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————parti elette Di Roma, che son state cimitero Alla milizia che Pietro seguette.
PARADISO, c. ix.
"Roma Sotterranea,"—the underground Rome of the dead,—the buried cityof graves. Sacred is the dust of its narrow streets. Blessed were thosewho, having died for their faith, were laid to rest in its chambers.In pace is the epitaph that marks the places where they lie.In pace is the inscription which the imagination reads over theentrance to the Christian Catacombs.
Full as the upper city is of great and precious memories, it possessesnone greater and more precious than those which belong to the city underground. Republican Rome had no braver heroes than Christian Rome. Theground and motives of action were changed, but the courage and devotionof earlier times did not surpass the courage and devotion of laterdays,—while a new spirit displayed itself in new and unexampled deeds,and a new and brighter glory shone from them over the world. But,unhappily, the stories of the early Christian centuries were takenpossession of by a Church which has sought in them the means ofenhancing her claims and increasing her power; mingling with themfalsehoods and absurdities, cherishing the wildest and most unnaturaltraditions, inventing fictitious miracles, dogmatizing on falseassertions, until reasonable and thoughtful religious men have turnedaway from the history of the first Christians in Rome with a sensationof disgust, and with despair at the apparently inextricable confusion offact and fable concerning them.
But within a few years the period to which these stories belong hasbegun to be investigated with a new spirit, even at Rome itself, and inthe bosom of the Roman Church. It was no unreasonable expectation, that,from a faithful and honest exploration of the catacombs, and examinationof the inscriptions and works of art in them or derived from them, morelight might be thrown upon the character, the faith, the feeling, andthe life of the early Christians at Rome, than from any other sourcewhatever. Results of unexpected interest have proved the justness ofthis expectation.
These results are chiefly due to the labors of two Romans, one a priestand the other a layman, the Padre Marchi, and the Cavaliere de Rossi,who have devoted themselves with the utmost zeal and with great abilityto the task of exploration. The present Pope, stimulated by the effortsof these scholars, established some years since a Commission of SacredArcheology for the express purpose of forwarding the investigationsin the catacombs; and the French government, soon after its militaryoccupation of Rome, likewise established a commission for the purpose ofconducting independent investigations in the same field.[A]
[Footnote A: In 1844, Padre Marchi published a series of numbers,seventeen in all, of a work entitled Monumenti delle Arti CristianePrimitive nella Metropol del Cristianesmo. The numbers are in quarto,and illustrated by many carefully executed plates. The work was nevercompleted; but it contains a vast amount of important information,ch