1851-55, very
curious and important discoveries have been made, and many new minor
facts brought to light. The interest in the investigations has become
more general, and no visit to Rome is now complete without a visit to
one at least of the catacombs. Strangely enough, however, the Romans
themselves, for the most part, feel less concern in these new
revelations of their underground city than the strangers who come from
year to year to make their pilgrimages to Rome. It is an old complaint,
that the Romans care little for their city. "Who are there to-day," says
Petrarch, in one of his letters, "more ignorant of Roman things than the
Roman citizens? And nowhere is Rome less known than in Rome itself." It
is, however, to the Cavaliere de Rossi, himself a Roman, that the most
important of these discoveries are due,--the result of his marvellous
learning and sagacity, and of his hard-working and unwearied energy. The
discovery of the ancient entrance to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus,
and of the chapel within, where St. Cecilia was originally buried, is
a piece of the very romance of Archaeology. The whole history of St.
Cecilia, the glorious Virgin Martyr and the Saint of Music, as connected
with the catacombs, is, indeed, one of the most curious to be found in
the annals of the Church. Legend and fact are strangely mingled in it,
and over it hangs a perplexing mist of doubt, but not so dense as wholly
to conceal all certainty. It is a story of suffering, of piety, of
enthusiasm, of superstition, and of science;--it connects itself in many
points with the progress of corruption in the Church, and it has been
a favorite subject for Art in all ages. The story is at last finished.
Begun sixteen hundred years ago, it has just reached its last chapter.
In order to understand it, we must go back almost to its introduction.

According to the legend of the Roman Church, as preserved in the "Acts
of St. Cecilia," this young and beautiful saint was martyred in the year
of our Lord 230.[A] She had devoted herself to perpetual virginity,
but her parents had insisted upon marrying her to a youthful and noble
Roman, named Valerian. On the night of her marriage, she succeeded in
so far prevailing upon her husband as to induce him to visit the pope,
Urban, who was lying concealed from his persecutors in the catacombs
which were called after and still bear the name of his predecessor,
Callixtus,[B] on the Appian Way, about two miles from