Catacomb of Saint John, Syracuse

The funerary area of the Vigna Cassia, visitable upon request at the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology of Syracuse, consists of a community cemetery and five private hypogea, chronologically attributable to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. Presenting a topographical development similar to Roman models, the real catacomb is divided into three regions – St. Mary of Greater Jesus and Marcia – of which the first two already arose during the 3rd century, while the last only in the 4th. The layout confirms this: the cemetery of St. Mary of Jesus, to your right, is obtained by widening a pre-existing aqueduct, on the walls of which a series of loculi (rectangular cavities with the long side visible) are cut; this solution allows for a quick and economical intervention on the rock, fitting well with a pre-Constantinian period. We find confirmation of the early chronology of this region in the Greater cemetery, located in the center of the plan and datable, based on a hoard containing, among other things, coins issued under Gallienus and Claudius II the Gothic, to about the middle of the 3rd century. The materials found in this area confirm the dating, suggesting a commission of pagan and Christian culture that Santi Luigi Agnello already rightly highlighted in the 1950s.

A community cemetery does not exclude the existence of private spaces (cubicula), which are almost physiological and, in this case, are represented by small round rooms resulting from a not particularly careful reuse of disused cisterns from the previous city water supply system.

A less confused topographical development characterizes the cemetery of Marcia, on the left of the plan, whose regular layout closely resembles that of the catacomb of Saint John. The dating of the origin of this region thus shifts to the 4th century, after the Peace of the Church, with use still ongoing well into the 5th century, also suggested by the chronology traditionally linked to the Marcia painting, located in the lunette of an arcosolium in the northwestern branch of the cemetery.

The ideological pluralism that qualifies the original nuclei of the catacomb even more strongly characterizes the hypogea of the platform above the community cemetery that, intended to serve individual families or corporations, reveal an even greater coexistence between pagans and Christians. Inscriptions are once again the most effective indicators of this phenomenon. The restoration of the paintings of hypogeum II, carried out in October 1997 by PCAS-Syracuse, is noteworthy, which gave us clear images of a figurative cycle with an entirely Christian subject, one of the most precious documents of the underground heritage of Syracuse.

Salvation and resurrection of the soul are the concepts symbolically expressed by the scenes decorating two arcosolia of the hypogeum: two moments of the Jonah trilogy, Daniel in the lions’ den, portrait of the deceased among praying figures, resurrection of Lazarus, and peacocks set in the blooming gardens of the paradisiacal habitat.”