Book contents
- The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome
- The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations and Maps
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1. The Reinventio of the Hidden City
- 2. Rewiring the Sacred Circuit (Roma Sancta Renovata)
- 3. Remains to Be Seen (or, On the Holy Corpse)
- 4. Peter’s Bones
- 5. De Rossi’s Deception: Crafting the Crypt of the Popes
- 6. Raising Late Antique Jews from the Valley of Dry Bones
- 7. Disposing of Depositio (Ad Sanctos)
- 8. Inventing Christian Rome
- Bibliography
- Index
5. - De Rossi’s Deception: Crafting the Crypt of the Popes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 August 2020
Book contents
- The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome
- The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations and Maps
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1. The Reinventio of the Hidden City
- 2. Rewiring the Sacred Circuit (Roma Sancta Renovata)
- 3. Remains to Be Seen (or, On the Holy Corpse)
- 4. Peter’s Bones
- 5. De Rossi’s Deception: Crafting the Crypt of the Popes
- 6. Raising Late Antique Jews from the Valley of Dry Bones
- 7. Disposing of Depositio (Ad Sanctos)
- 8. Inventing Christian Rome
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Catacombs of Callixtus’s Crypt of the Popes bear testimony to the antiquity of Rome’s apostolic past, containing the burials of a succession of popes from the second and third centuries. Upon close examination, however, the site is not as it seems. Far from being an authentic, untouched papal burial site since the third century, I argue in Chapter 5 that the Crypt of the Popes is a (re)constructed mnemotopia for the benefit of a Catholic audience – engineered by the famed Roman “sacred archaeologist” Giovanni Battista De Rossi (1822–1894).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome , pp. 211 - 250Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020