May 2 - Etruscan Museum to the Catacombs

Our first destination on Saturday, May 2nd, was the Etruscan Museum. The Greek roots from the Mycenaean civilization were clear, and perhaps accounted for the most interesting (to us) artifacts: a 7th century BC silver bowl covered with Egyptian figures and hieroglyphs, and a contemporaneous blue glass bowl from Syria.

The nearby baroque church of Trinita dei Monti had a service at 6:30 that evening which we attended. It was vespers in a mixture of Italian and French, with beautiful chanting by the brothers and sisters of the Order of the Monasteries of Jerusalem. We learned at Mass the next morning (with equally beautiful chanting) that the order was founded in Warsaw but is primarily French in language. After Mass on Sunday we travelled by Metro, tram and foot to the neighborhood where our daughter-in-law Karen lived when she was studying in Rome. It was the former athletes’ village for the 1960 Olympics and had magnificent bronze statues commemorating various events such as the relay race. On Monday, May 4, we returned to the Basilica of St. John Lateran for a proper visit.

It was breathtakingly clear that this was the church of the Papacy for centuries, and why St. Peter’s seems so over-the-top in sumptuous decoration.

From there we took a city bus to the Ancient Appian Way and the Catacombs of St. Callixtus.

This is just one of about 60 sites identified as cemeteries for early Christians outside the walls of imperial Rome. By law, all burials had to be outside the walls. Here we found some artifacts of the early Christians: the use of chambers in the catacombs for services, and the symbols used in an outlawed religion: the dove, the image of the good shepherd, the fish, and who was a martyr for the faith. One of these was St. Cecilia, and in her former burial niche (all remains have been disinterred from the catacombs that are open to the public) there is a statue of her which is claimed to recreate her body as it was found in the catacombs, with no decay.