Secrets Beneath Rome: Capuchin Crypt and Catacombs Tour

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Catacombe San Sebastiano

After meeting your guide and vehicle at a convenient location in central Rome, we’ll be heading out to the catacombs just outside the impressive ancient city walls to begin our journey into underground Rome. This extensive network of tunnels, passages and galleries were carved into the soft bedrock here nearly 2,000 years ago. Try not to be afraid of the dark as we descend into this mysterious land of the dead. To understand these silent memorials in all their complexity, we must understand that they are as much celebrations of a glorious birth rather than commemorations of a sad death. In the shapes and forms of the stunning wall-paintings, carvings and inscriptions that survive in these tunnels, we will gain a unique insight into the world of the late Roman empire and early Christianity. With the help of our expert guide, you will come to understand the philosophies and thoughts that animated these spaces millennia ago.

Museum and Crypt of Capuchins Friars

• Across the city, in the crypt of the Capuchin monks beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione, we will encounter a very different underground Christian space. Over the course of some three centuries, the bodies of almost 4,000 Capuchin monks were interred in the church’s crypt - but the corpses weren’t placed in tombs and coffins. Far from it.
• Instead, as we explore the tiny rooms of the crypt, we are greeted with the bizarre sight of the friars’ bones arranged into patterns and artworks of dizzying complexity. Why? The crypt is a dramatic and macabre statement of one of the core beliefs of the Capuchin order: terrestrial life is transient, and death will inevitably come to us all, whoever we were in life. It’s indescribably eerie to be surrounded by the glaring and grinning skeletons of the monks in the atmospheric surroundings of the crypt - an unforgettable experience that you can’t miss when in Rome!

Appian Way (Via Appia Antica)

• It was forbidden to bury bodies within the city walls in ancient Rome, and so Rome’s catacombs are located along the principal roads that led out of the metropolis in antiquity. Foremost amongst these was the Appian Way, known to the ancient world as the ‘Queen of Roads.’ Still paved with its original flagstones, today the Appian Way is one of the most evocative monuments to the majesty of ancient Rome. On our tour we’ll have the chance to take a look at the now peaceful road as it meanders its way through the umbrella pines of the Roman countryside, flanked by tombs and monuments.
• Although it’s a wonderfully tranquil spot today, in antiquity the Appian Way was a hive of activity - discover how the fearsome legions of ancient Rome once marched along these stones to all corners of the empire, and learn why magnificent ancient funerary monuments still line the picturesque road today.