Catacombe di San Callisto, Rome

These are the Catacombs of San Callisto, an early Christian underground cemetery on the Appian Way. Their name honours Pope Callixtus the First, who enlarged a burial complex that became the official cemetery of Rome’s Church. Beneath this entrance, the passages extend for nearly twenty kilometres through a cemetery area of fifteen hectares, where more than fifty martyrs and sixteen popes were buried.

The heart of the site is the Crypt of the Popes. Nine pontiffs were laid to rest there, and Greek inscriptions still identify Pontian, Anterus, Fabian, Lucius, and Eutychian. Pope Sixtus the Second was buried against the far wall after his killing during Valerian’s persecution.

Nearby is Saint Cecilia’s tomb. Her relics were removed in the year eight hundred and twenty-one, yet the chamber preserves early medieval wall paintings of Cecilia in prayer, Christ, and Pope Urban. Elsewhere, paintings in the sacramental chambers evoke baptism, Eucharist, and resurrection. These quiet corridors preserve Christianity’s earliest visual language alongside the memory of a community shaped by burial, persecution, and hope.