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Catacomba di San Panfilo

Historic site · Pinciano, Italy

A catacomb running under via Paisiello and via Spontini, in the care of the Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra, on the line of the ancient Salaria vetus; ancient sources call it the first catacomb on that road out of porta Pinciana. The present access is inside the church of Santa Teresa del Bambin Gesu in Panfilo. It has three levels, a lower and an upper joined together with an intermediate one between them. The lower, twenty metres below ground, dates from the third century, with a main artery like an underground decumanus about sixty metres long and galleries at right angles to it. No source states hours or access, so none are given here.

History

A new region of galleries was added at the lower level in the fourth century, containing the cubiculum duplex in which the remains of the martyr Pamphilus, of Carthaginian origin, were found. The intermediate level is essentially two ambulacra joined by galleries; the upper, badly damaged by the buildings above it, is dated between 348 and 361. The primitive nucleus is third-century. The catacomb was forgotten after the catacombs were abandoned; Antonio Bosio entered the first level on 16 May 1594, after which it stayed hidden from the relic-hunters for three more centuries, which is why the two lower levels survive; Enrico Josi rediscovered and identified it from 1920.

Visit

Via Giovanni Paisiello, Roma RM

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