The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858

In 1844, Padre Marchi published a series of numbers, seventeen in all, of a work entitled Monumenti delle Arti Cristiane Primitive nella Metropol del Cristianesmo. The numbers are in quarto, and illustrated by many carefully executed plates. The work was never completed; but it contains a vast amount of important information, chiefly the result of Padre Marchi's own inquiries. The Cavaliere de Rossi, still a young man, one of the most learned and accomplished scholars of Italy, is engaged at present in editing all the Christian inscriptions of the first six centuries. No part of this work has yet appeared. He is the highest living authority on any question regarding the catacombs. The work of the French Commission has been published at Paris in the most magnificent style, in six imperial folio volumes, under the title, Catacombes de Rome, etc., etc. Par LOUIS PERRET. Ouvrage publié par Ordre et aux Frais du Gouvernement, sous la Direction d'une Commission composée de MM. AMPERE, INGRES, MERIMÉE, VITET. It consists of four volumes of elaborate colored plates of architecture, mural paintings, and all works of art found in the catacombs, with one volume of inscriptions, reduced in fac-simile from the originals, and one volume of text. The work is of especial value as regards the first period of Christian Art. Its chief defect is the want of entire accuracy, in some instances, in its representations of the mural paintings,—some outlines effaced in the original being filled out in the copy, and some colors rendered too brightly. But notwithstanding this defect, it is of first importance in illustrating the hitherto very obscure history and character of early Christian Art.

2

The foregoing extract is taken from a book by the Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, called The Roman Catacombs, or some Account of the Burial-Places of the Early Christians in Rome: London, 1857. It is the best accessible manual in English,—the only one with any claims to accuracy, and which contains the results of recent investigations. Mr. Northcote is one of the learned band of converts from Oxford to Rome. A Protestant may question some of the conclusions in his book, but not its general fairness. Our own first introduction to the catacombs, in the winter of 1856, was under Mr. Northcote's guidance, and much of our knowledge of them was gained through him. Mr. Northcote estimates the total length of the catacombs at nine hundred miles; we cannot but think this too high.

3

For instance, about the middle of the fourth century, St. Julius, then Pope, is said to have begun three. See Marchi's Momumenti delle Arti Cristiane, p. 82.

4

The volcanic rocks are the Tufa litoide, very hard, and used for paving and other such purposes; difficult to be quarried, and unfit for graves on account of this difficulty. The Tufi granulare, a soft, friable, coarse-grained rock, easily cut,—fitted for excavation. It is in this that the catacombs are made. It is used for very few purposes in Rome. One may now and then see some coarse filling-up of walls done with it, or its square-cut blocks piled up as a fence. The third is the Pura pozzolana,—which is the Tufa granulare in a state of compact sand, yielding to the print of the heel, dug like sand, and used extensively in the unsurpassed mortar of the Roman buildings.

5

There is one puzzling circumstance in the cemetery of S. Domitilla. All the graves in this cemetery are arcosolia, and yet the date of construction is early. The Cavaliere de Rossi suggests that the cemetery was begun at the expense of the Domitilla whose name it bears, the niece of Domitian, previously to her banishment; that her position enabled her to have it laid out from the beginning on a regular plan, and to introduce this more expensive and elaborate form of grave, which was continued for the sake of uniformity in the later excavations.

6

These chapels are generally about ten feet square. Some are larger, and a few smaller than this.

7

Revelations, vi. 9-11. It seems probable that another custom of the Roman Church took its rise in the catacombs,—that of burning candles on the altar; a custom simple in its origin, now turned into a form of superstition, and often abused to the profit of priests.

8

The German name of a grave-yard.

9

The Life and Times of Aaron Burr. By J. PARTON. New York: Mason, Brothers. 1857.

10

: Chapman's, if not the original.

11

Cary's or Cayley's, if not the original. I do not know which are the best translations of Plato. Herodotus and Aeschylus can only be read in the original. It may seem strange that I name books like these for "beginners"; but all the greatest books contain food for all ages; and an intelligent and rightly bred youth or girl ought to enjoy much, even in Plato, by the time they are fifteen or sixteen.

12

The Atlantic Monthly was not in existence when Mr. Ruskin wrote this condemnation of magazines. The saving word for it is "generally."—EDITOR.