Bassilla

BASSILLA. - I. THE MARTYR. - In the calendar of the Roman Church of the first half of the 4th century (Depositio Martyrum) she is called a martyr, buried in the cemetery of St. Hermes on the old Salaria, and there is added the date of the year 304, the year in which the persecution of Diocletian was actually raging. Her feast is marked on September 22, but then in the Jeronymian Martyrology other commemorations are added on January 23, June 11 and May 20 (this date is the one adopted by the Roman Martyrology for the feast of the saint). From her the catacomb in which she was buried was also named, often called coemeterium Bassillae. The name of the saint is popularly written Basilla with a single l, according to a very ancient manuscript tradition which also turned it into Basilissa, but there is no doubt that the exact form is Bassilla, according to the most ancient sources and the undoubted derivation from Bassus.

According to the Acts of St. Eugenia, B. would have been a niece of the emperor Gallienus and martyred in the persecution of that same emperor (253-68). Although these acts are of a fictional nature, nevertheless De Rossi and other scholars after him found it more fitting to the general historical context to accept that B. was a most noble Roman lady, owner of the estate in which the catacomb named after her was later excavated, and martyred in the time of Gallienus. In this case, the date 304 of the Depositio Martyrum and June 11 of the Jeronymian would mark only the memory of a translation. The year 304 must, however, be considered as the year in which the martyrdom of B. took place.

Antonio Ferrua

II. THE CEMETERY ON THE VIA SALARIA VETERE

It consisted of an area above ground and of two levels of underground galleries that extend beneath the present-day streets

Bartoloni, Siacci, Giordano and Denza; but the buildings have seriously damaged a large part of this cemetery, also called that of St. Hermes.

From the open-air cemetery come some Christian inscriptions, such as the cippus bearing carved the Good Shepherd, with the sheep on his shoulders and two sheep at his sides, and below the inscription ΤΟΛΑΙΑ ΑΚΑΛΗΠΙΑΚΗ.

The name of the cemetery is recorded in the Depositio Martyrum to indicate the tombs of St. Hermes (v.) and of Sts. Protus and Hyacinth (v.), while for B. the Via Salaria Vetere is indicated. In other later documents, such as the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, the "Oils of Monza", the "Itineraries", there recur the names of other martyrs buried in B., namely Maximilian, Herculanus, Crispus, Victor and Leopardus. As for the name, some hold that the martyr B., accompanied by the date of 304 in the Depositio Martyrum, was the foundress of the cemetery; according to others, instead, it would have taken its name from an earlier namesake, the donor of the area.

In a gallery of the first level, Fr. G. Marchi (v.) discovered on 21 March 1845 the intact tomb and the epitaph of the martyr Hyacinth.

On the second level rises the basilica built over the tomb of St. Hermes, identified by A. Bosio, as early as 1608, by means of an architectural fragment seen by him bearing the inscription Herme (Roma sotterranea, Rome 1634, p. 560).

The great rectangular hall with an apse and a single nave measures 17 m. in length, 7 in width and 16 m. in height. It was restored several times, beginning with Pope Pelagius II (578-90), but especially in the 16th-18th-19th centuries. The ancient entrance was in the left wall by means of a wide staircase; the present spiral staircase is from the 18th century.

In 1940, at about 13 m. from the floor of the hall, the writer recognized in a small apse, beneath a coat of whitewash, the following paintings: in the conch the Savior with the open book on which is read Ego sum pastor bonus et cognosco oves meas, between two angels; below, Mary as queen on a jeweled throne holding the Child Jesus; on the right the archangel Raphael, St. Hermes and St. John the Evangelist; on the left the archangel Gabriel and St. Benedict. The paintings are not earlier than the end of the 8th century.

In front of the small apse stands an isolated altar of blocks of lionato tufa (0.90 m. high) with a small pit for relics.

Older paintings were already reported by Bosio in cubicula and arcosolia of the cemetery. Particularly important are those with the scene of the Judgment, of the Lord and the twelve apostles seated on thrones; in an arcosolium there also remain traces of a mosaic decoration with Daniel among the lions, the raising of Lazarus, and the portrait of a deceased person.

Along the corridors numerous Greek and Latin Christian inscriptions have recently been arranged; among these, sixteen fragments of the hexastich of the priest Theodore relating to the works carried out near the tomb of the martyrs Protus and Hyacinth, and two fragments of the Damasan poem in honor of the martyr Hermes. Inscriptions coming from this cemetery are also preserved in the Capitoline Museum and in the Lateran Christian Museum; among these, two containing an invocation to the martyr B.

Sandro Carletti