By
a few minutes walk from Casa Vincenzo you can visit the SS Marcellino and
Peter's catacombs and Helenas Mausoleum Park. SS Marcellino and Peter's
catacombs are on the Via Casilina on the 3rd mile of Via Labicana; the entrance
to the catacombs is at St. Paolo's church. The catacombs, together with
Helena's Mausoleum, a Basilica and the ruins of the cemetery of the "Equites
Singulares", form a complex known as "Ad Duas Lauros", probably
because of the presence of two laurel trees found in this place. The area
was part of an imperial holding owned by August Helena, Constantine's mother.
It was also called Subaugusta and it became , in the Christian era, the
seat of a suburban diocese disbanded during the invasions of the Goths and
the Longobard. The catacombs are revealed by the "Index coemeterium
as cymiterium inter duas lauros ad Sanctum Marcellinum et Petrum via Lavicana";
other sources call it "Ad helenam". Other "Subaugusta"
and "In Comitatu" ( for the presence of the cemetery of the "Equites
Singulares").
The martyrs buried in this place are showed in the "Itineraries"
that mention SS. Marcellino and Peter, St. Tiburzio and others, a group
of 30 martyrs and another one of 40, all victims of Diocletian's persecution.
Peter the Exorcist and Marcellino the Priest, suffered the martyrdom on
the Via Cornelia, in a place named "Silva Nigra" that, after the
saints' death, took the name of "Silva Candida". The two martyrs'
bodies were buried in a crypt, but in the year 826 (Gregory IV), they were
brought to France and then to Seligenstadt, near Mainz, were they still
are.
Helenas's Mausoleum
The monument that lies on the western façade of SS. Marcellino and Peter's church, 80 metres on the inside of Via Casilina, ancient Via Labicana, was built under Constantine in the years 326-330. According to some historicians the emperor wanted the building for himself and for the Imperial House before deciding to take the capital to Constantinople and to devote it to his mother.
The mausoleum is popularly known as "Torpignattara" because the roman engineering used to insert into the vault some pots and terracotta amphoras, to lighten the weight, and these are visible today owing to the partial collapse of the building. The mausoleum has a circular plant with a dome covering which external and internal diameters are 27,74 and 25,42 metres and with alternately rectangular and semicircular niches in the inferior cylinder. In one of these the red porphyry sarcophagus containing Helena's bones was set. Today this sarcophagus is host at the Vatican Museums.
The park
Casa Vincenzo
Via Giulio Buratti, 12
00176 Rome - Italy
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