MAXIMUS, Cemetery of. - On the Via Salaria Nuova (present entrance on the Via Simeto). It is mentioned for the first time in the Depositio Martyrum on the sixth idus Iulias (10 July) for the burial of the martyr Silanus, whose remains were stolen by the Novatians. Under the same date it reappears in the Leonine Sacramentary and then in the Jeronymian Martyrology, where it is also mentioned on 24 Nov. as the burial place of the martyr Felicitas.
The Lib. Pont. (I, pp. 227-28) records that Pope Boniface I (418-22) lived near this cemetery, to which he gives the name of the martyr Felicitas, whom legend makes the mother of the seven martyrs of 10 July, among whom is Silanus. Pope Boniface erected an oratory to St. Felicitas, adorned her tomb and that of Silanus, offering liturgical vessels, and wished to be buried near her.
Symmachus (498-514) restored the basilica, which was falling into ruin (Lib. Pont., I, p. 263). St. Gregory delivered homily III "in Matthaeum in basilica s. Felicitatis martyris in die natalis eius" (PL 76, 1086-89). Adrian I (772-95) carried out the last restoration of the tomb of St. Felicitas, of St. Silanus and of Pope Boniface (Lib. Pont., I, p. 509); his successor Leo III (795-816) transferred the relics of St. Felicitas and St. Silanus to the titular church of St. Susanna.
The itinerary Notitia ecclesiarum indicates the venerated tombs of St. Felicitas "in ecclesia sursum", of Pope Boniface I "in altero loco" and of St. Silanus "sub terra deorsum" (G. Zucchetti, della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, pp. 75-76).
In the 17th century the site was owned by the Antonian religious of Vienne (France), who sent to their mother house relics and Christian inscriptions extracted from the underground area, then called that of St. Anthony after the name of the religious. Around 1720 M. A. Boldetti entered the cemetery and there read the votive inscription "Petrus et Pancara botu(m) posue(ru)nt Marture Felicitati". In 1785 there appeared the remains of a small building with a descending stair in the underground cemetery, among which one of 492 (G. B. De Rossi, Inscr. chr., I, Rome 1857-61, n. 178).
In Nov. 1884 G. B. De Rossi discovered a descent from the surface that led into a hall divided by columns, of which the bases remained; toward the back wall were the remains of an altar and fragments of chancel screens. On the wall was depicted above the Savior with a cruciform nimbus and below, according to the legend, the martyr Felicitas with her seven sons, nimbed and with the crown, originally each distinguished with his own name; there can still be made out "(Phili)ppus, Martia(lis) S(ilanus) (Ia)nua(rius)". The fresco is dated to the 6th or 7th century.
Among the inscriptions noteworthy is that of the purchase of a "locus bisomus" by one Ianuarius and his wife near the tomb of St. Felicitas "ad sancta(m) Felicitatem". Some galleries then came to light in 1908 during the foundations of buildings between the Via Po and the Vie Tirso and Simeto, with inscriptions of the years 409-11, 424 and 452 (R. Kanzler, in Notizie degli scavi, 1908, p. 464 ff.). Still other galleries were identified between the Via Simeto and the Via Metauro in 1914 (O. Marucchi, Iscrizione metrica del cimitero di Felicita, in Nuovo bull. di arch. crist., 20 [1914], p. 126 ff.). The recent constructions along all the said streets have greatly damaged the cemetery.
150 ff., 742 ff.
(Int. P.C.A.S.)
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Enrico Josi