GIORDANI, CIMITERO dei. — On the Via Salaria nuova. Nothing certain can be said about the plural form of the name of this cemetery, which has led some to think of a corruption of “Germanorum,” others of a connection with the river “Iordanus,” and still others of the name of an association. The martyrs Marziale, Vitale, and Alessandro were buried there; legend identifies them as three of the seven sons of s. Felicita (v.). Their commemoration was celebrated at their tombs from as early as the first half of the fourth century, as indicated by the “depositio-martyrum” on the “VI idus iulias,” a day also found in the Sacramentario leoniano and in the Martirologio geronimiano, which names as buried in the same cemetery and commemorated on 31 December a group of seven virgins, namely Donata, Paolina, Rogata, Do-
Dominanda, Serotina, Saturnina, Ilaria. Both these women and the three martyrs mentioned above were venerated in the seventh century, as the Itineraries attest.
The cemetery, restored by Pope Simmaco (498–514), perhaps had an open-air oratory called “ad s. Alexandrum” after one of the three martyrs; damaged during the Gothic siege, it was restored by Pope Vigilio and is mentioned in the Capitularia Evangeliorum; the final restoration was carried out by Pope Adriano I (775–92). After the general abandonment of the Roman cemeteries in the ninth century, following the transfer of the relics inside the city, the cemetery of the G. accidentally came to light again on 31 May 1578, when some laborers, digging in a vineyard on the Via Salaria nuova, suddenly came upon the cemetery galleries, with the tombs still closed by their inscriptions and with painted cubicula and arcosolia. This discovery attracted not only the curiosity of visitors, among them s. Pietro Canisio and Cardinal Cesare Baronio, but also that of scholars who transcribed the inscriptions and copied the paintings, such Winghe (v.) Chacon (v.).
But the cemetery was damaged in 1590–91, and Antonio Bosio himself, who began his explorations in November 1593, was unable to enter it, contenting himself in his Roma sotterranea with copies of the inscriptions and paintings supplied to him by Chacon and De Winghe.
The galleries again suddenly came to light in December 1921, during the laying of the foundations of a small villa between the Via Salaria nuova and the Via Anapo.
This is a two-level cemetery dating from the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth century, in which the paintings already seen between 1578 and 1590 were rediscovered and copied with remarkable fidelity by Filippo De Winghe, with the exception of two: one depicting the apostle Paolo, the other the fossor Trofimo at work. Among the paintings, the following may be noted in the cycle of the Old Testament: Noè in the ark, the sacrifice of Abramo, the cycle of Giona, Daniele among the lions, the three youths in the furnace, and Mosè striking the rock; in the cycle of the New Testament: Gesù teaching among the twelve Apostoli, the Good Shepherd, the multiplication of the loaves, and the resurrection of Lazzaro; in addition, male and female orantes, little genii, and a hunting scene with a stag and a wild boar. The paintings were partly barbarously defaced before 1591.
(from E. Jasi, in Rivista di arch. crit., I (1911), p. 181) GIORDANI, CIMITERO dei — Plan of the galleries discovered in 1921 (third–fourth century) — Rome.
manibus” a bisomus tomb for himself and his wife Cecilia Marcella; and the epitaph placed by parents for their child, “Gregorio Phoebe in refrigerio,” ending with the prayer: “qui legitis in mente habetote.” Another child, L. Laberius Messor, is depicted in blessedness between two sheep and two trees with doves. Characteristic of the epigraphy of this cemetery is the appellation “benedictus,” either written out in full or abbreviated as BD, which appears in as many as 22 of the 120 epitaphs, whereas it is rare elsewhere.
The exploration of the cemetery, however, may be said to have only just begun. — Vedi tav. XXXIII.