories", the expression used to indicate those who had embraced the Christian faith.

The oldest attestation of the cemetery is found in the Deposit of martyrdom: July 10th is the day of remembrance anniversary (day of birth into heaven) of the brothers Felice and Filippo, martyred together with five other brothers and their mother. Episcopal Deposit on January 15th it remembers Pope Marcellinus (296-304) and on December 31st Pope Sylvester (314-335), to whom a basilica located on the cemetery's surface and now rebuilt was dedicated. Due to the large number of martyrs buried here the necropolis was named Queen of the Catacumbarum.

The catacomb originates from five independent hypogea, all equipped with their own staircase: the central Arenario, the hypogeum of Heliodorus, the cryptoporticus region, the hypogeum of Adam and Eve, the hypogeum of the Acilii. Two main levels can be recognized with irregular galleries, partly of hydraulic origin and partly of pozzolana extraction, which from the end of the 211nd century were used for funerary purposes; the study conducted on the bricks that close the loculi has highlighted a significant presence of stamps from the time of the emperor Caracalla (217-XNUMX).

From a historical and monumental point of view, the Catacomb of Priscilla is one of the richest complexes of early Christianity. The beautiful pictorial documents, recently undergoing a twenty-year restoration, develop a range of representations that appear as a summa of early Christian art for themes relating to the course of life, both family and professional, and also deal with the childhood of the Savior, a rather rare theme, to reach up to the Old Testament narratives and the symbolic era of early Christian iconography.

Among these precious documents we can remember those that the visit itinerary reserved for pilgrims allows to observe. In the heart of the first hypogeum, the central Arenario, there is the large niche with the Milky virgin and the prophet pointing to the star: the recent restoration has also analysed the various pictorial phases and has allowed us to assign a date to 230-240 of what is considered the oldest depiction of the Mother of God with the Child. For the description of the precious fresco we refer to our first article dedicated to the theme of Christmas (The Holy Crusade, 1/2022, pp. 16-17).

Around the Arenario region there is also the cubicle called “della Velata”. In the lunette of the back wall are depicted the most significant moments in the life of a young woman, certainly the deceased who was laid to rest there: the wedding, the birth of a child and death, the latter represented by the image of the praying man with the veiled head that stands out in the centre of the fresco. On the side walls we find the Old Testament scenes of the three young men in the furnace and the sacrifice of Isaac. On the vault of the cubicle, the prophet Jonah rejected by the pistrix (the mythological sea monster) and, in the centre, the Good Shepherd with the sheep on his shoulders.

Near the cryptoporticus is the famous Greek Chapel, so called because of the presence of graffiti in Greek. Here are depicted the stories of the cycle of the prophet Daniel; in particular, along the walls to the right and left, the paintings that present the story of Susanna and the elders (Dn 13, 1-64) dominate.

The Priscillian hypogea were used as a community burial site for a long period of time, which reached up to the years of devotion and worship to the martyrs and bishops of Rome buried there. This is evidenced by two inscriptions dedicated to three martyrs, respectively to Marcellus and Felix and to Philip, which refer to the interventions carried out by Pope Damasus (366-384). In the XNUMXth century the catacomb was called Coemeterium Priscillae ad Sanctum Silvestrum.

The site was looked after from 1936 to 2023 by the Benedictine nuns of Priscilla and is now entrusted to the Association Pro Deo et Fratribus - Family of Mary.