The Catacombs of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, opened to the public in 2014 after very complex safety and restoration work, now form, together with the overlying Mausoleum of Helena, a unique monumental complex whose visit offers an extraordinary immersive experience of late-ancient Rome. As happened with all major Roman catacombs, at ad duas lauros the funerary use of the underground spaces by the Christian community began with several independent hypogea, each served by its own access staircase, which over time expanded and eventually merged to create one of the largest underground cemeteries in the Roman suburbs. The beginning of this process dates to the time of the so-called “little peace of the Church,” in the second half of the 3rd century, when, under the principate of Gallienus (260–268) and for nearly fifty years, relations between the civil authorities and the Christian community improved. In this new climate, the Christian community was able to establish an underground burial site near the surface necropolis of the equites singulares Augusti, a cavalry corps symbolizing imperial authority.
The Christian funerary complex developed according to the criteria already applied in other suburban cemeteries, such as St. Callistus, Domitilla and Priscilla: long galleries (cryptae) were dug, and in their walls burial niches (loci, loculi) were carved, sometimes topped by an arch and therefore called arcosolia (arcosolia, arcisolia). The loculi were sealed with marble or brick slabs fixed with mortar, on which the name of the deceased was inscribed. At ad duas lauros, along the galleries, cubicula (cubicula) frequently open up—rooms reserved for families or associations, richly decorated with frescoes. The excavation work of the cemetery was carried out by the powerful guild of fossors (fossores, laborantes), which had a highly specialized internal organization. Sometimes pre-existing cavities were reused, such as hydraulic tunnels and pozzolana quarries.
Full ticket € 15.00
(Catacombs ticket € 10.00 + Mausoleum of Saint Helena ticket € 3.00 + Booking fee € 2.00)
Includes admission to the Mausoleum of Saint Helena, guided tour of the Catacombs of Saints Marcellinus and Peter with in-house staff (see below for available languages), and booking fees.
Reduced ticket € 12.00
(Catacombs ticket € 7.00 + Mausoleum of Saint Helena ticket € 3.00 + Booking fee € 2.00)
Free ticket
Available languages for guided tours: Italian, English
For other available days and times: info@omniavaticanrome.org
SS MARCELLINO E PIETRO E MAUSOLEO DI S.ELENA
Address: Via Casilina, 641
Our commitment is to offer pilgrims and visitors, through the catacombs, an experience of communion with the testimonies of the first Christian communities, which tell and illustrate, in an extremely suggestive way, the roots of faith and the horizon of Christian hope.
Mons. Pasquale Iacobone
President of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology
A very mportant environment is the crypt of the SS. Marcellino and Pietro, built by Pope Damasus (366-384) and then, in the sixth century, transformed into a real underground Basilica, destination of numerous pilgrimages.
Not far from the crypt, there is a cubicle on whose vault you can see a fresco from the end of the 4th century in which the martyrs of the catacomb are represented in the presence of Christ enthroned between Saints Peter and Paul.
Among the recently restored frescoes it is possible to visit a series of rooms with singular banquet scenes to refer to both real and symbolic funerary rituals. The visit is completed by the museum exhibition housed in the rooms of the Mausoleum of St. Elena, which collects and illustrates the funerary testimonies that have occurred over the centuries in this area.
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Between AD 315 and 326, inaugurating the gradual and deliberate Christianization of the suburban area, Constantine had a funerary basilica with a continuous ambulatory built, dedicated to the martyrs Marcellinus and Peter. It rose above the catacomb that preserved their remains at the third mile of the ancient Via Labicana (modern Via Casilina), in the area known as ad (or inter) duas lauros, within the imperial estate called fundus Laurentus (or Lauretum), already used as a burial ground along the ancient consular road. Connected to the basilica—through a rectangular atrium—was a large dynastic mausoleum, in which around AD 329 the emperor had his mother Helena buried inside a large red-porphyry sarcophagus (today preserved in the Vatican Museums, Museo Pio Clementino).
The mausoleum was built in brickwork (internal diameter 20.18 m, external diameter 27.74 m, preserved height 25.42 m), with a cylindrical base surmounted by a tall drum and originally covered by a dome. The collapse of part of the vault exposed two rows of Baetican oil amphorae of the Dressel 20 type—also called pignatte (from which the name of the modern district derives)—inserted into the concrete conglomerate, perhaps to reduce its weight or to facilitate its setting. In the Middle Ages, after the transfer of Helena’s body to Santa Maria in Aracoeli (under Pope Innocent II, 1130–1143) and of the sarcophagus to the portico of the Lateran for the burial of Pope Anastasius IV (1153–1154), the structure entered a long phase of decline. Over the centuries it suffered repeated spoliation of its rich interior decorations and progressive deterioration, which even the interventions carried out in 1836 by Giuseppe Valadier were unable to halt.
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Starting in 1993, the then Archaeological Superintendency of Rome launched an extensive programme of excavation, recovery, restoration, and enhancement of the mausoleum and its surrounding area. At the same time, it drew up an important agreement with the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology (renewed in May 2019) concerning restoration activities, the creation of an Antiquarium – housed within the small church and rectory built in the modern era within the perimeter of the rotunda – and the management of the entire complex. The work, carried out by a multidisciplinary team of experts (museum project and restorations: Maria Grazia Filetici, Elio Paparatti; protection and archaeological direction: Laura Vendittelli, Anna Buccellato; scientific direction for the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology: Fabrizio Bisconti, Raffaella Giuliani), aimed to restore the structural safety and conservation of the ancient structures, making the transformations of the monument over the centuries perceptible.
