Ponziano, Cemetery of

PONZIANO, Cemetery of. - It is situated on the right side of the Via Portuense, with entrance from the hill of Monteverde, at Via Alessandro Poerio 57.

It is mentioned as early as the middle of the 4th century by the Depositio Martyrum, which on the "tertio Kalendas augustas" (30 July) indicates the commemoration of the martyrs Abdon and Sennen "in Pontiani, quod est ad ursum pileatum"; by the Martyr. Hieronymianum, p. 402, and by the Liber Pontificalis, in the biographies of the popes Anastasius I (399-401) and Innocent I (401-417) buried in this cemetery. The "notitia ecclesiarum" points to it as an "ecclesia magna". The pontiff Hadrian (772-95) restored the Basilica erected above ground over the tomb of Sts. Abdon and Sennen (Lib. Pont., I, p. 509), which Nicholas I (858-67) restored to its former splendor (ibid., II, p. 161). In 1907 the remains of the "ecclesia magna" mentioned by the "notitia ecclesiarum", erected over the tomb of the martyrs Abdon and Sennen, came to light again; at that time two fragments were discovered of the marble decoration placed by Damasus in their honor, on which were inscribed two hexameters in Philocalian characters (A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana, Vatican City 1942, pp. 96-97). The information concerning the eponym of this cemetery is uncertain: P. Against the hypothesis of Panvinio, who believed it to be the Pope of that name, who died in Sardinia and was later translated to Rome into the cemetery of Callistus, other archaeologists, such as Bosio, considered it more probable to identify him with the Roman nobleman whom the Acta Callisti indicate as the owner in this Transtiberine region. The indication "ad ursum pileatum" is connected with some image of that kind existing in the area.

The relics of the martyrs Abdon and Sennen were translated under Gregory IV to the urban basilica of St. Mark. Other martyrs venerated in this cemetery are Milix (v.), Pumenius, Pollio, Vincent and Candida, of whom there is no certain information. Antonio Bosio penetrated it for the first time on 26 July 1618. From then on no regular excavations were carried out, but only works of reinforcement to the monuments explored, and it is therefore not possible to determine with certainty the primitive nuclei. The known parts present galleries of the end of the 3rd century and of the 4th, dug in a very friable clayey rock, crossed by drainage channels; therefore their present state is not good and exploration is made very difficult by the water-bearing ground. It has been possible to recognize, however: 1) the burial place of Sts. Pollio, Pumenius and Milix, with their images painted next to those of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, with their respective names and numerous graffiti, among which important is the one with the obituary date of Milix; 2) a cubiculum decorated with frescoes, commonly known under the name of the "Baptistery". One reaches it by means of a large staircase, in the arch of which the bust of the Redeemer is painted twice, one of them commissioned by a certain "Gaudiosus". In the cubiculum, placed at a lower level than the surrounding gallery, ancient loculi for burial are visible, blocked on two sides by advancing constructions, one frescoed with the scene of the Baptism of Christ, the other with that of the coronation of Sts. Abdon and Sennen, flanked by Sts. Milix and Bicentius. Under an arch created in the left wall, water flows into the room, collecting in a basin decorated with a gemmed cross. Precisely the presence of water has led to this place being identified as a baptistery, from Bosio to modern archaeologists. Styger, on the other hand (Die römischen Katakomben, Berlin 1933, pp. 271-73) denies such an identification, impossible both because of the small narrowness of the room (m. 1 × 1.35) and because of the immediate proximity of the corpses deposited there. The water, he says, was not brought there — indeed there is no supply channel — but invaded the room through the occasional cutting of a drainage channel; the constructions made later, that is, in the 6th century, transformed the room into a small "temple of the Jordan". In a region to the right of the staircase giving access to the said room there is a cubiculum which in the lunette of the arcosolium has a naval scene.

The epigraphic material of the underground cemetery is fragmentary: names of owners of loculi, invocations and symbols; mention is made of the inscription of a certain "Sabinus Santias, artis ispeclaris" with the tools of the trade carved beside it. In 1917, while a building was being constructed in the cemetery area, a part of the above-ground region of the cemetery itself was discovered.

Gabriele Ferrari