Someone recently asked a large group of people in an informal e-mail discussion group for advice about a visit to Rome. Some people gave him advice about what to wear and where to stay, and some about what to see. Three of the latter, who seem to have been blessed to go several times, have let me pass on their recommendations for those who are interested in such things. I’ve added some links. Remember that these were e-mails.
From Fr. J. Steele, CSC:
A couple of things I wouldn’t miss:
- The Scavi tour underneath St. Peter’s Basilica. Call your chancery to see about tickets.
- San Clementi , an 11th Century church, built over the excavated ruins of a 4th century church, built over the excavated ruins of the presumed house of St. Clement, 3rd successor to St. Peter.
- And of course the Gesu (see here for pictures) and the other obvious places.
- St. Paul outside the Walls . (See here for a virtual tour.)
From Warren Wilson:
You’ll be seeing the Colosseum and all the usual places. By all means, tour the Scavi under St. Peter’s .
And visit some catacombs as well. The catacombs of St Agnes, St Priscilla, St Sebastian, and St Callixtus are all worthwhile. Those of St Agnes are wonderful and also attached to the church of St Agnes , which is away from the usual tourist sites and thus doesn’t see many visitors. I went through with five other people. The church is right next to the fourth-century church and mausoleum of St Constantina (Costanza), the daughter of Constantine.
On my most recent trip, I decided to make the trip all about churches, and so read through Mary Sharp’s A Guide to the Churches of Rome and picked out the dozen or so that interested me most. What an education in architecture, in church history, martyrology, etc. If you have time, I’d recommend doing that.
From William Tighe
How much time do you have in Rome? I would endorse all of what has been said already, but I would add these additional things, time permitting.
An excursion to Ostia Antiqua. There is a subway line that turns into a railway that leads to Ostia, with a stop for St. Paul’s-outside-the-walls . I remember well walking alone there once, and coming across a little tablet dedicated to the memory of St, Monica, inscribed with these moving lines from St. Augustine’s Confessions (Book IX, Ch. xii):
Premebam oculos eius; et confluebat in praecordia mea maestitudoingens et transfluebat in lacrimas; ibidemque oculi mei violento animiimperio resorbebant fontem suum usque ad siccitatem, et in taliluctamine valde male mihi erat. tum vero, ubi efflavit extremum, puerAdeodatus exclamavit in planctu, atque ab omnibus nobis coercitustacuit. hoc modo etiam meum quiddam puerile, quod labebatur in fletusiuvenali voce, voce cordis, coercebatur et tacebat neque enim decerearbitrabamur funus illud questibus lacrimosis gemitibusque celebrare,quia his plerumque solet deplorari quaedam miseria morientium autquasi omnimoda extinctio. At illa nec misere moriebatur nec omninomoriebatur.
Would that “nec misere moriebatur nec omninomoriebatur” could be remembered of us someday!
A visit to the catacombs. See this on catacombs . I particularly enjoyed my two visits to those of Sta Priscilla , in 1974 and 1985, conducted for a small group in both cases by a very well-informed nun. When or if you visit the catacombs of Callistus (see here also) and/or San Sebastiano, which are not far from one another, the latter on the Via Appia Antiqua itself, it is fun and contemplative on a nice day to walk a while out of Rome on that Appian Way. When one tires, one can take one of the side roads leading off to the LEFT that run down to the Via Appia Nuova and take a bus back into Rome.
On one of these trips, going out the Appian Way, before reaching San Sebastiano, I went off to the left through some fields in search of the “Grotto of Egeria” (which is certainly not the original one, where Numa Pompilius had his colloquies with the nymph, but is at least 2nd century AD) and a kind of early medieval chapel which was the converted “gazebo” of Herodes Atticus.
He was a small merchant of Athens with a shop built against the Acropolis, who discovered a walled-up cave entrance into the hillside and within it discovered an amazing hoard of gold and silver (I reckon the Persians must have it deposited there in 479 BC when they had to evacuate Athens hurriedly after their defeat at Salamis, but nobody knows). After the Emperor Antoninus Pius ruled that it was all his’, he became fabulously wealthy and moved to Rome. Anyway, there is a not-very-helpful account of how to get to it in Georgina Masson’s guidebook to Rome, which I followed, with eventual success after an encounter with a most unfriendly mastiff and a rather suspicious gardener.
An excursion to the Alban Hills. I remember a lovely trattoria in Castel Gandolfo (perhaps the site of ancient Alba Longa) overlooking the lake of that name; and going to the top of Monte Cavo — or perhaps to Frascati (Tusculum) and drinking the local wine accompanied by porchetta in one of its many cantine, and then going to the top of Monte Tuscolo (the site of ancient Tusculum, with a well-preserved Roman theater) — I remember going there, and following a priest who knew a short cut, trying to go down the hill the back way, and finding ourselves in the middle of a field with a rather large bull. My own favorite place for an excursion was the unpretentious lakeside restaurant Casina Bianca in Trevignano, on Lake Bracciano to the NW of Rome.
At the bottom of the hill we faced a long wearisome walk along a country road in the hot mid-day, with nothing to drink. Finally we reached a hovel, or small hut, on which there were signs advertising watermelons for sale. the priest, perhaps self-conscious about his “short cut,” rushed ahead to buy some, only to emerge from the shack in some flustered disconcertation, and told us that he had, upon entering, found a couple making love on the floor. A few minutes later a crone came from behind the shack and sold us a watermelon or two.
In Rome itself, there are the scavi of St. Peter’s, as well as those under San Clemente — but there are also scavi (erratically opened, as I recall) at Sta Prisca (on the Aventine); and there are the famous old carved wooden doors (perhaps 4th century) of Sta Sabina (on the Aventine).
And the Roman Forum. How well I remember coming across the cracked marble floors of the money-changers’ area (the “Basilica Julia”), and discernable on it, little pitted holes, some of them surrounded by green “haloes,” which were caused when the Visigoths set the building alight when they captured Rome in August of 410, and some of the heated copper coins fused into the floor. In some few of these holes the coins themselves could be seen.
Beg, buy or borrow a copy of George Edmundson’s The Church in Rome in the First Century (Longman, Green & Co., 1913; reprinted by Wipf & Stock ca. 2004) and both read it beforehand and bring it with you. Maybe also (though this is an extravagance and hardly up-to-date) Augustus Hare’s Walks in Rome of ca. 1909.
All three
asked the visitor’s prayers when he came ad limina apostolorum , to the sepulchres of St. Peter and St. Paul.
