Fruit of the careful restoration of a fresco, in the cemetery at Ponticello di San Paolo, near the Via Ostiense, in the catacomb of Santa Tecla

by Talia Casu

IIn this issue we will briefly introduce the Catacomb of Saint Thecla, which is not ordinarily open to the public, but can be visited free of charge on the occasion of the Catacomb Day, organized by the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology in the spring and autumn editions. Along the Via Ostiense, around the end of the 3rd century, perhaps in conjunction with the abandonment of a pozzolana quarry, a small hypogeum was dug with a narrow staircase, a gallery and three cubicles. On the right wall of one of the three cubicles, a venerated body or relics were placed in a tomb; the name later fell into oblivion, as did the burial itself.

Around the middle of the 4th century, the entrance staircase was widened, thus causing the destruction of the original hypogeum; at the same time a basilica was built which maintained the venerated tomb in its original position. The basilica is divided into two naves with a barrel vault supported by three transverse arches; the walls were decorated with paintings of which some fragments remain; the floor was occupied by numerous burials. In the second half of the 4th century the wall of a niche was broken through to allow the use of the quarry rooms as back sanctos, that is, to encourage burials near the aforementioned tomb.

Before the studies conducted at the end of the 1852th century by the archaeologist Mariano Armellini (1896-XNUMX), the catacomb of
Saint Thecla was known as the “cemetery at the Ponticello di San Paolo”. The cemetery is known in the Itineraries of the 7th century, guides written for those who visited Roman sanctuaries on pilgrimage. From these sources we learn that, on a hill located south of the Basilica of San Paolo, there was a church dedicated to Saint Thecla, closely connected to a spelunca, the cave where the venerated burial of the saint was located. Further confirmation comes from a late apocryphal text
(6th-10th century) known as Acts of Paul and Thecla, which narrates the events of the virgin of Iconium, disciple of Saint Paul, and her miraculous journey to Rome; followed by the story of her death and the indication of her burial "two or three stadia from the tomb of the master Paul".

The scholar Armellini, following archaeological investigations, preferred to recognize in the saint Tecla, buried and venerated in the small cemetery near Ostiense, a Roman martyr Tecla, unknown to the sources and buried near the Pauline Basilica by virtue of the homonymy with the virgin of Iconium. This choice was later supported also by the Barnabite father Umberto Maria Fasola.

At the end of the Pauline Year in 2009, news was given of a sensational discovery that left the restorers, who for more than a year had been conducting a challenging and experimental restoration project on Cubicle P of the Catacomb of Thecla, astonished. The image of the Good Shepherd stands out in the center of the vault of the cubicle; around it, at the four corners, are four clipei, each containing the busts of four male figures. On June 19, 2009, while one of the four clipei was being cleaned, the stern, well-defined face of the Apostle Paul appeared before the watchful eyes of the restorers. The characteristics of the face of the Apostle to the Gentiles had already been known previously - because they were present on sarcophagi and in other cemetery frescoes - but this time it was the oldest and most defined icon that early Christian iconography has handed down to us.

The clipeus of the bust of the Apostle Paul is accompanied by that of three other characters: Peter, placed on the opposite front; for the other two the search for their identification moved within the apostolic college.

In support of the identification of the third clipeus with the face of Andrew, it can be recalled that, after Peter and Paul, it is the one to whom a fixed physiognomy is iconographically assigned. The character of the cubicle is decidedly an elderly person and it is not improper to assign this characteristic to the one who was Peter's older brother.

In the fourth clipeus the character depicted is characterized by a youthful typology and, having no other clarifying elements except the biographical note regarding his age (he was the youngest of the apostles), he has been recognized as the apostle John. An evangelical episode links John to the apostle Andrew: their calling while they were followers of John the Baptist; furthermore in the list of the Twelve John appears as the fourth and in several evangelical episodes he assumes a particular importance.

The simultaneous presence of Peter and Paul has the intent of reaffirming the double apostolicity of the Roman Church and of signifying the unity of the Church in its identities, Church ex circumcision, represented by Peter, and that ex gentlemen represented by Paul. This cubicle of the apostles can be well recognized as a representation of that process of renewal of the city of Rome that was put into action at the end of the fourth century.