CROSTAROSA, PIETRO. - Born on 25 February 1836 in Rome, died there on 26 February 1902; he was a canon of the Liberian Basilica, prefect of the Christian Museum of the Vatican Library, and secretary of the Commission for Sacred Archaeology for several years, during which he promoted important works in the Roman catacombs, such as the reorganization of the basilica of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus on the Via Ardeatina, the excavation of the historical crypt of the Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, and the one, carried out at his own expense, in the major cemetery that led to the discovery of the crypt believed to be that of St. Emerentiana.
C. dealt above all with questions relating to Early Christian architecture. The most important is the one on Le basiliche cristiane in the Dissert. of the Pont. Roman Academy of Archaeology of 1892, in which he sought to demonstrate that the origin of post-Constantinian places of worship was to be sought in the basilicas of private palaces. In 1893 he published historical-juridical notes concerning Dei titoli della Chiesa Romana, and in particular that of St. Lawrence in Damaso and its rights over the filial churches. C. took particular care with the inventory of the seals impressed on the roof tiles of certain Roman churches such as those of St. Mary Major, of Sts. Sylvester and Martin ai Monti, and of St. Croce in Gerusalemme, which he published in the Nuovo Bull. di Archeol. Crist. of the years 1896-97 and 1901. In this periodical he reported on the excavations carried out in the catacombs of Rome; in 1895 he published Osservazioni sul musaico di S. Pudentiana with the aim of demonstrating that the buildings depicted in it must be considered as nothing other than the reproduction of the constructions of the Domus Pudentiana which extended along the Vicus Patricius on the slopes of the Viminal; in 1899 and 1900 he inserted there the report of the Scoperte in S. Cecilia in Trastevere.
Bibliography
Giuseppe Bovini