PLATONIA. - From platoma or platomum: marble slab.

The term is found used in the Liber Pontificalis, in the biography of Liberius, of whom it is said that "he adorned with marble platomae the tomb of St. Agnes" (Lib. Pont., I, p. 208); in the biography of Pope Damasus, who dedicated a "platomam in catacumbas" (ibid., I, pp. cv and 214, nos. 9 and 10); in the biography of Sixtus II it is said that he covered with porphyry "platomae" the enclosure around the tomb of St. Lawrence and placed in the cemetery of Callistus a "platomam" to record there the names of the bishops deposited therein. This slab was reconstructed by G. B. De Rossi (Roma sotterr., II, Rome 1867, pp. 33 ff.) making use of the laterculus transcribed in the Turonensis sylloge (id., Inser. Christ., II, ibid. 1888, p. 66, no. 25 a). In the Middle Ages the apostolic memoria "in catacumbas" came gradually to be localized to the west of the Basilica itself, and that mausoleum erected by the prefect of Rome Viventius, friend and supporter of Damasus, where the martyr Quirinus, bishop of Siscia, was later deposited, was called p.

Bibliography

BIBL.: L. Duchesne, La memoria Apostolorum della Via Appia, in Atti della Pont. accad. rom. di Archeol., Memorie, I, 1 (1923), pp. 3-11.

Enrico Josi

@incollection{ec9_platonia, author = {Josi, Enrico}, title = {Platonia}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IX}, pages = {1613--1614}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/platonia} }

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