This tour with a multilingual guide will take you deep into the heart of St. Peter's Basilica to discover the ancient Roman Necropolis, over which Constantine built the first Basilica, incorporating the burial site of St. Peter.
Along a central funerary path, the Necropolis features numerous brick mausoleums, some of which are Christian, all richly decorated with frescoes, mosaics, stuccoes, bas-reliefs, and splendid sarcophagi. The bones of St. Peter are housed and on display in a dedicated room.
We will discover the remains of the vast Roman Necropolis that developed from the 1st to the 4th century along the Via Cornelia, above the Vatican Hill, not far from the Circus of Nero and Caligula, where St. Peter was martyred in 67 AD.
The tour will then take us down to the vast Roman Necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica. In its vicinity, around 150 AD, a small shrine, which went down in history as the Trophy of Gaius, was built to hold the mortal remains of St. Peter. In 319, when Constantine decided to build the first Basilica over Peter’s burial site, he designed it in such a way as to honor the dignity of the Apostle while preserving the pre-existing Necropolis, only cutting the upper portions of the tombs. Peter’s tomb and the Necropolis remained sealed and inaccessible to pilgrims for sixteen centuries.
In 1939, Pope Pius XII commissioned a team of archaeologists to begin excavating beneath the Basilica. These excavations, completed in 1949, uncovered the extensive pre-Constantinian Necropolis and, within it, the tomb of St. Peter. In 1952, based on certain inscriptions, Peter’s mortal remains were identified and are now laid to rest and accessible for veneration during the course of the tour.
MEETING POINT
After Peter’s death, a group of Christians recovered his body and buried it in the bare earth, in accordance with Roman custom, close to a Roman necropolis that had arisen along the sides of the Via Cornelia, which ran through the area. Around the second century, clandestine devotion to the Apostle began with the construction of a small memorial shrine, which went down in history as the Trophy of Gaius, named after the traveler who recorded its presence in his writings.
When Constantine began the construction of the first basilica, he commissioned his architects to build it over the necropolis, cutting only the upper portions of those tombs, which mainly belonged to freedmen—former slaves who had gained success and could afford elaborate burial monuments. The new basilica was therefore erected over the Trophy of Gaius, incorporating it within a dignified setting. The Constantinian site remained an important landmark through the centuries as the burial place of Peter. Over time, however, it was lost from view for the faithful due to successive work that raised the floor of the Basilica. In 1939, Pope Pius XII commissioned a team of archaeologists to begin excavating beneath the Basilica. The excavations, completed in 1949, uncovered the vast pre-Constantinian necropolis. Starting in 1952, the epigrapher Margherita Guarducci discovered an inscription confirming the location of Peter’s tomb, which led to the identification of his mortal remains. After extensive analysis by expert scientists, it was confirmed that these remains matched the profile of Peter. In 1969, Pope Paul VI announced to the world the discovery of St. Peter’s relics.
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