STYGER, PAUL. - Archaeologist, b. at Schwyz (Switzerland) on 27 Sept. 1889 and d. at Lucerne on 14 May 1939. After six years of study at the Maria-Hilf College in Schwyz, he entered in 1906 the Pontifical German-Hungarian College in Rome; ordained a priest in 1913, he became chaplain in the same year at S. Maria in Campo Santo in order to devote himself to Christian archaeology.
His first studies were: Neue Untersuchungen über die altchristlichen Petrusdarstellungen, in Röm. Quartalschr., 27 (1913), pp. 17-74; Die neusutdeckten mittelalterlichen Fresken von S. Croce in Gerusalemme, ibid., 28 (1914), pp. 17-28; Die Malereien in der Basilika des hl. Sabas auf dem Kl. Aventin, ibid., pp. 49-96; La Schola cantorum della chiesa di S. Saba, in Studi romani, 2 (1914), pp. 224-28; La decorazione a fresco del XII sec. della chiesa di S. Giovanni ante Portam Latinam, ibid., pp. 261-328; Die neuere Erforschung der altchristlichen Basiliken Roms und deren Wiederherstellung, in Röm. Quartalschr., 29 (1915), pp. 3-25; Die Christustatue im römischen Thermenmuseum ibid., pp. 27-28.
Msgr. Antonio De Waal entrusted him, together with D. O. Fasiolo, with overseeing the excavations he had begun on 16 March 1915 beneath the pavement of the basilica of St. Sebastian; S. studied the whole complex with great diligence and gave the first announcements of it in Scavi a S. Sebastiano (Röm.
Quartal., 29 [1915], pp. 73-110); Gli apostoli Pietro e Paolo ad Catacumbas sulla Via Appia (ibid., pp. 149-205); then with a careful report: Il monumento apostolico della Via Appia (Dissertaz. della Pont. accad. rom. di arch., 2nd series, XIII, 1 [1918], p. 1 ff.). When Msgr. De Waal died in 1917 and the excavations at St. Sebastian were suspended, S. took refuge in Switzerland. In 1919 he was called to the University of Warsaw for ecclesiastical history and archaeology, where he taught until 1932. He then published: Die erste Ruhestätte der Apostelfürsten Petrus und Paulus an der Via Appia in Rom (Zeitschr. für kath. Theol., 45 [1921], pp. 549-72); Der heutige Stand und die künftige Aufgabe der christlichen Archeologie (Schweiz. Rundschau, 23 [1923], pp. 193-208); Die altchristliche Grabeskunst (Leipzig 1927), in which he maintained that early Christian sepulchral art was simply narrative, a thesis that was immediately rejected by L. Lother, J. P. Kirsch and many others. With a series of acute analyses and a profound examination of the monuments he published: L'origine delle cripte di Lucina (Atti della Pont. accad. rom. di arch., Rend., 3rd series, 3 [1924-25], pp. 269-87); L'origine del cimitero di S. Callisto sulla Via Appia (ibid., 4 [1925-26], pp. 91-153), in which he maintained that this cemetery was founded originally solely for the burial of the Roman clergy. L'origine del cimitero di Domitilla sull'Ardeatina (ibid., 5 [1928], pp. 89-144); L'origine del cimitero di Priscilla sulla Via Salaria (Lwów 1931). These preparatory studies served for the work: Die römischen Katakomben (Berlin 1933), where the topography of the principal Christian cemeteries of Rome is set out, whose origin the author wished to see and to limit in the imperial freedmen de Caesaris domo; S. rightly modified certain datings of G. B. De Rossi, O. Marucchi, and G. Wilpert. He further illustrated the crypts of the Roman martyrs with: Die römischen Märtyrergrüfte (Berlin 1935). His last published study was Heidnische und Christliche Katakomben (Pisciculi, Studien zur Religion und Kultur des Altertums, Münster in W. 1939, pp. 266-75). He was preparing a work on the history of early Christian art, interrupted by his death.
Bibliography
Enrico Josi