I’m sure that many of you have never heard of the catacombs of Commodilla; located underground (right beneath the Garbatella district) these Catacombs served as burial chambers for the early Christians from 300 AD to 500 Ad; but after that date, people started to gather here only for martyrs’memorial services. Decorated with beautiful frescoes featuring biblical scenes (i.e. Saint Luke holding in his hand surgical tools and Saint Peter receiving the keys of the kingdom of Heaven) and the first phrase ever written in Italian, the catacombs were soon abandoned and the whole place was lost to the world until the 16th century when the archaeologist Antonio Bosio came upon what was left of it. But it was only in the 19th that things changed for the better and this thanks to Giovanni Battista de Rossi who unearthed a few secrets about Commodilla, the woman who owned the place, thus reviving the interest in these half-forgotten catacombs. Today, after a long restoration, the Commodilla Catacombs are open to the public and you can visit them by calling the following phone number:06/735824.

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