Crypt

CRYPT. - The Romans called crypta (from the Greek κρύπτο, "I hide") a covered and subterranean ambulatory; Christians employed it to designate one or more galleries of an underground cemetery. An epigraph scratched on the lime of a loculus on the second level of the cemetery of Priscilla reads: undecima crypta secunda pila Glegori (O. Marucchi, Di alcune iscrizioni recentemente scoperte nel cimitero di Priscilla, in Nuovo Bull. d'arch. crist., 10 [1904], p. 207); St. Jerome writes solebam diebus dominicis... crebroque cryptas ingredi (In Ezechielem, 12, 40: PL 25, 48). The inscriptions speak of a crypta noba (G. B. De Rossi, Roma sott., III, Rome 1877, pp. 424, 547; n. 2; M. A. Boldetti, Osservazioni, Rome 1720, p. 53).

The tomb of St. Lawrence is situated in a crypta, that is, in an underground space where the popes Zosimus (418), Sixtus III (440) and Hilary (468) were later deposited.

Today the term c. is customarily used to designate that space which is for the most part hollowed out beneath the presbyterial area of a church. The c. may have a varied conformation and extent: even the inner cell beneath altars ad corpus may be considered a c., though to designate it the terms martyrium or confessio are preferable, that is, the place where the remains of the confessor of the faith are deposited. The shrine was in communication with the hall of the church through the fenestella confessionis. Such spaces will have ever greater proportions, and to support the covering there will be one or more rows of columns connected by groin vaults. Thus from the small cell beneath the altar one passes to spaces extending over the entire presbyterial area, which often invade even a large part of the hall, to the point of assuming the grandeur of true underground churches.

As regards the confessio of altars, its functional and formal derivation must be sought in the heroon of the Hellenic world or of Asia Minor, which indeed had their ἐσχάρα, that is, an altar with its corresponding βάθρος, blicum, cataracta or offering pit. This analogy is found in the favissa of the Roman temple, that is, in that space beneath the cella which probably served for the keeping of votive objects and which could be either a pit and therefore very similar to the heroon — a typical example being that of Locri Epizephyrii (Reggio Calabria), believed to date from the 5th century B.C. — or composed of several spaces and constituting a complex organism, as in certain Roman temples.

The oldest type of c. is the so-called semiannular one, consisting of a corridor that runs along the inside of the apse curve, intersected on the axis of the system by another corridor facing toward the hall of the church. At the end of this is the cell of the relics, which often has two fenestella confessionis: one at the end of the corridor central one of the crypt, the other facing onto the hall of the church. The semiannular corridor is entered from two small stairways placed at its extremities in the corners formed by the wall of the transept and the side walls of the raised presbytery, walls which are inserted precisely at the springing of the apse curve.

These crypts are normally half-buried in relation to the hall and have their covering formed by slabs which serve at the same time as paving for the raised presbytery. It is precisely a complex of rooms similar to this, but squared, that constitutes the excellently preserved favissa of the Capitolium of Leptis Magna of the Severan age.

The oldest example of these crypts is that of the basilica of St. Peter in Rome, which goes back at least to the time of Gregory the Great but which could also be older. The prototype is the only one of all similar monuments that explains the form of the organism by means of which it was evidently intended to approach, also from the inner side, as closely as possible to the monument of the Apostle. In the derived monuments such a complex arrangement of the spaces is not justified, inasmuch as the tombs did not pre-exist the crypt, as at St. Peter's, but were instead placed there at the time of its construction.

The crypt of St. Peter was already known from a drawing by Baldassarre Peruzzi, transcribed by De Rossi and by Rohault de Fleury: it has been brought to light in the course of the excavations recently conducted in the underground of the basilica. From this monument derive the many similar ones of Rome and others of northeastern Italy and also beyond our borders, such as those of St. Severin in Cologne, St. Emmeram in Regensburg, the Stiftskirche of Werden, the Luciuskirche of Chur, the Frauenmünster of Zurich, St. Luzi of Chur, St-Maurice in Valais in Switzerland. Also semiannular would have been the crypt of the ancient church of Canterbury, known only through documents and which would have been « quandam partem ad imitationem Ecclesiae beati Apostolorum principis Petri ».

The chronology of the crypts results from the following table:

- St. Peter's: mid-5th or 6th century;
- S. Pancrazio: Honorius I (625-38);
- S. Valentino (this monument differs considerably from the others): Honorius I;

- S. Crisogono: Gregory III (731-41);

- S. Marco: Hadrian I (772-95);

- S. Prassede: Paschal I (817-24);

- S. Cecilia: Paschal I;

- S. Maria di Vescovo (Sabina): 9th century;

- basilica of the Assumption at Torcello: 9th century;

- S. Niccolò de' Calcarari or a' Cesarini: 9th century;

S. Apollinare Nuovo (Ravenna): 9th century;
S. Quattro Coronati: Leo IV (847-55);
S. Stefano degli Abissini: Leo IV;
S. Apollinare in Classe (Ravenna 1173);
S. Saba: 13th century.

The crypts in the form of an oratory are generally later, if one excepts the burial in the Agro Verano of St. Lawrence, whose primitive form cannot however be determined, and that of S. Sebastiano in catacumbas: the first of Constantinian age, the second certainly not later than Innocent I (401-17). There follows the crypt of S. Maria in Cosmedin, a true hypogeal little basilica with three naves which Giovenale considers to be of the end of the 8th century (Hadrian I). Similar to these was perhaps that of S. Angelo in Poscheria, unfortunately poorly preserved, also attributed to Hadrian I, and at Brescia the contemporary one, at least in the part comprised within the apse curve, of S. Salvatore. Of the same type, but somewhat later (9th century) is the crypt of the church of Agliate in Brianza and that of the collegiate church of S. Orso at Aosta. Also ancient, but of a different type, are the crypts of S. Zaccaria and of the basilica of S. Marco in Venice (the latter, perhaps of the 9th century, extends beneath the hall and reaches also the side apses), that of S. Vincenzo in Prato in Milan with three naves, and that of S. Michele at Capua.

But from these examples, extended only to the presbyterial zone, the organism of the crypt develops enormously. A forest of columns comes to support the pavement of the presbytery as at Gurk in Austria (of 1794, with 100 columns) and soon also of the transept. Thus in S. Stefano in Verona with its very lofty presbytery, in S. Zeno also in Verona, in S. Francesco in Ravenna of the 9th-10th centuries, thus at Pavia and in S. Miniato in Florence of the 11th century, in S. Pietro at Tuscania, in the cathedral of Civita Castellana, in the duomo of Sutri with the crypt with three naves referable perhaps to the beginnings of the 13th century, in S. Francesco at Perugia of the 13th century, at Ancona in the «crypt of the tears» of the duomo. In the Marche there is found a notable crypt with three naves at Offida in the church of S. Maria della Rocca, and many are found in Apulia, as in S. Nicola of Bari of the 12th century, in the cathedral of Bitonto also of the 12th century, in the duomo of Trani of the 12th-13th centuries, whose crypt is attributed to the early Middle Ages and is worthy of memory for being completely excavated in the rock rather than built. There are still to be remembered the Byzantinizing crypt called the grotto of the Candelora at Massafra and the small crypt of S. Stefano at Vasta, besides the crypt of the cathedral of Otranto of the 11th century. But more than elsewhere the organism of the crypt develops in Emilia, where in the duomo of Piacenza no fewer than a hundred columns are counted supporting the vaults. This succession of naves — in the crypt of the duomo of Parma (12th century) there are eleven of them — articulated by columns and covered by groin vaults, calls to mind the interior of mosques, with the difference that in the latter the covering is formed by simple barrel vaults.

Just as the semiannular crypts had introduced into churches new scenographic elements, such as stairs and screens deriving from the difference in level, so in the more evolved monuments, starting also from the 9th century, the interior of the church is enriched with stairways far more grandiose than those (duomo of Parma) and with an entirely new element, namely the galleries: that is, a series of arcades which place the hall of the church in communication with the crypt that supports the raised pavement of the transept and of the presbytery, as in the grandiose and characteristic example of the duomo of Modena of the 12th century (Lanfranco) or the other already mentioned, of S. Zeno in Verona or in Tuscany, in the duomo of Fiesole or in the abbey of S. Godenzo.

In the 13th century the use of the crypt is disappearing. In the following centuries there will be a limitation to transforming the pre-existing crypts, which especially in the 17th century will change their original character of austerity with revetments of polychrome marbles and stuccoes. A rare and sumptuous example of a crypt built ex novo in the 17th century is that of SS. Luca and Martina (Rome), erected by Pietro da Cortona when the body of the Saint was rediscovered (1634), and likewise his crypt of S. Martino ai Monti, also in Rome.

By the name of «hermitic crypts» are indicated the natural or adapted grottoes which were the dwelling of Basilian monks in southern Italy from the 11th to the 13th century, and which present no architectural character whatsoever, but are often decorated with interesting Byzantine frescoes. - See plates LIII-LIV.

Bruno Maria Apolloni Ghetti