news – Catacombs rediscovery

February 2022: the month of Giovanni Battista de Rossi

On the 22nd of February 2022 the scientific community celebrates the second centenary of the birth of Giovanni Battista de Rossi (1822-1894), one of the ‘founding fathers’ of Christian archaeology. He was Scriptor and then head of the Vatican Library, first secretary of the Commission of Sacred Archaeology, established by Pius IX in 1852, creator and curator of the Museo Pio Cristiano Lateranense founded in 1854. He is remembered also as founder and editor of the first specialist journal in the field, the Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana (still existing today as Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana). He began the publication of the critical edition of all the early Christian inscriptions of Rome (ICVR) and was the author of the Roma Sotterranea Cristiana, an in-depth study of the main Roman catacombs (especially the catacombs of San Callisto) drawn up following his own important discoveries.

To celebrate the event, the Vatican State issued a special stamp where de Rossi is portayed with the ruins of the Hypogeum of the Flavi in the catacombs of Domitilla.

The project LIT! owns very much to de Rossi’s work. He was the one who created the first fac-simile catacombs in 1867 for the Universal Exhibition in Paris. We are therefore very happy to share the brand new article about the topic. Enjoy!

C. Cecalupo, GIOVANNI BATTISTA E MICHELE STEFANO DE ROSSI ALL’ESPOSIZIONE UNIVERSALE DI PARIGI (1867), in Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, 97, 2021,2, pp. 319-347.

Psss, hey! Universidad Carlos III will soon celebrate de Rossi with a special exhibition. Stay tuned…

Online talk: Revealing Christian Heritage

We are glad to announce that on September 29, 2021, h. 15-17.30 (CET), the project Conex Plus will host the following workshop:

Revealing Christian Heritage. Talks on the rediscovery of Christian archaeology between 1860 and 1930

September 29, 2021, h. 15-17.30 (CET)

online at https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/7038e9bcf05448da9a7b92a4fe21e2b4

Everyone is invited to participate to the talk and the discussion!Feel free to comment this post for additional info!

LIT! at the 27th EAA Annual Meeting

On Friday 10 of September The Project LIT! was presented at the 27th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (officially in Kiel, but held online due to the current situation)

The presentation was included in Session #230, “Stories and Compassion: Material Culture, Memory, and Emotion”, organized by Liv Nilsson Stutz (Linnaeus Univeristy, Sweden) and Sarah Tarlow (University of Leicester, United Kingdom). The precious session explored theories of memory and emotion through archaeological case studies and analysis of material culture. All the presenteed studies explored the connections between materiality, emotion, and memory in the lived experience of the past and present.

My speech investigated the growing interest of European people in catacomb archaeology from the late 19th century and provided many old prints and pictures, archival texts and old articles, that offer clear evidence of the public response to some of the most important fac-simile catacombs build in Northern Europe. From these sources, it appeared that the incredible fascination of original Roman catacombs remained vivid in these “fake” monuments. They clearly contributed to the definition of the role that Christian antiquity had in Europe in creating emotional experience of archeological sites.

I truly hope that the proceedings of these session will be published somewhen!

LIT! Project in the 27th MCAA NEWSLETTER

Our CONEX-Plus project LIT! has been presented on the 27th Newsletter of the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA).

The MCAA is an international non-profit organization established and supported by the European Commission, but entirely run by volunteer members and with a bottom-up approach at its core.

This issue of June 2021 is dedicated to the making of a more inclusive research community. As the Editorial by Gian Maria Greco (MCAA Newsletter Editor-in-Chief) states, diversity and access are pivotal factors for the flourishing of the research endeavour. As a community of researchers, over the past few years the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) has been committed to increasing the accessibility of its communication products, services, and events.

The last section of the issue is dedicateed to out LIT! project (with a wonderful cartoon illustration!) and can be read on the online version: here. Thank you MCAA!

Report

One of the aims of this website is also to keep an eye on other projects and research on the history of collections of Christian archaeology in Europe.

In this case we would like to point out the call for contribution to the website of the project God’s Collections by Crispin Paine and Jessica Hughes.

The project God’s Collections studies how and why collections have developed and lived inside places of worship of all traditions and chronology: check it out here.

Given the proximity of the themes of this work to the LIT! project, we hope to be able to undertake a future collaboration soon!

For the call for contribution see here.

(Church of San Salvatore – Museum of the Complesso di Santa Giulia – Brescia, Italy)

Catacomb studies in Open Research Europe!

For a few weeks now, everyone can surf on Open Research Europe, the European Union’s revolutionary open access platform, that allows researchers in the Horizon 2020 programme to publish their research in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse) and without being subject to the often very long publishing times.

Once the article has passed the prepublication checks, the preprint version is published within 10 days, enabling immediate viewing and citation. Expert reviewers are selected and invited, and their reviews and names are published alongside the article, together with the authors’ responses and comments from registered users. Articles that pass peer review are sent to major indexing databases and repositories. More info here.

Some of the results of the LIT! project will be surely disseminated via Open Research Europe in the following months. For now, however, I would love to share two researches of similar topics already published on the portal.

‘Baltic catacombs.’ Translating corpisanti catacomb relic-sculptures between Rome, Polish Livonia, and the Lithuanian Grand Duchy circa 1750-1800: the authors (R. Budzyński, D. Filipchyk, M. Jakubowski, D. Marozau, R. Sargent Noyes, V. Veličkaitė) offer incredibly interesting insights on the traffic of corpisanti catacomb relic-sculptures between Rome and the cities in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish Livonia.
Protecting antiquities in early modern Rome: the papal edicts as paradigms for the heritage safeguard in Europe by C. Mannoni. The article contributes to demonstrate that the idea of safeguarding what was thought of as ‘collective heritage’ emerged consistently in eighteenth-century Europe following the paradigms of the papal edicts.

It is therefore clear that the platform can be used as an important tool for studies in the history of Christian archaeology. We will keep on checking and disseminating future publications on this topic!

“Il-Kollezzjonist”: documentary about the Catacombs of St. Agatha – Rabat (Malta)

We are very happy to share the episode on the museum of the Complex of St. Agatha (Rabat, Malta) of the documentary “Il-Kollezzjonist”, created and presented by Raymond Saliba (a contribution to this site by Raymond can be read here).

The whole episode is available here. It is in Maltese language, but the images of the collection are pure bliss!

Congratulations to our friend Raymond for this beautiful episode.

Il-Kollezzjonist (The Collector) is a series of short documentaries that take the audience on a journey to explore some of the most beautiful private collections in the Maltese and Gozitan islands. It is presented by Raymond Saliba and Sharp Shoot Media Ltd. Il-Kollezzjonist started on the 30th December 2020, and is on air every Wednesday at 6.30pm on Television Malta. Follow the programme here.

Connection with European collegues

One of the strengths of the Conex-Plus LIT! project is its remarkable internationality, which allows the phenomenon of facsimile catacombs to be studied on a European scale. This study, which began only five months ago, has already made possible to establish connections with scholars from other countries.

In particular, during the preliminary study of the Memory Room at the Tusculum Museum in Solin (Croatia), we came into contact with Ana Vrdoljak, the restorer who was responsible for the reconstruction of the original catacomb environment in 1896.
While we wait to publish new information about Tusculum, we are happy to share Ana’s website and the page where she presents her work in Solin!

Her webpage can be found here:

THE FACSIMILE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE WALL AND CEILING PAINTINGS by Ana Vrdoljak, Conservator NKF-n

Two essays on Giovanni Severano, explorer of the Christian catacombs in Rome

Among the many personalities involved in the study of the Roman catacombs in the first half of the 17th century, Giovanni Severano (priest of the Oratory of San Filippo Neri) is one of the best known but at the same time least understood.

Recently, some studies have been carried out to re-evaluate his figure. Over the centuries he has in fact been considered only as the editor who completed Antonio Bosio’s Roma Sotterranea, left unfinished at the author’s death in 1629 and published by father Severano only in 1634.
Extensive studies have shown that, in the process of completing Roma Sotterranea, he personally explored many areas of the Roman catacombs to confirm and expand Bosio’s descriptions. For example, there is ample evidence of his explorations of the catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter on the Via Labicana. Here, he explored many areas that had not been recorded by Bosio.

Some traces of his explorations and, in particular, some drawings of Christian antiquities commissioned by Severan can be seen here.

The most up-to-date biography of Giovanni Severano can be found here.

Giovanni Francesco Abela and the catacombs of Malta: new book!

This book is one of the latest outcomes of our research project. This book offers a new vision of the role played by Giovanni Francesco Abela, the father of Maltese historiography, in the rediscovery of Christian antiquities in Malta and in the
development of private antiquarian collection in early-Baroque times.
It also contributes to the definition of his international figure as European scholar, deals with the museological content of his masterpiece Della Descrittione di Malta, and offers the transcription of many archival texts about Abela’s life and work.

In the following articles we will address some of the topics discussed in this book, stay tuned! In the meantime, here you are the table of contents!

Chiara Cecalupo, Giovanni Francesco Abela. Work, private collection and birth of Christian archaeology in Malta. Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 2020

This book is on sale here. Regular price €12,00.