Underground Rome Tour
A Private Underground Tour of Rome’s Catacombs, including Domitilla, St Clement’s Buried Basilica and the Capuchin Crypt
Domitilla’s Catacombs in Rome
Underground Rome Tour: Catacombs, St Clement and Capuchin Crypt
Descend to the dark heart of Rome’s underworld on this unique private tour. Stare into the empty eyes of skulls and discover mysterious ancient rituals in the hidden Temple of Mithras, as you explore how pagan and Christian Rome connect.
Underground Rome Private Tour
– Catacombs, St Clement and Capuchin Crypt
Basilica of St. Clement and Temple of Mithras
Without any knowledge of the history, St. Clement’s Basilica would be a delight to visit. This mediaeval church is resplendent in the charming gold leaf mosaics typical of that period, and is propped up with mismatched columns, pillaged from Roman temples.
However, the charming interior of this 11th century basilica belies a much older history. Our expert guide will take you under the earth of this wonderful church to discover the remains of some much older religious buildings on this site – including the pre-Christian.
The Basilica of St. Clement was first consecrated in the 4th century AD, when a Roman nobleman decided to turn a portion of his home as a place of Christian worship. However, even before that, a Temple of Mithras stood on the site. You can see both the evocative ruins of these unique sites of worship on this Rome Underground tour.
The Capuchin Crypt
You may have thought that you’d reached peaked-eerie with Rome’s catacombs of 26,000 tombs, or the sheer strangeness of the Temple of Mithras – but you’d be wrong. The Capuchin Crypt outranks them all.
The Capuchin Crypt was first designated for use by the order of Capuchin friars in 1631 – who brought the bones of 300 friars with them from their last crypt. Presumably, this was the point that the Capuchin friars began to decorate the walls of the chapel with the bones of their dead brethren.
The Catholic church insist that this is supposed to be a memento mori, a symbol of eternal life – rather than the macabre display it appears to us. A visit to the Capuchin Crypt puts you in fine company with historic tourists – the Marquis de Sade found the crypt a pleasure.
Join our Underground Rome Private Tour with the Catacombs, St. Clement, the Temple of Mithras and the Capuchin Crypt to head into the dark underbelly of the Ancient Roman world – and see the macabre crossover with Catholicism.
Experience the eeriest Rome has to offer and some truly unique artwork on the way.
Our 3hr private Tour of Rome’s Catacombs includes:
The Itinerary of Our Crypts and Catacombs Tour
First, join your expert guide and head 50ft into the earth, to the Catacombs of Domitilla. Between the 1st and 3rd century AD, both pagans and Christians were buried here – which makes for a wonderfully strange clash of cultures, in one weird space.
Afterward, head to the Basilica of St. Clement. A church has stood on this site since the 4th century – but before then, you’d find a Temple of Mithras. Mithraism was a strange mystery cult and the intricacies of their bizarre rituals only revealed to initiates…. Our guide will reveal some of their secrets.
Last, but certainly not least, visit the Capuchin Crypt. Here, you’ll find the strangeness of a pagan death cult resurrected in a Catholic church. The crypt of the Capuchin Monks is decorated with the remains of an estimated 4,000 individuals: skulls and bones are everywhere.
The Catacombs of Domitilla
Inside the Catacombs of Domitilla, 50ft in the bowels of the earth, lie 26,000 of Ancient Rome’s dead – and some spectacular artwork too. Tombs began to be buried underground – creating Catacombs – as there was insufficient burial space above ground; a resourceful solution to the problem of too many dead, not enough land.
The Catacombs of Domitilla – and the strange mixture of pagan and Christian art you find within – would have been lost forever, if not for the intrepid explorer of Rome’s underworld, Antonio Bosio. Bosio was the first to explore Rome’s Catacombs and map them – so they would be accessible for us today. Once, Bosio became so lost inside the Catacombs, he went without food and water for three days, trying to find his way out. Without Bosio, we wouldn’t be able to explore them or even go on an underground Tome tour – thanks to him, this ancient world of the dead has life in it again.
The Capuchin Friars
The Capuchins is a religious order that has been around for almost 500 years and a branch of the larger family of Franciscan friars, founded by St Francis in 1206. In fact, the Capuchins asked the pope to approve a separate rule for them in 1528 AD because they wanted to follow St Francis’ teaching in a more radical way. The Franciscan order has always been divided between factions with completely opposite interpretation of Francis’ rule: some demanded a stricter adherence to the vow of poverty, others objected that poverty is a spiritual quality and cannot be, so to speak, measured.
The Franciscan Order grew so fast in the early 13th century to not only attract thousands of followers and would-be friars, but also many sponsors and donors, and thus a great wealth. Was it conflicting with the vow of poverty to build such amazing churches like the St Francis’ Basilica in Assisi, or was it against the vow of poverty to possess books, build convents and even wear sandals? What is the border between strict necessity and coziness? And where does coziness end and wealth begins? This was the frame within which a peculiar reflection on the meaning of death arose. For the Capuchin friars, who had decided to create their own order, but always in the steps of St Francis’ spirituality, in order to live the vow of poverty with greater radicality, it was particularly important to be reminded at all time that this mortal life is not forever.
Nobody can bring the smallest possession with himself or herself in the afterlife, so there is no point in being attached to this mortal life. From this spiritual perspective, life is joy because we can leave behind the obsession of hoarding material wealth for ourselves or those who outlive us, and instead we can dedicate ourselves to be better people and have a spiritual life. The way the Capuchin monks rendered this whole reflection on death and the real meaning of life could appear gruesome and horrifying to us today, but their explicit way was meant to communicate a spiritual urgency, rather than a sense of macabre on which many tour operators build their itinerary. We at Roma Experience believe that a visit to the Capuchin crypts connects with the other two steps of this Rome Catacombs Tour (the Catacombs of Domitilla and the Basilica of St Clement) because the Franciscan reflection on death actually is a continuation, in some ways, of the first Christians’ attention to the worship of the martyrs, the cult of the relics, the importance placed on on the saints mortal remains, and the very concept of burying the dead instead of cremating their bodies. For a cult so deeply hinged on the idea of the resurrection of the body, in a moment when the pagan religion went in the opposite direction, these manifestation of the macabre are but a reminder that there is a greater life after life. This final part of our guided tour will include a visit to the museums and the crypt of the Capuchin friars of Rome, an experience that leave many guests shocked at the sight of how entire walls, ceiling, objects, and even art works were made of with the bones and the skulls of the past friars. This is a bones and catacombs tour that you will remember forever. Join our group today. Transportation and admission tickets are included.
