Jewish Catacombs under Villa Torlonia - part of the you-can't-go-there-anyway series

In the you-can't-go-there-anyway series, we explore - virtually - one set of Jewish catacombs under Rome. Yes, Jewish catacombs, which to some - who adhere to the myth (promulgated in films) that the catacombs were where Christians hid their burials from the heathen Romans - is an oxymoron. 

There are 6 known Jewish catacombs in Rome (and something like 70 Christian ones); two of the most extensive sets are these under the popular Villa Torlonia park. The casual tourist could visit those until a few years ago when the precarious condition of the underground tombs made that impossible. (Absent Covid, a few Jewish people apparently are allowed to visit each year.) We didn't make it before the general ban; so we were pleased to participate in Turismo Culturale Italiano's virtual tour last year, as part of its "Roma inaccessibile" (Inaccessible Rome) series (of which the Cloaca Maxima was also one). 

The catacombs of Villa Torlonia are considered to date from the 2nd to 3rd century CE, and lasting until the 5th century; so they are almost 2,000 years old. They were discovered only in the last century, around 1918. We did visit another site underground at Villa Torlonia - Mussolini's Bunker, now closed as well. We wrote about it in our post on Villa Torlonia (link above).

There can be no doubt that these catacombs were Jewish, not Christian, as can be determined from the remarkable wall paintings, including the one at the top with 2 Menorahs, a Torah in its Ark, a Shofar and other markers of the religion.

As with the Cloaca Maxima and the Scajaquada Creek (in Buffalo, New York), you can try to "find" these catacombs from above ground. 

They are in the West corner of the park, at the intersection of via Nomentana and via Spallanzani, underneath the old stables (scuderie vecchie). See the arrow in the bottom left corner in the plan at right.

Their extension is obvious from the plan below, the red arrows showing the two known entrances, the one at left inside the Villa Torlonia park, and the one at right on via Siracusa.

The catacombs of Villa Torlonia are considered in fact two sets of catacombs from different periods ("E" in the plan is later and is 10 meters below the surface), though they are connected. Below are photos from inside Region E of the Villa Torlonia catacombs. Very few human remains are left. There was a market in bones at one time; they were stolen to sell as those of martyrs.

Some of the distinctions from Christian catacombs are that the Jewish catacombs do not contain any centers for worship--the thought now is that, unlike Christian catacombs, they were not sites for visitation and celebration; and that there are no group burials.

Likely there were more than 6 sets of Jewish catacombs in the city of Rome, and some have been destroyed by the enlargement of the city or simply by falling in. The photo at right is of a large vehicle falling into one of them in the Monteverde neighborhood not that long ago. Those catacombs - discovered in 1602 - are now considered almost completely destroyed or swamped with water, although some inscriptions have been preserved - as shown below.

The other very large set of Jewish catacombs that has been open to visitors at times is along the via Appia Antica, those at Vigna Randanini. (Here's a link to one organization - Jewish Roma walking tours - they give tours of these catacombs and [we checked] they are giving them currently - we have not taken their tours ourselves; they have good Trip Advisor ratings.) As were all catacombs - Christian and Jewish - these are along a consular road and outside the ancient city walls.

 

Besides the paintings and etchings of obvious religious objects, there are some paintings of animals in the Villa Torlonia catacombs - likely here a lion (right) and a peacock (below).

We're hopeful of getting into at least one of these catacombs in the future.

Dianne

The Catacombs in Torpignattara: Our Candidate for Best Catacombs in Rome

Rome has 500 catacombs.  About a dozen are regularly open to the public, and we've been to half of those.  One of us (guess who) claims re these almost 2000-year-old evocative burial grounds, "seen one, seen 'em all."  But our recent visit to the catacombs of Saints Marcellinus and Peter (Santi Marcellino e Pietro) proved him wrong.


Easily reached by the "trenino" (little train) that runs from Stazione Termini (more directions at the end of this post), these lightly visited catacombs have a wealth of newly restored frescoes dating from about the 4th century on.  The story of the frescoes' restoration includes funding by Azerbaijan (you tell me!).

President of the Pontifical Council for Culture
and of the Pontifical Commission for
Sacred Archaeology, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi,
 hosts Dr. Mehriban Aliyeva, President of the
 Azerbaijani Heydar Alieyev Foundation in 2014
celebrating the Foundation's funding of the
laser technology restoration of the catacombs, 

New laser technology was used to remove the black gummy coating (from age, mold, candle smoke) and graffiti on the paintings.  The before and after photos are remarkable.


We were not allowed to take photos inside so these pictures (except at the end of the post) are not ours.

2006 excavations of 1,000 skeletons.

There are almost 90 decorated rooms in these 4.5 kilmoeters (3 miles) of burial niches on three levels well below ground.  We saw a dozen or more.  Over 20,000 bodies were once in this "cemetery," 1,000 of which were found only in 2006, with their togas still on.

An elaborately decorated room of likely a wealthy family.

These frescoes apparently document women participating in church rites, though we didn't see enough to draw that conclusion.  They include a painting of Jesus healing a "bleeding woman," the topic of which is of interest in church history.

Jesus healing the bleeding woman.

The frescoes are, of course, highly symbolic, and our tour guide (who spoke excellent English to the three of us on the tour that day) seemed to enjoy elaborating on the symbolism, which we attempted to interpret as well.

The new laser technology has been used on paintings in the more visited Catacombs of Domitila off the via Appia Antica, but those newly-restored paintings are not part of the tour as of 2018.

The mausoleum of St. Helena, undergoing restoration.

You enter the Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter from the courtyard of the mausoleum of Helena, Constantine's mother, which is in the process of being restored.  When it is, this complex likely will attract more visitors.

One of the more informative aspects of the complex is the mausoleum's use of amphorae in its walls.  Amphorae, old vessels used to carry olive oil and other liquids, were thrown away once they were empty.  These old, often broken, ceramics then were sometimes used in the building of walls to lighten the load, because they were empty.  The wall, which basically was a tower, deteriorated over time, so that it now shows the amphorae inside.  A colloquial word in Italian for amphorae or jugs, is "pignatta."  The tower was known as the "tower of the jugs" or "Torpignattara," and so the neighborhood is named today.  That was a new one, even for our Roman friends.

The orange remains of the amphorae in the mausoleum's 'tower' from which Torpignattara gets its name.

Tours of the catacombs are available 5 times/day, every day except Thursday (much online information about the catacombs is woefully out of date), in English and Italian, and also via mp3 players in German, Spanish, and French. The regular price is 8 Euros, children under 7 free, reduced for children 7-18 and some others.  The Web site is sparse but clear and in English as well as Italian.  You can book via email (in English) online, and not much in advance.  We did it the day before we went.

Take the trenino or tram at the far end of via Giolitti next to Termini towards Centocelle, to the Berardi stop.  It's a short ride - about 10-15 minutes.  The catacombs are directly across the street.  A walk back towards the center along via Casalina will give you a feel for the heavily ethnic neighborhood of Torpignattara - and places to eat and drink.  You can catch the trenino back to Termini every few blocks.

Dianne
And thanks to our friend Brian who told us about the recent restorations.

Salario: Rome's Unsung Hot Neighborhood

Right, our apartment building on the Via Simeto side.
Our place is on the 4th floor above the ground
floor--the one with the "cutout" that is our
terrace.   No market when this was taken.

When we arranged to rent a Rome apartment months ago, we thought we were headed for Parioli, a ritzy area of north Rome known for its fancy avenues (Viale dei Parioli and Viale Bruno Buozzi among them), expensive restaurants, and high-end shopping.

But we're not in Parioli--at least we don't think so.   More likely we're in one of Rome's lesser known districts: Salario.  Our 4th floor apartment is on the corner of Via Salaria--one of ancient Rome's consular roads--and Via Simeto, which is two blocks south of Viale Regina Margherita, the main drag with trams that go all over Rome.  We think Parioli "officially" begins on the other side of Via Salaria.

No, we're not in Parioli.  But what we've found--by sheer good fortune--is one of Rome's most
dynamic neighborhoods.   Curiously, we  had lived nearby a few years ago--just to the north of Viale Regina Margherita, in what's known as Trieste.  But we almost never ventured across the Viale. What a mistake!

Our building is of early 20th-century vintage, but
beneath it are catacombs!  We discovered they are open
one day each year - November 23.

It didn't take long to discover the pleasures of our Salario neighborhood.  It's full of small shops. On one side of our streetside apartment door is a barber.  On  the other side, a sartoria (a shop for sewing repairs of all kids). There's a ferramenta (a hardware store) nearby on Via Simeto, as well as the Rome version of a general store, crammed with stuff (and run, as many of them now are, by Chinese). Via Simeto also has a key shop and a butcher shop and an orto-frutta (fruits and vegetables).

Our "Tigre" grocrery, located in what used to be a movie
theatre (note the U-shaped lettering of the theater).  While
a chain, the Tigre has an informal book-exchange in
a room off the entrance.  

There's a nice wine shop just across Via Salaria--but of course you can buy wine almost anywhere, including at the medium-sized chain grocery store that you can see from our living room window (right).  The 4-star Beverly Hills Hotel (no joke!) is across the street.

The high-end shopping is on Via Po, two blocks down: men's clothes shops that drew the attention of a friend who's lived in Rome for years; a shop that sells only olive oil; a salumeria (a cheese/salami/bread store).  As that friend - who's lived in Rome 30 years - said when he met us for dinner nearby, "How did you find this place?"

Hugs at the market

Dianne with her home-made vignarola

Oh, yes.  There's an outdoor market on our side street (and up the next one) every day but Sunday--cheap clothes, kitchen items, and food: shelled peas and fava beans, trimmed artichokes, you name it.  In 5 minutes, we had bought those ingredients for vignarola - all ready to cook up.

Eating out?  There must be a dozen restaurants within a 10-minute walk--maybe more.  On our block alone there are three, all traditional trattorias serving Rome cuisine; we've tried two and they were both worthy, highlighted by a pasta with seafood and truffles.

Kilo, red meat capital of Rome.  Dianne on the prowl.  

Toward Via Po, we discovered Kilo, an enormous corner restaurant with elaborate outdoor seating--all in hip modernist style--serving meat cuts from animals raised around the world - Danish and Uruguayan beef, not to mention Chianina (from Tuscany), Kobe and "American" meats.  It's full of young people, which we like.  A wine bar called "dietro le quinte" also looks promising.  And there are a couple of popular places for the sushi crowd.

Hip outside cushion seating at "dietro le quinte"

After checking out a dozen "bars" for our morning coffee and cornetto, we finally settled on a somewhat upscale place on Via Po--where you can sit down and read the paper without paying extra. Indeed, the trend here in Salario--and Salario could be trend-setting--is toward larger places with ample seating at no extra charge. Dogs get in free.

An entrance to Coppede'

It would be too much to say that Salario is centrally located. It's well to the north of the Centro, with no subway line nearby.  Still, the famed Via Veneto is less than a mile walk, and the Galleria Borghese is at most 10 minutes.  The fantastical neighborhood of Coppede', named after the architect Gino Coppede', who designed its structures in the 1920s, is 5 minutes away.

A tram got us to Prati (near the Vatican) in about 30 minutes for some jazz at Alexanderplatz  the other night, and in the other direction (east), a tram will take you to the university, to the hip young scene at San Lorenzo, and just beyond to Porta Maggiore, with its enormous aqueducts, a short walk from another hip scene in Pigneto.

Life could be worse!

Bill

Could have been and would have been our
regular coffee bar, but they overcharged us--twice--because they
thought the Americans wouldn't be back or wouldn't notice.  Big mistake.
It's on Via Salaria if you don't want to go there.  

William Demby: An African-American Writer in Rome

Carl Van Vechten portrait of William Demby

William Demby could be seen as just another--and perhaps lesser--writer caught under the spell of Rome, like Ralph Ellison and John Cheever.  I think he's much more than that, and that his reputation deserves to be resuscitated.

In brief, he was an African-American, raised--importantly--in his early years in Clarksburg, West Virginia, who, after serving in World War II, returned to Italy.  He married an Italian and lived in Rome until the mid-1960s.  Demby returned to the US for the 1963 March on Washington and then brought his wife and their son to live in the US.  By 1967 they were all back in Rome, but from then on he divided his time between the US and Italy.

Demby (left), soldier, World War II

In 1950, Demby published a very non-Italian novel, Beetlecreek, described accurately as "the powerful and impassioned novel of coming of age in a southern [US] town."  More about that later, since it has nothing to do with Rome, or the author's Italian residence at the time.

Demby followed up Beetlecreek 15 years later with The Catacombs, usually described as an experimental novel, and, yes, set in Rome, and a novel (as the bookjacket announces), even though its main character is William Demby as himself.

Most of the time Demby was in Rome he was assisting on screenplays, translating scripts, and otherwise participating in the Cinecittà filmmaking scene.  He worked for all the prominent directors of the time: Rossellini, Fellini, Visconti, Antonioni.

Demby acting in an Italian movie.

In The Catacombs his character notes there are very few (as in fewer than a 5) mixed-race couples then living in Rome.  The alter-ego character of the novel is a young African-American actress, Doris, who in the novel is the daughter (I don't know if there is a real daughter) of a very real first serious girlfriend and then second wife of Demby's, Barbara Morris (an NAACP lawyer).  Doris spends most of the novel in conflict over her blackness.  Her first job in Rome is as handmaiden to Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra in the 1963 blockbuster film of that name.

From the perspective of 50 years later, The Catacombs doesn't seem so experimental.  Yes, it incorporates the author as himself; it blurs the line between autobiography and fiction; it uses newspaper headlines freely.  In fact, the character's use of those headlines to show the world falling apart seems even truer today.  But the book also has a straightforward narrative and characters who are in many ways traditional.  In other words, it's a very readable book.

And The Catacombs ranges over Rome.  So if you love Rome and everything that touches it, you'll appreciate The Catacombs for that alone.  The novel opens in a "country trattoria" across from catacombs on via Appia Antica--then a rather rustic area.  I rather like Doris's opening shot to her soon-to-be paramour, the married Count: "What I mean is--if you really had to take me sightseeing--and the good Lord knows I have enough sightseeing to my credit to have earned at least five Mortician degrees--why bring me to the Catacombs?  Isn't there anything else to see in Rome besides churches and tombs?"  She picks up  the same theme later, "This is one hell of a country!  If it's not catacombs, it's Etruscan tombs--"  And the novel ends with the catacombs.

Among The Catacombs' other locations: Rosati's café on Piazza del Popolo, where Demby (the character) waits "for P. the director"; Piazza San Silvestro; Circolo degli' Artisti; Portico d'Ottavia; the Protestant Cemetery (for a burial); Café Canova; Hotel Russie; via della Conciliazione; St. Peter's; Santa Maria della Pace; Campo de' Fiori (and specifically the Giordano Bruno statue); the Verano Cemetery; Piazza Mazzini; via Margutta; Piazza di Spagna; via San Teodoro; via Babuino; via Bissolati; Palazzo delle Esposizioni; and "my Piemonte-Mazzini-bureaucraticsaur quarter of Rome [sounds like Prati to me]."  About via Giulia, our main character says: "I have never liked this street, though architecturally it is one of the most stately in Rome.  Somehow it evokes in my mind all that was cruel and futilely pompous in papal Rome....Via Giulia is Rome at its cynical worst." And, the chapters that are set on the beach are in nearby Ladispoli.

Demby's son, James Gabriele Demby,
reading from The Catacombs.

Demby says in The Catacombs that he began his narration on March 5, 1962, and he has almost completed it on March 5, 1964.  Events of the period are crucial to the novel, including the death of Pope John XXIII on June 3, 1963.  Demby is in line to view the Pope's body in St. Peter's and describes it in part as follows:  "slowly, like boarders in some enormous pensione shuffling through a drafty corridor in bathrobe and slippers, we move with uneasy unaccustomed reverence through the deceptive time-space dimensions of this Chiesa which is Rome."

We of RST have a particular connection to the span of Demby's novel since we were in Italy for 6 months of that time, and in Rome in late January 1963, with snow underfoot in the Forum.  As Demby the character says:  "It hasn't been this cold in Italy for over a century....Like a whispered blessing, snow for the first time in years falls on Rome.  This is the last day of January, January 31."

Stanford-in-Italy students in the Roman
Forum, January 1963.

There are, of course, many other observations of Rome and Romans in The Catacombs.  But the novel is above all a black man's coming to terms with his expatriation, and what follows is his repatriation (but it isn't ever complete, in fact).

It's a fasinating novel, of its time and worth reading.

June 11, 2015 AAR Roundtable on William Demby.
Left, James Gabriele Demby. Center, art historian and critic
 Christian Caliandro. Right, Silvia Lucchesi, Co-Founder and Director,
“Lo Schermo dell’Arte Film Festival” in Florence, who conducted
the 2004 interview with Demby shown at the roundtable.

We were first made aware of Demby and his writing only through a roundtable last June at the American Academy in Rome, which included the showing of a revealing video interview of him. Also at the roundtable was his son, James Gabriele Demby, who is a musician and teacher in Italy.  The roundtable, part of AAR's "Nero su Bianco" ("Black on White") exhibit in 2014, was one of the best we've experienced there.  An obituary (Demby died at 90 on May 23, 2013 in Sag Harbor, NY, one of his homes), excellent article, and another video are available online.

I particularly like this cover of
Beetlecreek.

And a postscript on Beetlecreek.  I found the novel gripping and fascinating.  In a 1967 paperback reprint, the Afterward by Herbert Hill damns it with faint praise:  "His [Demby's] limitation is that his ideas are not fully confronted.  In Beetlecreek he just misses making the leap into that place where great writing lies....[Demby] has written a unique tale with courage and honesty...[the]work of a neophyte writer...."  I think Beetlecreek is better than that.

Dianne

Off-the-beaten-path churches: The Basilica of San Pancrazio

"Here San Pancrazio was decapitated."

The basilica of San Pancrazio wasn't always so off-the-beaten-path.  It sits less than half a mile from the famous Porta di San Pancrazio, a gateway to the Gianicolo.

Of course, RST thinks it's worth a visit.  Even though we've lived close enough to the neighborhood several times, it did take several tries to get both of us there.  One problem, the reluctant visitor to churches that were built before 1920, and the other problem of timing our visit when the church is open.  It's widely acknowledged it gets few visitors and tourists and, therefore, is no longer always open (hours at end of this post).

Time, wars, history, have not been kind to this - originally - 7th-century church built on the alleged site of the named saint's martyrdom (see photo at top).  As Wiki Roman Churches puts it,  "It was thoroughly looted by the French in 1798, and was partially destroyed by the Garibaldians during their futile defence of the Roman Republic against the French army in 1849. This vandalism included having the shrine broken open and the relics of the martyr disposed of. Whatever the vandals did with them, whether they put them down the toilet or shot them from a cannon, it is the case that not a fragment was recovered. Hence, when substantial necessary repairs were carried out to the church in the later 19th century, a small relic was brought back from the head of the saint at St John Lateran to be enshrined."
(For more on Garibaldi and this area, which we find fascinating, see one of RST's posts.)

And if that wasn't enough, there was a collapse in 2001 that closed the church and catacombs for a while.

Yes, catacombs.  One of the reasons I like the basilica.  Like several Roman churches, it sits atop an immense catacomb, and this one is not full of a line of visitors with buses waiting outside for them.   The upside - you can have a free, private tour of the catacombs.  The downside - only in Italian.  Our guide was a sweet and dedicated man, who seemed surprised when we made a 5 Euro offering.  I like the church's Web site explanation for no fee for the visits:  "The memory of the Martyrs has no price."  The entry is inside the main body of the church - just don't fall down the hole.

The coffered ceiling.

Trompe l'oeil fresco being restored.

 The setting of the church is evocative - it's at the end of a shaded lane, with walls on each side housing the monastery and a small museum.  All of this is couched in a corner of the immense park Villa Pamphili.


And, yes, it has art works, among them a restored monumental wooden coffered ceiling and frescoes attributed to the Cavalier d'Arpino, both 17th century. 


For more information, the Roman Churches Wiki site is decent, and the church offers a pamphlet in English.  Or, you can go to the basilica's Web site, which has some extensive history; use a translation program if you don't read Italian (click on "I Monumenti"  and then either "Basilica" or "Catacombe."

The catacombs are open Wednesday and Thursday mornings, 9:30 a.m - noon, and Wednesday afternoon, 4:30 - 7 p.m.  The church is open 8:30 a.m. - noon, every day (8 a.m. - 1 p.m. on Sundays and holidays) and afternoons 4:30 - 7 p.m. (7:30 p.m. July - September, and  8 p.m. on Sundays and holidays).  It's at Piazza San Pancrazio, at the end of via San Pancrazio (where it turns into via Vitellia). The location is "due passi" (2 steps - i.e., only a little way) from part of the first water itinerary in Rome the Second Time: 15 Itineraries That Don't Go to the Coliseum.

Dianne

Another out-of-the-way church in Rome: San Sebastiano

Saint Sebastian

Church lady decided it was time for a break from all that Fascist architecture, graffiti and social analysis.  Instead she offers Christ’s footprints, a Bernini pupil’s sculpture, catacombs, a check-off list if you’re doing your seven-church pilgrimage in Rome, to  name a few.

1612 facade

These are all found at the Basilica of San Sebastiano, at the cross-roads of via Appia Antica (the ancient Appian Way) and via delle Sette Chiese – “7 Churches Road.”  Built in the 3^rd or 4^th century, this quiet, lovely church was redone in the early 17^th century.  Among its treasures is the statue of an unusually recumbent Saint Sebastian, complete with gold-tipped arrows (photo at top).  The statue is so Berniniesque that some think its sculptor, Bernini’s pupil Antonio Giorgetti, did it from a Bernini sketch. 

in case you wanted a close-up

If that’s not enough, there are Christ’s footprints, the pole on which Sebastian met his arrows, and other relics.  The San Sebastiano catacombs, next to and under the church, were the first to be called catacombs (a word meaning underground cemetery, apparently derived from the Greek for "hollow"--Bill). 

If you want more on the iconography of this popular saint, Catholic Online has a good bio, tho' needless to say it doesn't talk about him being a gay icon.

Renaissance-worthy interior

It’s hard to say anything on the via Appia is off the beaten track; that’s really a non sequitur.  But, approaching San Sebastiano from via delle Sette Chiese as we did, one feels almost as a pilgrim might have.  And, unless a busload of tourists has just arrived to descend into the catacombs, you’ll pretty much have San Sebastiano to yourself, a treat in Rome. 

Dianne